BSW2 4. Eglish valley

Speaker: Patsy McNultyFrom the Bluestack Way Part 2 playlist.Eglish valley Turning northwest and descending from the end of Banagher hill, we reach the townland of Eglish (Eglais, a church). Tradition indicates that a wayside school was situtated beside a brook which passes under the Eglish road. In recent years there were eight families living here; the ruins of their houses are still to be seen along with the remaining houses in the lower valley.  At the end of this road, the Eglish valley opens out into the Eany valley. From the road junction, the Eglish river flows south west through the lower valley where it later joins the Eanymore river. At this vantage point, the full extent of the work of the last Ice Age can be appreciated as below the Eany valley opens to the ocean. The small rounded hills which are dotted on the land between here and Donegal Bay are drumlins. Drumlins, a name derived from the Gaelic for small rounded hills formed as the earth was shaped beneath a glacier as it trundled downslope. The long axis of the drumlins point to the direction in which the glacier once moved. The south-westerly flow of the ice that covered the land during the last ice age over 10,000 years ago, is well illustrated by the long axis of the drumlins.