Welcome to Lifford
Nudging the border by Strabane in County Tyrone, the dwindling town of Lifford (Leifear) was formerly the judicial capital of Donegal. While its powerful past is long gone, its spirit lives on in the daunting 18th-century Old Courthouse . The courthouse is home to an excellent heritage centre with creepily lifelike re-creations that use actors’ faces projected onto waxworks. In this manner, Manus O’Donnell tells the story of Donegal’s Gaelic chieftains and several bona-fide trials are re-enacted in the austere courtroom (including that of Napper Tandy, John ‘half-hanged’ McNaughten and the Lord Leitrim murder). A guard will take you down to the prison cells, accompanied by sounds of banging doors and ominous footsteps, to be locked up for sheep-stealing or the like.
Here are the ochre foundation blocks of one of the most remarkable nations of Dravidian history, one of the few kingdoms to expand Hinduism beyond Ind...
The Cauvery River is the beating heart of South Indian agriculture and, back in its day, connected the entire region via riverine routes. Today the Ca...
At fi rst glance Kumbakonam is another Indian junction town, but then you notice the temples that sprout out of this busy city like mushrooms, a remin...
Kadmat Beach Resort (%0484-4011134; from €185 per person; a) has 28 modern cottages, administered by Mint Valley and can be reached by overnight boa...
The village located on this 2.7-sq-km island has several mosques, which you can visit if dressed modestly. There’s no alcohol on the island. Agat...