Why is Inishowen disliked by others in Donegal??

User Named

Been from Greencastle myself and having been travelling around the world, any Donegal people I seem to have met seem to turn their nose up at the fact I am from Inishowen. Many of them have never being any where else in Inishowen apart from Buncrana. I seem to sense it too if Im ever out in Letterkenny and the few times Iv been out in Donegal town,not so bd in Killybegs but I would put that down to Greencastle being a fishing community also. The term ' County Inishowen' is quite common. Is it really because people are that fickle they will refer to Inishowen not being historically a part of Tir Chonnail?? Any opinions on this, particulary others from Inishowen who have noticed this would be interesting!!

muffler

Im not from Inishowen but I have certainly never heard anything along the lines you mentioned.

Senna

Maybe its paranoia??
I'm from Letterkenny and have never heard anything you mentioned. No-one i know from Inishowen feels that way.

Lobster

Hopefully it won't be too long before costal errosion makes inishowen an island and seperate to donegal;)
No I haven't heard anything like that either. Have many friends up there

smashey

Never heard of that either.

Inishowen people are just paranoid.

icom

First I've heard of it..

People from Inishowen are the most friendly that you will find anywhere in the country.

Maybe they are better at catching fish, than Killybegs/Letterkenny people ?:)

User Named

I would have to admit also that this is more commonly seen when in terms to gaelic football.

shiibata

Well, sorry lads but I am gonna throw a spanner in the works..
Having worked in England in the 80s/90s came across a lot of Inishowen people, especially Clonmany area..When ye first met some of these fellows and heard their accent, naturally enough, you would ask " are you from Donegal".. Some replied "yes" BUT some would reply "No, am from Inishowen"..
Some of these lads would not say Donegal, had to be Inishowen just..
Co. Inishowen was a common term used over beyond for these fellows(used it myself over there)
Have never heard the term since came home(17 years)

It was the same in Co.Mayo..people from Achill island were the same..they were not from Mayo, they would say they were from Achill

muffler

I would understand the Achill Island set up as some people from Aranmore and Tory would say that they are from their respective islands rather than county Donegal

curry-muff

Sorry people but i have to agree, theres just something about south donegal that makes them dislike us (untill they actualli get to meet us) id say myself its just a friendly local rivalry but to be fair its never stretched to any real extreme apart from my brother getting attacked in glenties because the locals believed he was from the north because of our "border" accent :o

muffler

You dont have to speak with a northern accent to get set upon outside of a night club. (I assume it was outside a club or bar).

But you are all lovely people in Inishowen

shiibata

curry-muff wrote: »

Sorry people but i have to agree, theres just something about south donegal that makes them dislike us (untill they actualli get to meet us) id say myself its just a friendly local rivalry but to be fair its never stretched to any real extreme apart from my brother getting attacked in glenties because the locals believed he was from the north because of our "border" accent :o

Have to agree ere, wild divide between west of glenties and east of the place..hate each other for some reason???

RMDrive

Don't think it's true TBH. Maybe there's some historical thing with the Eoghan and Conaill division but generally I've never heard anything about a dislike for Inishowen people. Sure ye are all lovely!!

Mehh

Don't think it's true either and the Inishowen accent is different enough from the Derry one so as not to get em confused.

Still, probably is the border thing, bunch of west muckers

Gillybean72

I found it was more that people in different parts of Inishowen had a problem with each other. The whole Glengad/Malin V Carndonagh war and where I worked we lost jobs In Carn because we had a couple of Glengad fellas work there.

Brolly

I have never come accross this issue! I have relations in Carn and I would be down visiting quite a lot. Friends of the family that live in Carn have mentioned a few times that Inishowen is a mini County within Donegal!
As for people in other parts of Donegal looking down on/disliking Inishowen people, I can't say I have ever witnessed that!

seamus_mcg

remember when mckeveney was in the dail, all she chatted about was inishowen. did she not realise she represented the other 2 electoral areas tooo. maybe thats why she's not there anymore

Mint Sauce

the only bad stuff i've heard about inishowen is the usual banter, ie, people from letterkenny, joking about people from inishowen, and visa versa, or people from donegal town, joking about people from killybegs, but dont think its a dislike

regob

muffler wrote: »

Im not from Inishowen but I have certainly never heard anything along the lines you mentioned.

i am from inishowen and i agree with the quote above

Madam

Nope never heard of this either! I am a wee bit annoyed though that they've changed the electoral boundary, I was born in the Lettekenny area(just outside Manorcunningham) and since the change of boundary I now find I come from Inishowen - my granda will be turning in his grave :rolleyes:

regob

Madam wrote: »

Nope never heard of this either! I am a wee bit annoyed though that they've changed the electoral boundary, I was born in the Lettekenny area(just outside Manorcunningham) and since the change of boundary I now find I come from Inishowen - my granda will be turning in his grave :rolleyes:

does it make that much of a difference like, your still electing people to represent you, or is this an example of the original posters point?

Madam

regob wrote: »

does it make that much of a difference like, your still electing people to represent you, or is this an example of the original posters point?

I was being a wee bit flippant(I don't live in Ireland so can't vote there)!

regob

Madam wrote: »

I was being a wee bit flippant(I don't live in Ireland so can't vote there)!

flippant?

Madam

regob wrote: »

flippant?

Yes !

Adjective
treating serious matters with inappropriate light-heartedness or lack of respect .

gardaitester06

I have to say there definately is. Its not a serious thing. I'm from Glenties myself, growing up I was defo aware of a north south divide in the county. For some reason we always hated lads from the east of the county i.e Ballybofey, castlefin, glenfin, letterkenny.

Not sure if thats just a Glenties thing now but it may be down to the fact that when playing gaa we never had any real contact with the mentioned parts of Donegal, until of coarse it was semi/county/ gaeltacht final and we'd beat **** out of them (at underage level of coarse )

LockeTribal

You definitely find it in Gaelic football, where very few lads from Inishowen have ever broken into the Donegal county set up, at least in recent years (my dad played for the county in the 60's). Other than that though, there's not really much of a divide in my mind. There's the odd joke about Inishowen being separate from the rest of Donegal, both by people from the area and from south Donegal, but that's about the height of it.

And to the person on the last page who mentioned the "Malin/Glengad Vs. Carndonagh" thing, I personally take affront to people saying I live in Malin/Glengad when I'm actually from Malin Head.

Malin Head is not in Malin.

SocialWarfare

I'm from Gweedore orginally and isnt it a given to hate thy neighbouring town/parish?
People from Dungloe would call us neds, in Letterkenny we would be known as boggers and so on
Its just one of those things lol

ladystrange

I've never found any of whats been mentioned & I've had dealings with people from all over the county with work in the past. I know that some people dont even know that Inishowen is part of Donegal, they seem to think its part of Nothern Ireland for some mad reason. But generally people from other areas of Donegal have been fine with the fact that I'm from Inishowen, but that may be due to the fact that I'm just such a nice person!! :D

The Chessplayer

I'd say it's just the usual Springfield-Shelbyville type rivallry. A friend of mine used to live with a boring old Donegal man, and I remember him blaming Inishoweners for the fact that Donegal are crap at gaelic, because Inishowen is all football whereas the rest of the county is, broadly speaking, GAA....according to that lad anyway. Could be the root of it maybe?