Pit-Stop Series: Heavenly Glen Traditional Geocache
Pit-Stop Series: Heavenly Glen
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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Heavenly Glen - more commonly known as The Poison Glen
The cache is located at the Picnic Area N 55 01.485 W 008 06.935 on the approach to Dunlewey from Glenveagh on the R251.
Why The Poison Glen??
In typical Donegal fashion there is more than one answer!!
Balor na Suíle Neimhe - Balor of the Evil Eye was the Fomorian King of Tory Island. Legend foretold that he would only die at the hand of his own grandson and so he imprisoned his only daughter, Eithne, in a female guarded tower in his castle on the island.
But in an act of revenge by Ceann Fhaola (another legend for another day!!) who dressed in female clothes managed to enter the castle. Duly 9 months later Eithne gave birth to triplet sons. An enraged Balor ordered the infants to be drowned, but one of them escaped and was brought up by a family on the mainland and in manhood became a great swordsman. This was Lugh Lá Fhada, who built his fort at Dún Luiche (Dunlewey). The story continues that he and Balor fought a duel at the entrance to the Poison Glen, and Lugh killed Balor by piercing his Evil Eye with his sword, and that the blood from Balor's Eye poisoned the Glen.
The Real Story of the naming of the Glen is somewhat different - The Irish word for poison, 'neimhe' differs in its spelling by only one letter from the word for Heaven, 'neamh' . Because the glen was so beautiful it was called the Heavenly Glen by local people.
It was, predictably, an English cartographer who made the mistake in translation that was to ‘poison’ the name of one of Ireland’s most beautiful places for ever.
The Cache
The cache is a small tab-lock container which when placed contained the usual logbook, pencil, pointer and some small tradable items
This Picnic are can be busy at times so please be discreet and take care to rehide the cache properly!! Thank you.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)