History
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Evidence of early settlement in the area is given by the many dolmens, standing stones and earthen ringforts dating from the Bronze Age. The area became part of the baronies of Boylagh and Bannagh in 1609, which was granted to Scottish undertakers as part of the Ulster Plantation.
Glenties was a regular stopping point on the road between the established towns of Ballybofey and Killybegs, and grew from this in the 17th and 18th centuries. The town was developed as a summer home for the Marquess Conyngham in the 1820s, because of its good hunting and fishing areas. The court house and market house were built in 1843. The Bank of Ireland building was completed in 1880.
Famine era[edit]
A workhouse was built, in 1846 during the Great Famine, at the site of the current comprehensive school, serving the greater Inniskeel area. A 40-bed fever hospital was later added to care for the sick and dying.[citation needed] The landlord, the Marquis of Conyngham, decided to halve the population of the town in 1847, faced with the rising costs of the workhouse. Only those who could show title to their land as rent payers were allowed to remain. The rest were given an option of going to America on a ship provided or entering the Workhouse in Glenties. Over 40,000 people died or emigrated from County Donegal between the years 1841 and 1851.
20th century[edit]
Taoiseach John A. Costello inspects ranks of An Gárda Síochána in Glenties during the 1951 election campaign
The railway was completed in 1895 from Ballybofey. In 1903 a local water scheme was established, to be replaced in 1925 by the current Lough Anna supply. In 1932 electricity was first generated locally in the town. The rural electrification scheme reached the area in the 1950s.
Glenties Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks was attacked on several occasions, during the War of Independence, in 1920 and 1921. On 29 June 1921, the Irish Republican Army ambushed a group of Black and Tans who were on their way to Ardara at Kilraine, resulting in the death of a Constable Devine.[citation needed]
Two National Army soldiers were killed at Lacklea in 1922 by Irish Republican Army forces, during the Irish Civil War.
In January 1944, a British RAF Sunderland Mark III flying boat crashed in the Croaghs area of the Bluestack Mountains, outside of Glenties, killing seven of its 12-man crew.
Brendan Behan spent more than two months with his wife on holiday in Glenties, starting in the third week of May 1960, and staying at the Highlands Hotel. During their stay, on Sunday 24 July, the hotel was raided by Gardaí and the hotelier charged with a breach of licensing laws (the raid came more than three hours after closing time). The case was dismissed when it was explained that the event had been taking place in a private room where Behan was doing "some of his literary work". Other events, documented by the Donegal Democrat, included Behan attending an Irish Countrywomen's Association dance and he and his wife being "guest artistes" at a meeting of the Ardara and Glenties branch of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann.
Glenties was the first townland in County Donegal to provide cable television to the local area. In 1976 "Glenties Community Piped TV Co-op" was established which brought cable television to Glenties and the surrounding area, enabling viewers to enjoy multi-channel television from Northern Ireland via BBC One, BBC Two, Ulster Television and from 1982 Channel Four along with the national RTE channels.
In April 2006, IRA informer Denis Donaldson was shot dead by the Real IRA at a remote cottage near Derryloaghan, 8 km from Glenties.
Bord na Móna[edit]
Bord na Móna bought 1,200 acres (490 ha) of bog in 1937 to be drained and cut for peat. By 1943 a railway had been extended from Kilraine across the Owenea River to the bogs at Tullyard. Machine cutting commenced in 1946, utilising German-made cutting machines. The company employed 250 men in peak season and peak production was 22,000 tons in 1965. Operations ceased in the late 1990s and the railways and stock were lifted in 2006.
