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Donegal Sundial
100Kb Photo
Commemorative Sundial at Glenveagh National Park
Photo © Copyright Ross and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/899608

A horizontal brass sundial showing the time from 3:30am to 7:45pm in Roman numerals with 15 minute divisions. The Chapter ring is offset 30minutes to allow for the longitude/time difference between noon at Greenwich (London) and local noon (sun time) at Glenveagh. It has a 'noon gap' to compensate for the gnomon (shadow caster) thickness at the 12:30 position. Although the dial is inscribed GMT(Greenwich Mean Time) it does not in fact read GMT accurately. A further adjustment would need to be made to convert sundial time to clock time. This difference is known as the 'Equation of Time' Click here for an explanation of the 'Equation of Time' To compare sundial time to watch time during the summer a further hour needs to be added when our watches are set one hour 'on'.


The origins and history of the rhyme are vague but its meaning is not. It sums up the opportunities we have to listen to each other and to everything that goes on around us and how it's possible to learn from what is 'heard & seen'. THE WISE OLD OWL SELDOM SPEAKS...BUT WHEN HE DOES...PEOPLE SHOULD LISTEN.

The wise old owl lived in the oak,
the more he heard the less he spoke,
the less he spoke the more he heard,
why can't we all be like that bird.

Glenveagh National Park is one of six national parks in Ireland. Situated in the Northwest of Co. Donegal encompassing some 16,000 acres in the heart of the Derryveagh Mountains. These lands were managed as a private deer forest until 1975, when it was sold to the state and placed in the care of the Commissioner of Public Works to become a National Park.
Glenveagh Castle is a 19th century castellated mansion and was built between 1867 and 1873. It was designed by John Townsend Trench, a cousin of its builder and first owner, John George Adair, with whom he had been raised in Co. Laois. The last private owner Henry P. McIlhenny donated the castle and much of its contents to the Irish Nation in 1983. He had served the Philadelphia Museum of Art as Curator of Decorative Arts and his expertise in this field is evident throughout the castle.
Access to the castle is by guided tour which last approx. 30 mins

Click here to visit Glenveagh website


Glenveagh National Park is located 24km north-west of Letterkenny and can be reached via the villages of Kilmacrennan or Church Hill.
Leave Letterkenny by the N56 road through Kilmacrennan, turning left on to the Gweedore road R255
or alternatively leave by the R251 road to Church Hill, and pass Gartan and Akibbon lakes.

Lat 55° 2' North  Long 7° 38' West

Irish Grid     C   223440    420720


If you know the location of a sundial in Ireland (NOT a mass produced DIY Store garden ornament) please email it to me (Click here to email M.J.Harley) - a member of British Sundial Society
This site is copyright M.J.Harley ©