The fort at Lenan Head is certainly the most interesting and complete military site along Lough Swilly, and yet few have ever heard of it. Unlike Fort Dunree, it has not been transformed into a tourist attraction; unlike the fort at Rathmullan, it is not located in the heart of a village for everyone to visit freely; and unlike the ones at Macamish and Knockalla, it is not suitable for accommodation. Lenan Fort is just there, abandoned, hidden, and waiting to be explored.
Constructed between 1895 and 1900, it was the last of the Lough Swilly fortifications to be built. Because it is so late, it is also much more sophisticated than its Napoleonic predecessors. It was equipped with three batteries designed to carry 9.2-inch guns – the most popular and versatile naval gun at the time. Gun batteries are complex structures. The only obvious element of a battery is the gun emplacement built over ground, which essentially consists of a flat surface, often surrounded by a protective wall. Underneath a battery, however, are a series of underground chambers and passages without which the gun could not be fired. It is these rooms and the maze that connects them which are the most intriguing, exciting, and sophisticated part of a battery. The most important chamber was where the shells were kept. These were hoisted up to the gun platform via a mechanical lift which, if you know where to look, can always be found just feet away from the platform.
Different types of guns worked differently, but the earliest 9.2-inch naval guns were installed on manually powered mounts which allowed them to be rotated sideways and up or down at a maximum of 15 degrees. Later in the twentieth century, these were replaced by hydraulic mounts with increased mobility. These guns could fire up to 27 km away, which made them ideal for protecting narrow straits because they could neutralise distant ships before they could make it near the shore. It could take a significant amount of time between shots fired. The larger the gun, the more time it took for it to cool down, reload, and fire again. The largest industrialised naval gun at the turn of the century, which weighed over 100 tons, could only shoot at a rate of one shell every seven minutes. In addition to increased range, this is partly why it was more desirable to have several guns available near each other, so that one was always ready to fire. Firing faster than the recommended rate could stress the barrel to the point of it splitting, thus rendering the gun unusable.
Lenan Fort is arguably the most interesting of the Lough Swilly forts for the simple reason that it has remained completely untouched. It is an example of a fort which was stripped down and abandoned in haste. The guardhouse still boasts its wallpaper, which makes for an eerie visit, while porcelain toilet bowls are still in situ, a reminder that real people once lived there. Yet, the question of the fort’s future is a difficult one.
Lenan Fort does not appear to be maintained, which is problematic on several fronts. Firstly, the site keeps degrading and thus keeps losing its historical value. Secondly, it is dangerous to access and presents significant safety hazards for tourists wishing to visit it. For example, my site inspection revealed several areas where disused shafts (such as ammunition lifts but also ducts, former tanks and utility trenches) were hidden by overgrown vegetation, thus exposing visitors to the risk of falling down several metres, with limited resources to seek help. But it is not about sterilising the fort and blocking up every opening, because they teach us much about the practicalities of running such a site. Rather, the fort needs to be mapped and secured, the vegetation maintained, and a controlled pathway created around the site to guide visitors.
Such a solution is so easily identified and yet it is very difficult to implement. The fort is much bigger than its Napoleonic counterparts and therefore represents a huge expense, at a time when budgets are tight. In addition, because it is quite recent, some may be under the impression that it is not worth preserving. Indeed, people commonly associate antiquity with value, which means that most of our twentieth-century military and industrial heritage has gone unnoticed. But there is some support among the local population and the academic community for the preservation of the fort, and calls have been made for it to be transformed into a proper visitor attraction. With the right resources in place, Lenan Head Fort could become an amazing educational asset, as well as an extremely popular attraction which could help advertise this scenic part of Donegal.
by Caroline Wilhelmsson
We are grateful to Connected NI for supporting Dr Wilhelmsson’s research on these sites.
Further Reading
K.W. Maurice Jones, The History of Coast Artillery in the British Army (Uckfield, 2012).
‘Lenan Fort, LENAN, Donegal’, National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, <https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/40900913/lenan-fort-lenan-donegal> [accessed 04 September 2023].
‘Site Visit – Lenan Head Fort, County Donegal’, Frontline Ulster, <https://frontlineulster.co.uk/lenan-head-fort-county-donegal/> [accessed 04 September 2023].
Army Barracks of Ireland 