About Assaranca Waterfall
Assaranca Waterfall (or Eas a’ Ranca in Irish Gaelic; also called the Maghera Waterfall) is pretty much a roadside waterfall near the Maghera Strand and Cave.
Although there’s not much physical exertion required to access this waterfall, the tricky part is navigating the narrow, mostly single-lane 6.2km stretch of road supporting bi-directional traffic to get here.
Despite the accident-prone nature of this narrow road, we observed that there were lots of people (both experienced and inexperienced) driving it, which suggested that the falls (or at least neighboring attractions) was quite popular.
As for the Assaranca Waterfall itself, I’ve seen claims that it’s about 300ft high (roughly under 100m) but its sloping nature makes the waterfall appear shorter from its base.
I’m sure a drone or some kind of distant and/or elevated perspective from the Maghera Strand or the Loughros Peninsula might yield yield a better appreciation of the waterfall’s size.
However, we can’t really say anything more about those options since we didn’t get a chance to exercise them.
In any case, we spent a mere 20 minutes away from the car, and we kind of hastened our visit a bit because of a pretty squally rain storm that came up over the general area and hit the nearby town of Ardara pretty hard.
As alluded to earlier, access to the Maghera Strand and Maghera Cave (low tide only and paid attractions) was a short distance further to the west of the Assaranca Waterfall.
Unfortunately, we also didn’t have the time to pursue them either so we’ll refrain from saying anything more about them until we get a chance to come back and visit them.
Authorities
The Assaranca Waterfall is near the town of Ardara in County Donegal, Ireland. It is not clear if there’s an official governing body that presides over this waterfall. However, it seems like local landowners and town officials from Ardara may have been responsible for signs and road/trail infrastructure. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting the Ardara Tourism website.
The Assaranca Waterfall resides near the town of Ardara.
However, the turnoff for the narrow access road to the waterfall as well as the Maghera Strand and Maghera Cave leaves the N56 road just south of Ardara and is quite easy to miss.
From the triangular “island” in the town centre of Ardara, you’d go south on the N56 for about 1.7km before turning right onto the L2843 Road for An Machaire.
Then, we followed the mostly single-lane L2843 Road for about 6.2km to the car park right in front of the Assaranca Waterfall on the left.
Overall, this drive should take around 15 minutes or less though you do want to exercise caution on the L2843 Road given its single-lane nature.
Coming from Donegal, we’d drive west on the N56 for about 11km to the junction with the L1515 Road on the right (bound for Ardara).
At this point, we had a choice of taking the direct L1515 Road to Ardara on the right, or sticking with the N56 Road on the left.
If we stuck with the N56 Road on the left, we’d continue for about 23km or so to the easy-to-miss signed turnoff for the L2843 Road on the left.
From there, we’d then follow the final 6.2km stretch of the L2843 to the Assaranca Waterfall’s car park.
Now if we turned right onto the L1515 Road to Ardara, then we’d follow this two-lane rural road for about 16km into the town centre of Ardara before turning left onto the N56.
Then, we’d follow the N56 for about 1.7km before turning right onto the L2843 Road to go on the final 6.2km stretch to the Assaranca Waterfall (as described above).
Overall, the drive from Donegal to the Assaranca Waterfall would be between 30-60 minutes depending on whether you encounter any slower traffic.
For context, Ardara was about 18km (under 30 minutes drive) north of Killybegs, about 29km (about 30 minutes drive) northwest of Donegal, about 55km (under an hour drive) southwest of Letterkenny, about 95km (over an hour drive) north of Sligo (Ireland), about 55 miles (under 90 minutes drive) southwest of Londonderry (Northern Ireland), 128 miles (about 2.5 hours drive) west of Belfast (Northern Ireland), and 249km (over 3 hours drive) northwest of Dublin.
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Checking out the falls right from the plunge pool at its base
Double 360 degree sweep showing menacing clouds in the distance as well as a more distant but more comprehensive sweep of the falls itself
Sweep starting with checking out the stream from the small road bridge before moving over towards a direct view of the falls
Sweep starting from the single-lane road before walking over to the edge of the plunge pool for a closer look
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