Nostalgia: Six County people abandoning pets in Donegal (August 1967)

One of their greatest problems was the abandonment of cats and dogs in Donegal by people who crossed the Border from the Six Counties.

These poor animals were being dumped on the roadside from motor cars and left there to die of starvation, said Inspector Michael J. O’Hara at the annual meeting of the Co. Donegal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (S.P.C.A.) in Letterkenny.

The Inspector said that in the past few weeks a strange car was seen dumping two retriever pups on the roadside at Ballymalee and then drive away. The pups were four months old and not able to fend for themselves.

Buncrana ‘major industrial centre’

A £230,000 draft development plan for Buncrana aimed at the expansion of the town into one of Co. Donegal’s major tourist resorts and centre of great potential for future industrial development in the county, has been placed before the local Urban Council.

The plan, which lists a number of short-term and long-term objectives, has been prepared by the Donegal County Planning Officer, Mr. M. O’Malley.

It was considered by the urban Council at its monthly meeting and will now go on public exhibition in the town to ascertain the comments and objections, if any, of the general public.

Buncrana is an expanding town

The draft development plan for Buncrana says that in spite of a temporary standstill in its growth, Buncrana is an expanding town which requires to be developed to cope with future increases in population.

Dealing with population trends the plan states that there was a sixty per cent, increase in population between 1911 (1,874) and 1951 (3,039) and while the urban area had been static since then (1966 population, 2,916), there had been a noticeable increase in the population of the environs. The population in the Inishowen rural area, in which Buncrana area is situated, showed a steady decline since 1891.