Stunning Ballymastocker Bay has been listed among Europe’s 100 top beaches by Lonely Planet.

The spectacular stretch of sand on the Fanad peninsula is one of just four Irish beaches named in the travel bible’s forthcoming book Best Beaches Europe.

The charms of ‘Warden’ beach, running from Portsalon to Magherawardan at the foot of Knockalla, are well-known to locals who flock there in numbers in summer.

It was once named the second-most beautiful beach in the world by British newspaper The Observer.

"It is indeed stunning as you drive round the high headland on the R268 and it rears into view, but put the brakes on – there's a viewpoint you can pull into to take mesmerising shots,” says the Lonely Planet website.

Pop superstar Taylor Swift is a fan who posted a photograph of herself on the beach in 2021.

Tragically it was the site of the wreck of the HMS Saldanha, which struck the submerged Swilly Rocks in December 1811, and washed up in the bay. Two hundred and fifty three souls perished.

The others included in the book are Inchydoney Beach in West Cork, Keem Bay on Achill, and Streedagh Strand in Sligo.

The beautiful Streedagh, incidentally, is also the site of a famous shipwreck and has connections to Derry through one of its famous survivors.

Francisco de Cuéllar, a Spanish Armada sea captain, survived when the galleon, La Lavia foundered off Sligo, in September 1588.

Cuéllar made his way all the way from Sligo to Ó Catháin’s country where he was harboured by the Bishop of Derry Redmond O’Gallagher.

He described the Bishop as an ‘honourable man’ in his autobiographical, ‘Captain Cuellar’s Adventures in Connacht and Ulster,’ written in Antwerp, in 1589.

He met O’Gallagher at Ó Catháin’s Castle, believed to now be a ruin on the River Roe in Limavady.

He wrote: “This bishop was a very good Christian, and went about in the garb of a savage for concealment, and I assure you I could not restrain tears when I approached him to kiss his hand. He had twelve Spaniards with him for the purpose of passing them over to Scotland, and he was much delighted at my arrival, all the more so when the soldiers told him that I was a captain.”