Murder in the woods shatters rural idyll
MURDERED British spy Denis Donaldson ghosted in and out of Glenties village during his final months banished to the wilds of Co Donegal.
Few locals even knew an IRA traitor had fled to a dilapidated cottage in the hills overlooking a community proud of its award-winning idyllic charm.
A flickering candle spotted from the windows of the run-down hideaway was one of the only signs that a hunted stranger was in their midst.
Those last days, after the top Sinn Féin man was unmasked as an informer of more than 20 years standing, were all about survival.
Gaunt and haggard, he coped without running water and electricity, travelling the five miles to Glenties fleetingly to stock up on essentials.
One of his final trips was to Owenea Trading Limited, a DIY store, for fuel to heat the crumbling building owned by Ciaran Kearney, Mr Donaldson's son-in-law and co-accused in the Stormont espionage plot that brought down the North's power-sharing government and eventually led to his exposure as a double agent.
Shop owner Frank Conaghan confirmed: "I don't think he was doing a whole lot of repairs to that cottage. He would just come in about once a week for some coal."
Mr Donaldson, once a trusted prison confidant of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, knew how to go without.
But he was also famed for his love of the good life, and, after being hounded out of the life he knew in West Belfast, he indulged himself where he could.
Staff at the Highland Hotel, renowned for its seafood chowder, said he would sometimes while away lunchtimes with a steaming bowl from the bar.
Later, as if to put off returning to his damp and freezing retreat, he would cross the main street and slip into a quiet snug of Leo's Bar, in the shadow of the garda station, from where officers were sent out to check on his safety.
Packie Gildea, 33, a farmer from the surrounding townlands, recalled seeing him buy a pint of milk and newspaper from the local Spar.
"He would go in shopping but said very little to anyone," according to Mr Gildea.
"I suppose when he was living in the middle of a forest and so far out of the way, he got used to being on his own."
Mention of Mr Donaldson's name drew mystified looks from all others, however, as they struggled to get to grips with the level of brutal revenge acted out by the killers.
A faded poster on the window of O'Faolain's pub offered the only evidence of any other possible crime in the area.
Beneath a picture of a middle-aged man standing by an old-fashioned moped, it read: "Wanted - Armed robber. The culprit ram raided an old people's home with his Honda motorbicycle.
"This man is armed and dangerous. Do not approach him. Contact your local Garda station."
As news of the killing spread throughout the village, Michael O'Donnell, aged 18, told how he had driven past Mr Donaldson's cottage days before the shooting.
The construction student said: "I didn't think anybody could possibly have been living in there.
"But my mum said she was driving past before and saw candles burning.
"Like everyone else, I didn't know the man existed, and this sort of thing just doesn't happen in a place like Glenties."
According to Mary Thompson, treasurer of Glenties Tidy Town Committee, it has won national prizes five times, and a silver medal in the European Entente Florale Accolades, in 2005.
One 27-year-old Buncrana-based salesman, who would only give his first name as Eddie, said he had been coming to the village for the last eight years.
"People here are so honest if they owed you a euro, they would give you two, that's how good-hearted they are," he said.
