For more on this story, including an interactive map of the route and a Q&A with the project’s lead architect, see page 4 of this week’s print edition or visit our special feature at irischronicle.com/greenway.

€18 million project aims to boost rural economies and promote sustainable travel along the Wild Atlantic Way.

Beyond its economic promise, the greenway offers walkers a path through history — passing 19th-century railway bridges, famine-era stone walls, and the haunting silence of the Lagan Valley bogs. Interpretive signs along the route will tell stories of local emigration, the railway’s heyday, and the Troubles, when the borderlands were among the most heavily militarised in Europe.

The 27-kilometre off-road route, funded jointly by the Irish Government’s Rural Regeneration Fund and the Peace IV programme, will follow the disused railway line from Letterkenny to the border, then continue along the River Foyle into Derry city centre.