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04 Nov 2025
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04 Nov 2025
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Salthill Cabin in Mountcharles
Popular Mountcharles cafe and petting zoo, Salthill Cabin, has applied to Donegal County Council for retention permission.
The cafe is applying to Donegal County Council for the use of an existing agricultural shed to provide a cafe/coffee shop with toilets and a servery area with ancillary preparation and storage areas, and retention planning permission for a single-storey cabin for the sale of takeaway coffee and snacks, development of seven animal shelters, and metal storage containers.
In September 2021, Donegal County Council granted an application for a retention permission of the cafe and animal shelters and enclosures, where it advised the applicants would “cease to have effect in five years from the date of issue as regards any part of the development not completed by that date.”
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The cover letter, submitted by Andrew and Aisling Chapman in 2021, explained: “The Salthill Cabin opened as a temporary arrangement as part of the Mountcharles Stone Wall Festival, which was in the summer of 2018.
“Andrew and Aisling were asked by the organisers of the festival if they could serve coffee to persons taking part in the Stone Wall festival, as the festival was held along the shore front and the participants built the stone wall which surrounds the field in which Salthill Cabin is located.
“The business grew organically from that, as it was originally a simple, single, temporary wooden structure. The animal pens to the rear of the cabin were originally constructed for their own kids and private use and originally only housed a few goats.
“However, there was such an attraction for children, they expanded the animal pens, which now include two Kunkun pigs, two llamas, one alpaca, three rabbits, two peacocks, three pygmy goats, one goose and various unusual breeds of chicken, ducks and guinea fowl.”
Donegal County Council has yet to announce a decision due date for the application.
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