Muff, County Donegal

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A view of Muff.

Muff (Irish: Magh) is a small town in County Donegal in the northwest of Ireland. It is located a few miles from Derry on the road to Moville on the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

It is known for the Borderland dance hall, and more recently for the fact that tourists like to stop and get their photo taken by the town sign, as in this photo.

It is a village which has experienced great growth in population in the last decade which has seen people from Northern Ireland move across the border.

Its strong points were the, Muff Festival, with ceile dancing, amusements in central park, nighttime entertainment , and live performances in the other public houses in the area, Finnegans, The Ture, The Carmans and Big Jim's.

Each Summer, usually during the first week in August, the village celebrates Muff Festival which includes competitions, street partying,parades and, naturally, a number of late-license pubs.

Also the football competitions held during the festival attract a lot of people from Derry, Redcastle and Moville, as they try to win the E1000 prize.

The local Soccer team, Quigley's Point Swifts, is made up primarily of people from the village itself.

Local Gaelic club, Naoimh Padraig, has been up and running strong in the community for many years, with various titles to its name. The club has recently developed a new pitch and a new club house.

The two clubs have just recently pioneered a new game of football as a charity fund-raiser after an accident to a member of the local community, which involved played one half of the game with gaelic football rules and one half with soccer rules.

The higher cost of fuel in Northern Ireland is the only reason behind the large amount traffic in Muff. It has come to the point where there are now more petrol stations in Muff, just across the border from Londonderry, than there is in the city of Derry itself. Smuggling of fuel from the Republic for sale north of the border is also driven by the price differential.