Mulroy Bay is located in Co. Donegal in the northwest of Ireland, around 15 km north of Letterkenny. The bay is situated between the Fanad Head peninsula to the east and the Rosguill peninsula to the west.
Location of Mulroy Bay, Co. Donegal in northwest Ireland.
The sinuous and convoluted Mulroy Bay is approximately 22 km long along a central axis from the mouth of the bay to Milford at the southern most reaches of the bay. However, the width of the bay changes regularly along its length with the mouth of the bay close to 2 km wide from Melmore Head and Ballyhoorisky Head. South of Donaghmore Beach the channel narrows to just over 200 metres and continues relatively narrow for around 10 km in a general NW to SE trend before passing through an area known as The Narrows between Mark’s Point and the Hassans Islands and the peninsula across the channel which is roughly 150 metres distant. The bay then extends to an open water area known as Broad Water where the channel is approximately 1.6 km wide. Moving south the bay gradually narrows before its termination at Milford.
Photo of the coastline along Mulroy Bay taken from the RV Geo during a sampling leg in July 2007.
INFOMAR surveys of Mulroy Bay consists of a lidar survey that was undertaken in 2005 in the upper reaches of the bay from the mouth to The Narrows (see above). The relatively shallow water and notable water clarity due to good weather that was experienced in August and September of 2005 meant that a large portion of the bay was surveyed in the safest, fastest and so most cost effective manner.
Coverage from all surveys involved in mapping Mulroy Bay for the INFOMAR project.
The bathymetry of Mulroy Bay shows deeper water at the mouth of the bay, close to 30 metres deep just seaward of the two headlands at Melmore and Ballyhoorisky. Inside the bay, there is a distinctive channel of deeper water with depths on average of approximately 5 to 8 metres with relatively shallow areas around the channel around 2 or 3 metres deep.
Along the channel, several depressions in the seabed increase water depth up to 13 metres. Also at Fanny’s Bay where the orientation changes from N/S to NW/SE, a shallow bank is located in the inside bend of the bay where water was measured to be just below 1 metre deep. As expected there is an overall trend of water shallowing from around 20 metres at the mouth of the bay to about 5 metres or less around The Narrows area.
For a more detailed chart of the bathymetry of Mulroy Bay click here
A range of seabed sampling has been undertaken in Mulroy Bay. In July 2007, the RV Geo was mobilised to ground truth the Lidar data collected in 2005. This sampling leg successfully recovered grab samples and video footage from the upper reaches of Mulroy Bay.
Locations of grab samples for ground truthing leg of Mulroy Bay.
Click play below to view a 3D movie flythrough of the seabed of Mulroy Bay. The changing colours represent changes in water depth with red and orange for shallow water, yellow and green for intermediate depths and light and dark blue for deeper water. The flythrough begins with an overview, moves towards the northern end of the bay before plunging beneath the surface and travelling along the relatively deep water channel as it winds and turns through the bay. The flythrough passes over banks and troughs in the seabed before finally emerging at the Narrows before zooming out for a final overview from a SE aspect.
The INFOMAR project acknowledges and thanks the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) for allowing the Admiralty Chart for Mulroy Bay to be used as a reference map for the area.
To view additional datasets in Google Earth please click here
Data Access
Full details outlining the process to gain access to datasets for the bay above or all INFOMAR data can be found in the INFOMAR | Data page of this website.
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