Donegal Co-operative Livestock Mart

What to Expect

Donegal Co-operative Livestock Mart, based in Milltown on the edge of Donegal Town, runs a sheep sale every Tuesday and a cattle sale every Friday, with sales typically starting around noon on both days. It describes itself as a long established, farmer owned co-operative at the heart of the local farming industry, and livestock auctions remain its core business, serving farmers from south Donegal and the surrounding parishes. Like most modern Irish marts, it offers online bidding alongside the traditional ringside trade, so buyers who can’t make it to Milltown in person can still bid on cattle and sheep as they come through the ring. The mart also periodically hosts community health initiatives alongside its regular sales, including free health checks run with visiting nurses, a reminder that marts function as much as a weekly meeting point for the farming community as a straightforward trading floor.

Good to Know

• Date: Tuesday, August 4, 2026, sheep sale from around noon. The next cattle sale is Friday, August 7, 2026, also around noon.
• Venue: Donegal Co-operative Livestock Mart, Milltown, Donegal Town, Co. Donegal, F94 HE97.
• Price: free to attend as a spectator; livestock is bought and sold between registered farmers and traders through the ring.
• Recurrence: sheep every Tuesday, cattle every Friday, year-round, both from around noon.
• Contact: 074 972 1185.

Getting There

Milltown is on the edge of Donegal Town, a short drive from the N15/N56 junction that the town sits on, and the mart yard has its own parking for farmers bringing trailers and livestock. Donegal Town’s Bus Éireann depot serves the wider area, though the mart itself, like most working marts, is best reached by car given the livestock traffic in and out on sale days.

Donegal Town itself sits at the junction of south and west Donegal, so the mart draws sellers from a wide catchment stretching from the Bluestack Mountains down towards the Sligo and Leitrim borders, alongside the county’s other main livestock centres in Raphoe, Stranorlar and Carndonagh, which together cover most of Donegal’s cattle and sheep trade between them.