Northern Lights Inishowen The Inishowen Peninsula has been witness more and more often to the natural wonder we know as Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights.  It was Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei who gave the phenomenon the name "aurora borealis" in 1619, after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek god of the north wind, Boreas. The earliest suspected record of the northern lights is in a 30,000-year-old cave painting in France. What are the Northern Lights?  The Northern Lights are a