County Fermanagh, in the south-west corner of Northern Ireland, is mostly water. Lough Erne is really two lakes, widenings of the River Erne: the smaller, maze-like Upper Lough to the south and the big open Lower Lough to the north, with the island town of Enniskillen on the short stretch of river between them. Together they hold more than 150 islands. The county is rural and thinly populated, and for most visitors that is exactly the point.
The islands are scattered with early Christian sites. Devenish Island, just downstream from Enniskillen, has a round tower and monastery ruins. On White Island a row of strange carved figures stands in a ruined church, and in a graveyard on Boa Island two-sided stone figures, probably from the Iron Age, stand among the graves. At the far western end of the Lower Lough, the border village of Belleek has made fine porcelain at Belleek Pottery since the 19th century.
South-west of Enniskillen the landscape changes to limestone. The underground rivers of the Marble Arch Caves run beneath the slopes of Cuilcagh, and the Cuilcagh Boardwalk climbs across blanket bog towards its summit, the highest point in the county. Together they form the Cuilcagh Lakelands UNESCO Global Geopark, which crosses the border into County Cavan. Nearby, the Georgian mansion of Florence Court is the sister house of Castle Coole.
You need your own transport here: buses run along the main roads from Enniskillen, but little else. Better still, get on the water. Cruises and boat hire run from Enniskillen and from marinas on the Lower Lough, the Upper Lough is more sheltered, and since the Shannon–Erne Waterway opened you can take a boat all the way from Enniskillen to Limerick and Dublin. The Lower Lough lies open to the prevailing wind, so its waves can build quickly.
