Things to Do in County Fermanagh

More about County Fermanagh

Where to base yourself

Enniskillen sits on an island between the two loughs and is the only town in the county with a real choice of hotels, restaurants and late openings. Nothing in Fermanagh is more than about 40 minutes away from it, so if you are here for three or four days it is the simplest answer. If you would rather wake up on the water, Irvinestown is the base for Lower Lough Erne and the shoreline hotels and lodges strung along the A46 and around Castle Archdale, which is where most of the boat and bike hire is. Lisnaskea and the villages around Upper Lough Erne — Derrylin, Maguiresbridge, Carrybridge — are quieter and cheaper, and closer to Crom. Belcoo puts you on the border with Cavan and within ten minutes of the caves and Cuilcagh. The other option is not to sleep on land at all: hire cruisers work out of Enniskillen and Bellanaleck for self-drive weeks on the Erne, no licence needed, and they go early for July and August. Lakeside rooms across the county book out for the same two months and for the Enniskillen festival weekends.

Two loughs, and how to get on them

Lower and Upper Lough Erne are different places. The lower lough is broad, open and island-scattered, with a shoreline of forest and the escarpment behind; the upper is a slow maze of channels and reeds that feels more like a flooded landscape than a lake. Lough Erne as a whole carries something like 150 islands, and the ones worth reaching need a boat. The seasonal ferry to Devenish runs from Trory, north of Enniskillen, in summer only and stops if the weather turns; water taxis from the Enniskillen quays will also run you out. Boa Island is the exception — it is joined to the mainland by bridges at both ends on the A47, and you can drive straight to the gate for Caldragh cemetery, where the two-faced Janus figure stands among the graves. It is a five-minute walk in, and reliably muddy. Killadeas churchyard on the eastern shore has the carved Bishop’s Stone, and Crom on the upper lough has some of the oldest oak woodland in Ireland with trails and rowing boats.

Underground, and up Cuilcagh

The limestone south of Enniskillen is riddled with caves. The Marble Arch Caves tour starts with a boat trip on an underground river and lasts a bit over an hour; it is the one attraction here that regularly closes at short notice, because heavy rain raises the water and floods the route, so ring ahead rather than driving out on spec. The same rain feeds the caves from above: the streams off Cuilcagh, including the Owenbrean, disappear into the ground and reappear underneath. Cladagh Glen runs down from the caves through a wooded gorge to the natural arch itself, an easy hour on a path with steps. Cavers know Pollnagollum in Belmore Forest as the entrance to the longest cave system in Ireland; casual visitors can walk to the waterfall pouring into its mouth without going underground. The Cuilcagh boardwalk is the county’s busiest walk — the flat approach from the Legnabrocky car park runs several kilometres before the stairway, so budget most of a morning, expect a parking charge, and arrive early at summer weekends because the car park fills.

Plantation castles and older stones

Fermanagh was planted in the early 1600s and the castles built then are still standing in fields, mostly free and unstaffed. Monea is the best of them, a Scottish-looking house with round corbelled turrets, roofless since a fire and open to walk into whenever you like. Tully on the lower lough shore was taken and burnt at Christmas 1641 and now has a replanted 17th-century-style garden; opening is seasonal. Castle Balfour stands above Lisnaskea, and just outside the town, Cornashee is the hill where the Maguires were inaugurated as lords of Fermanagh. For something far older, Boho has a high cross in its graveyard and karst country all around it, and the Reyfad stones nearby carry some of the best prehistoric rock art in the north — they sit on farmland, so ask locally before crossing.

When it rains, and it will

Fermanagh’s weather is the reason the county is green, and any itinerary needs indoor fallbacks. Belleek runs pottery tours on weekdays only, with the showroom and café open more widely at the western end of the county. The Boatyard Distillery outside Enniskillen makes gin using botanicals from the Erne shore and runs tours. Enniskillen Castle holds two museums under one roof and is the standard wet-afternoon answer in the town itself. The drive up through Lough Navar Forest to the Cliffs of Magho is worth doing even in poor visibility — it is a one-way forest road that climbs to the top of the escarpment, and on a clear day you see the whole lower lough and out to Donegal.