A place where nature is undisturbed

FERMANAGH is a lovely inland county, replete with lakes and countryside that are a joy to behold.

Enniskillen is a fine town with history, good shops and restaurants, but my paramour and I took to the water. It was a novel experience to be cruising on Lough Erne.

Where we live, in west Cork, it’s the sea; in Fermanagh, it’s oceans of fresh water. The lake has an area of 43 square miles of fish, of a coarse and fine variety, and waterfowl stalk the banks.

The islands of the Lough Ernes, lower and upper, are universally pretty, usually with trees. The lakes hold, I believe, the statutory 365 islands, as does west Cork’s Roaring Water Bay and any other body of water to which such claims may add attraction. What constitutes an island, an islet, or a rock is in the gift of the enumerator, but “who’s counting”? as they say.

As we travel, our cruiser, for all its size, space, good taste and luxury — two, full, en-suite cabins, excellent galley with classy fridge, hob, oven and utensils — is remarkably quiet in the water. Nature is undisturbed, and available for viewing at close quarters are swans, great-crested grebes, and various ducks.

As evening falls, a misty, Canadian-lakeshore feel comes down over the water. We pass solitary anglers perched at the end of small fishing piers, herons perched on tree branches, herons lurking in the shadows. The cry of coot and gurgle of waterhen are the sounds of the night, as we tie up at a remote mooring and have the world and a bottle of chilled wine all to ourselves. Island moorings abound.

Steering a 40-foot cruiser is exciting. It’s hair-raising, at first. After a day, it becomes a piece of cake.

One lines up to pass precisely through a channel with six feet spare on either side. However, as one nears the opening, lateral drift or Murphy’s Law invariably cause the prow to aim itself toward the left or right shore. Simultaneously, forward motion increases, as if the accelerator has a mind of its own.

One swings the wheel to the right. Nothing happens: boats do not react immediately, as do cars. So, one spins the wheel further right. Suddenly, having turned away from one bank, we are heading straight for the other.

‘Swing left, swing left,’ we gasp — but, of course, no immediate response, so more left, more left and ... ‘oh-my-God’, now the left bank is approaching at a rate of knots.

‘Reverse gear. Activate the bow-thrusters’ — the twin-thrust engines on the prow are magic, they are salvation. At the last minute, the prow swings around and, lo-and-behold, we find ourselves heading back out into open water. Never mind, we never wanted to go through that channel anyway.

In the Broad Lough, part of Upper Lough Erne, below Beleek, the expanse of water is so enormous that one can putter along, catnapping in the sun, without fear of collision. An outdoor steering cockpit means everyone can be on deck in blithe weather, and use the indoor wheel only if there is rain. Steering from the top deck certainly makes things easier when mooring or negotiating channels. All dangerous water is well marked: pass on the white side of the marker, do not pass on the red.

Besides nature, the lake is rich in history. The monastic buildings of Devenish Island, perhaps because they are in ruins, have the unadorned simplicity of Celtic holiness. The island itself has the aura of spirituality. The round tower is perfection; what can be more pleasing than an honest-to-God round tower rising sheer and elegant out of a treeless landscape? Devenish is, largely, a bare island, although it was once forested, the guide book says.

The monastery is large; what a pity that the oldest of the churches, probably a 12th-century reproduction, on the founding saint’s oratory with standing room for no more than a dozen monks, was looted for stone and hard-core in the 19th century. Hard-core? How a chapel built in the same style as Gallarus Oratory in Co Kerry, all of a piece like an upturned currach, stone walls and a stone-slab roof joining at the upturned ‘keel’, could come to be turned into hard-core defies understanding. After standing for seven centuries, its simplicity was laid waste by a single generation. What did the hard-core merchants have to say for themselves at the pearly gates?

Swallows sped through the ruined arches, twittering as they went, fledglings helping the parents to feed the about-to-be fledged. In the monastic meadow, a man patiently turned hay with a pitchfork. We saw that elsewhere in Fermanagh. It’s another country up there, as I said.