Ireland (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Fionn Davenport [599]
Getting There & Away
Ulsterbus service 261 runs from Enniskillen to Belfast (£10, 2¼ hours, hourly Monday to Saturday, two on Sunday) via Dungannon. Bus 296 runs to Omagh (£5, one hour, one daily Monday to Saturday) and, in the other direction, to Cork (8¼ hours; change at Longford) via Athlone (3½ hours). In July and August only, bus 99 goes from Enniskillen to Bundoran (£6, 1¼ hours, four daily Monday to Friday, three Saturday, one on Sunday) via Belleek (45 minutes). Bus 64 goes to Bundoran year round, twice on Thursdays and once on Sundays.
Bus Éireann’s 66 service runs to Sligo (£8, 1½ hours, five daily Monday to Saturday, two on Sundays) via Belcoo, and bus 30 between Dublin (£13, 2½ hours, seven daily Monday to Saturday, four Sunday) and Donegal (one hour) also stops in at Enniskillen and Belleek.
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AROUND ENNISKILLEN
Castle Coole
When King George IV visited Ireland in 1821, the second Earl of Belmore had a state bedroom specially prepared at Castle Coole in anticipation of the monarch’s visit. The king, however, was more interested in dallying with his mistress at Slane Castle and never turned up. The bedroom, draped in red silk and decorated with paintings depicting The Rake’s Progress (the earl’s sniffy riposte to the king’s extramarital shenanigans), is one of the highlights of the one-hour guided tour around Castle Coole ( 6632 2690; Dublin Rd, Enniskillen; adult/child £5/2; house noon-6pm daily Jul & Aug, 1-6pm Fri-Wed Jun, 1-6pm Sat, Sun & public hols mid-Mar–May & Sep; grounds 10am-8pm mid-Mar–Sep).
Designed by James Wyatt, this Palladian mansion was built between 1789 and 1795 for Armar Lowry-Corry, the first Earl of Belmore, and is probably the purest expression of late-18th-century neoclassical architecture in Ireland. It is built of silvery-white Portland stone, which was brought in at great expense from southern England – first sent by ship to Ballyshannon, then overland to Lough Erne, by boat again to Enniskillen, and finally by bullock cart for the last 3km.
Building costs of £70,000 nearly bankrupted the first earl, but that didn’t stop his son Somerset Lowry-Corry, the second earl, spending another £35,000 on exuberant Regency furnishings and decoration, best seen in the opulent, oval saloon where the family and friends would gather before dinner. The eighth Earl of Belmore, John Armar Lowry-Corry, reserves part of the house for his private use, but most of the building is under the care of the National Trust.
The 600 hectares of landscaped grounds (car/pedestrian £3.50/free) contain a lake that is home to the UK’s only nonmigratory colony of greylag geese. It is said that if the geese ever leave, the earls of Belmore will lose Castle Coole.
Castle Coole is on the A4 Dublin road, 2.5km southeast of Enniskillen. You can easily walk there from Enniskillen town centre in 30 minutes – beyond Dunnes Stores, fork left on Tempo Rd and keep straight on along Castlecoole Rd.
Sheelin Irish Lace Museum
This museum ( 6634 8052; www.irishlacemuseum.com; Bellanaleck; adult/child £4/1.50; 10am-6pm Mon-Sat) houses a collection of beautiful Irish lace dating from 1850 to 1900. Lace-making was an important cottage industry in the region both before and after the Famine – prior to WWI there were at least 10 lace schools in County Fermanagh. The museum is just over 6km southwest of Enniskillen in the village of Bellanaleck.
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UPPER LOUGH ERNE
About 80km long, Lough Erne is made up of two sections: the Upper Lough to the south of Enniskillen, and the Lower Lough to the north. The two are connected by the River Erne, which begins its journey in County Cavan and meets the sea at Donegal Bay west of Ballyshannon.
Upper Lough Erne is not so much a lake as a watery maze of islands (more than 150 of them), inlets, reedy bays and meandering backwaters. Bird life is abundant, with flocks of whooper swan and goldeneye overwintering here, great crested grebes nesting in the spring, and Ireland