Ireland day 1042. Monday 05 August 2024- Fermanagh Day 3

Today’s summary	In the morning, we visited Florence Court, another National Trust stately home near Enniskillen. In the afternoon, we had wanted to go down the Marble Arch Caves but they were closed after last night’s heavy rain. So went to Enniskillen and joined a boat trip to Devenish Island instead. It turned out to be a fantastic cruise down the River Erne with the added bonus of a quick look round the fascinating Monastic site (and tower) on the island.
Today’s weather	Torrential rain all night until about noon. Brighter in the afternoon with some sunny intervals. Strong southerly wind. Appx 17c

Today’s overview location (The green mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where we sailed) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Devenish Island Boat Trip

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

Today turned out well, despite a slightly disappointing start. Our plan for the day had been first to visit the Marble Arch caves, and then to drop into Florence Court – another National Trust mansion situated only a few minutes’ drive from the caves. But just before we were about to set off, we got a call from the caves to say that the tour we had booked on had been cancelled. The last 22 hours’ solid rain had flooded the caves, so they were temporarily closed to visitors.

But we were determined to make the best of the day, so we first headed over to Florence Court, and then booked ourselves onto a boat tour from Enniskillen – only about 15 minutes away from Florence Court – on Lough Erne to the monastic village on Devenish Island.

So we headed off to Florence Court and joined a quick tour (well it lasted over an hour but was quicker that yesterday’s 2 hour epic round Castle Coole). It was all very interesting, but I have to say it wasn’t as interesting as its Coole cousin – somewhat smaller and seemingly a bit less preserved, especially in the undercroft. The gardens were however beautiful and interesting. Though we closely avoided decapitation when a gardener’s van drove past us, caught its roof on an oak branch, which catapulted back and nearly took our heads off when the vehicle moved on. Luckily no harm was done (though we did report the incident) and we had a good look round the attractive walled garden. We also admired Rose Cottage, formerly occupied by the Head Gardener, and now available to rent as a holiday let from the National Trust.

From Florencecourt we drove on to Enniskillen and jumped on the waiting MV Kestrel which took us serenely gliding down the River Erne into Lower Lough Erne. Our destination was Devenish Island, host to a thousand-year old Monastic Village, not dissimilar to that in Glendalough. We only had about 45 minutes on the island, but it was enough to get the feel of the place, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially as by this stage as the sun had come out and it was actually pleasantly warm, dry, and vivid fresh green after the rain.

Tonight has been a re-run of the last two: Olympics on the TV, with a Kerrigan’s butcher’s oven-meal to accompany it, and the perhaps a bit later a stroll down to Upper Lough Erne, which is just at the bottom of our garden.

All in all a great day, and perhaps Plan B was, in this case, even better than Plan A.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Florence Court – another fine Palladian-style mansion	Amazing stucco ceiling in the dining room – when there was a fire here in 1954 the water from the fire hoses in the room above it almost brought the ceiling down. But someone thought to quickly drill some holes in the ceiling so the water drained harmlessly away

Waterwheel at Florence Court, driving a sawmill. It still works!	Amazing robotic lawnmower. Must be GPS-assisted as it just chugs away on its own and all the strips are absolutely perfectly parallel

On the MV Kestrel heading downstream on the Erne under one of Enniskillen’s eight bridges (it is the only city in Ireland built on an island)	The abbey, with the 800-year old round tower in the background, on Devenish Island. The tower is said to be the best preserved in Ireland

In the magnificent stucco-ed stairwell at Florence Court