Housed in the very castle of Enniskillen, the Fermanagh County Museum is the thematic gateway to the history of the Plantation in Fermanagh. Its site — a medieval Maguire castle endowed with a Plantation Watergate — is already, on its own, a condensed image of the county's history.
A museum in a castle
The museum occupies the castle of Enniskillen, where two eras are superimposed: the medieval keep of the Maguires, Gaelic lords of Fermanagh, and the twin-turreted Watergate of the Plantation, built by the colonists in the seventeenth century. The site itself is therefore the centrepiece: walking through it, one reads the turning of the county, from Gaelic power to Jacobean colonisation. This exceptional setting makes the museum far more than a place of exhibition — a monument inhabited by the history it tells.
The history of the Plantation
The museum's collections and interpretation cover the great chapters of Fermanagh's history in our period: the history of the Maguires, the Nine Years' War, and above all the Plantation in Fermanagh — a theme to which the museum devotes a dedicated trail ('Plantation in Fermanagh', 'Plantation Castles'). It is here that one understands the context of the castles scattered around Lough Erne: Monea, Tully, Portora, Castle Balfour, Old Castle Archdale. The museum thus offers the key to reading a whole colonial landscape, linking the scattered ruins into a coherent narrative. To see: the interpretation of the Plantation in Fermanagh, the Watergate, the local history collections, the Maguire keep.
Did you know?
To understand the Plantation castles scattered in the Fermanagh countryside — Monea, Tully, Portora and the others —, the best is to begin at Enniskillen: the Fermanagh County Museum there tells, in a single place, the whole history of the county, from the power of the Maguires to the colonisation. The castle that houses it is itself the best of the exhibits: a Gaelic keep topped by a colonists' water gate, two worlds united under one roof.
Notes
The Fermanagh County Museum lies at Enniskillen Castle, Enniskillen, County Fermanagh; a museum open to the public. Hours to check.
Quiz
- Where is the Fermanagh County Museum housed?
- In Enniskillen Castle
- In a cathedral
- In a Victorian manor
- Which theme does the museum highlight?
- The Plantation in Fermanagh
- The Roman conquest
- The Viking era only
- What does the castle site superimpose?
- A medieval Maguire keep and a Plantation Watergate
- Two Roman temples
- Nothing old