�The Medieval Kingdom of Lough Erne�
by Dr Katherine Simms, Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at Trinity College, Dublin
The present county of Fermanagh certainly takes its name from the Fir Manach of earlier times, a people occupying the comparatively fertile land between modern Enniskillen and Lisnaskea, ruled at first by the � hEignigh family among others, and later by the Maguires. Nevertheless, readers of Fr Livingstone�s The Fermanagh Story will hardly need reminding that many other population groups shared the territory now contained within a single county boundary. It was Lough Erne itself that shaped the area and gave it unity, and Lough Erne was then spoken of as one continuous stretch of water from Beleek to Belturbet. For the Irish, the �Upper Lake� was Lough Oughter in Co Cavan. It is a sign that the kings of the Fir Manach had extended their power far beyond the Enniskillen-Lisnaskea area, beyond the modern baronies of Tirkennedy and Magherastephana, when we find that the first Maguire chiefs are referred to in contemporary documents as �King of Lough Erne� in 1297, �and chief of the Irish of Lough Erne� in 1314.
However the great lake was not always the heart of a separate kingdom in this way. In the early period, certainly up to 818AD, it formed a boundary between the provinces of Connacht and Ulster. Under that year the Annals of Ulster preserve an entry which tells us that materials for roofing an oratory were transported across the frozen lake �from the lands of Connacht to the land of U� Creamhthainn�. The U� Creamhthainn were the western group of kingdoms belonging to the loosely-knit Airghialla peoples of Ulster. It seems that their power centred on the great ring-fort beside the town of Clogher, R�ith M�r Muighe Leamhna. Since the original Fir Manach of the Enniskillen-Lisnaskea formed a part of this group kingdom, politically speaking they faced inwards towards Clogher and turned their backs on the lake, at that time a no-mans land between two territories, the kind of location typically used for church foundations in early Ireland.
This state of affairs however, was already on the point of changing by the beginning of the ninth century. In 827AD the group-kingdom of the U� Creamhthainn suffered a shattering defeat at the hands of Niall Caille, king of Aileach, later to become High-King. The Fir Manach and other small territories along the shore of Lough Erne came under the overlordship of the Northern U� N�ill. So irresistible was the expanding power of Aileach, that the western side of the lake was eventually forced to submit also. The frontier of Ulster was pushed back to Lough Melvin, and the Lower Lake at anyrate became a channel of communication rather than a borderline. This is the picture presented to us by the Book of Rights, a work apparently composed in Munster in the second half of the 11th century. The king of Aileach is said to claim a direct tribute from the men of Lurg, occupying the northern shore of the Lower Lake. Similarly the men of Tuath R�tha, now the barony of Magheraboy on the western shore, are directly subject to Aileach. By contrast, the Fir Manach are still members of the federation of Airghialla and pay no tribute, though the Airghialla themselves owe a political allegiance to Aileach. In other words, the population groups around the lake might now belong to the province of Ulster and come under the single over-lordship of the northern U� N�ill, but they were not linked one to another. In the second half of the 11th century the lake was not yet the heart of a sub-kingdom.
Turning to the annals for this period, it seems clear that the Fir Manach, who occupied the most fertile land along the lake shore, were the most powerful among the neighbouring populations, for their rulers sometimes bear the title �high-king of the Airghialla�. No doubt this meant little more than that they dominated their own immediate area, as the other kings to whom this title was applied dominated the areas of Monaghan or Armagh. In the late 11th and early 12th centuries the Fir Manach are seen to be locked in a three-cornered struggle against the O Rourkes of Breifne in the province of Connacht and against the peoples of T�r Eoghain, followers of the king of Aileach. Presumably they were striving to prevent the men of Connacht from recapturing the western shores of the lake, while to the north they were trying to extend their influence over the men of Lurg, drawing them away from the direct control of the king of Aileach. The successful outcome of this struggle would lay the foundations of Fermanagh as we know it today.
The annals simply record the battles, without explaining their political consequences, but something can be deduced from looking at the ever-changing boundaries of the new diocese of Clogher in the 12th and early 13th centuries, a question that has been studied in some detail by H J Lawlor and Fr Gwynn. By the late 13th century, after switching its episcopal see from Clogher to Louth and back again, after splitting in two and rejoining, stretching its boundary as far north as Ardstraw in Co Tyrone and retracting, the diocese seems to have settled down to include at its western end the church lands attached to St Patrick�s Purgatory in Lough Derg, and all the modern Co Fermanagh except for the barony of Knockninny and part of Clanawley, the lands west of the Upper Lake. Apparently, these were still a part of Breifne in Connach. Evidence that the territories in the rest of Fermanagh were now linked politically as well as ecclesiastically comes when the Annals of Connaught first use the title �King of Lough Erne� in 1234. What is more surprising is that the man who bears this title, Aonghus Mac Giolla Fhinn�in (�Leonard� in the modern form), was not descended from the original Fir Manach at all, but came from the western, ex-Connacht, side of the lake. The old ruling dynasties of Fir Manach, � hEignigh, � Duibh Dara, � Maoil Ruanaidh, disappear at this time, and are never heard of again. Having fought for a century and a half to create the kingdom of Lough Erne, also called at this time the �seven tuatha of the Fir Manach�, they were not to reap the fruits of their labours.
The Rise of the Maguire Family
All over Ulster it is the same story. Suddenly the old royal families died out completely or lapsed into obscurity. In their place new dynasties rose to prominence, whose names are still familiar today � O Donnells, O Neills, O Hanlons, MacMahons, Maguires. The only likely explanation for such a widespread and simultaneous alteration is the fall of the MacLochlainn kings of Aileach, first defeated by the influence of the High-King Ruaidhri O Conor and then caught between the O Neills and the Norman Invaders. From the 9th to the 12th centuries the other kings in Ulster reigned in the shadow of the over-kingdom of Aileach. When it disappeared overnight, a whole network of traditional alliances and dynasties seems to have dissolved.
During this period of anarchy the newly-created kingdom of Lough Erne was snatched from hand to hand. In 1185 the king of T�r Conaill brought a fleet of English allies from his own territory into the Lake to plunder the surrounding lands and force their inhabitants to submit. In 1207 another king of T�r Conaill invaded only to be defeated by Niall MacMahon, chief of the Monaghan area, who led both his own subjects and the Fir Manach to battle, acting as overlords of the two districts. Even after the MacMahons lost their hold on the rest of Fermanagh, they continued to rule the eastern barony of Clankelly up to the late 15th century. Meanwhile in 1211, a first determined attempt by the Anglo-Normans was beaten off by the joint efforts of O Donnell, O Neill and MacMahon, and the castles they built at Belleek and Clones were destroyed. More...
