Explaining the name

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When I was a child, and into my teenage years, we used to spend a week or two of the summer holidays messing about in boats on Lough Erne in County Fermanagh, in the South-West corner of Northern Ireland. We would rent a motor cruiser and travel up and down the lough, mooring at small public jetties, or in the reeds and bull-rushes around one the small islands along the way. There are two loughs: the wider, rougher Lower Lough, North of Enniskillen, and above the lock gates, the Upper Lough, which is more a series of streams and tributaries than a lake. It is a incredibly beautiful place: serene, untroubled—a tad melancholic perhaps on an overcast day, too quiet for many, but one of the places where I have been the happiest in my life.

It is now a mental refuge, a place to retreat to, and to reflect. I shall forever be grateful to my parents for bringing us on these holidays, particularly to my mother who never loved the roll and sway of the boat, the cramped cabins and galley, and limited washing facilities, and who—as a non-swimmer—always feared for our safety, as we kids would jump on and off the boat to tie up, or row off round a corner in the dinghy to spot herons, or swim in the muddy brown water on the very rare days when the sun broke through the clouds.

The blogs are named after islands or shorelands on one of the two Loughs. Devenish island and Inismacsaint are both religious sites, dating from the 6th Century: Devenish is, as Wikipedia states, one of the finest monastic sites in Ireland, and probably in the world. Yet, in contrast to Glendalough for example, it is virtually unvisited: on most days we spent there, there was perhaps one other boat tied up.

Virtual Visit - Devenish Island Monastic Site - Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland

In nearly fifty years, I have never spent time in a more special place.

PS. If you are interested in following my stories after Devenish, check out some of the other island jetties on the Upper Lough.

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Devenish

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