Loch Erne and Loch Ree are not only the most beautiful, but the most
historic of the great lakes of Ireland. Loch Neagh is larger than either
of them, and Loch Dearg and Loch Corrib are probably nearly as large; but
none of those three is as picturesque as either of the two first-mentioned
lakes. The shores of Loch Dearg are bolder and more mountainous than those
of either Loch Erne or Loch Ree, but Loch Dearg lacks the island-studded
surface of the two latter, which is their great charm. Whether Loch Erne
or Loch Ree is the more beautiful is not easy to decide. Both are as
beautiful sheets of water as can be easily found, but both lack mountain
scenery in the true sense of the phrase. There are some high lands on the
lower part of Loch Erne, but they can hardly be called mountains. In
number and variety of its islands, Loch Erne is only surpassed by that
famous lake on the vast St Lawrence, known as the Thousand Isles.
[Illustration: VIEW ON UPPER LOCH ERNE.]
Loch Erne is certainly the most peculiar and also the longest lake in
Ireland. From where it may be said to begin, near Belturbet in the County
Cavan, to where it ceases to be a lake, and pours its waters into the sea
through the river Erne, it is fully thirty-five miles long in a bird line.
Its peculiarity consists in its extraordinary beginnings, and the number
of its islands. Its beginnings are winding, mazy, and, on the map, almost
untraceable water ways, that twist and turn in almost every direction
through swamps and bogs, with no attraction save for the sportsman in
pursuit of water fowl. As one approaches Enniskillen the glories of Loch
Erne commence. There is nothing in the shape of mountains to be seen, but
they are not missed; for such is the beauty of green round hills on both
sides, and such the wondrous number and variety of the islands, that if
there were mountains as lofty as the Alps in view, one could hardly spare
time to look at them. The islands seem innumerable, and the shores are so
indented with bays, and the lake itself so pierced by jutting headlands,
that on sailing on Loch Erne it is often impossible to know an island from
a peninsula, or a peninsula from an island. There is certainly no lake in
Ireland or in Great Britain whose shores are so indented as are those of
Loch Erne. The great charm of its shores and islands is their roundness
and their greenness. They are not low or swampy, but high and swelling,
forming scenes of quiet, and, it might be said, pastoral beauty, on which
one could gaze for days and weeks without tiring. Variety of the most
striking kind is one of the peculiarities of Loch Erne. It begins in
tortuous, narrow, confused bog streams. It then assumes its fairest
aspect, studded with innumerable islands, and sometimes so narrowed by
far-entering promontories that it is in some places only a few hundred
yards wide; but as it spreads northwards it gets wider and wider, until at
last it is like a great inland sea, seven or eight miles wide. If finer
views may be had of Loch Ree than of Loch Erne, in variety of scenery,
number of islands, and startling contrasts, Loch Erne is without a rival
among Irish lakes. If it and Loch Ree had the mountains of Killarney,
Killarney might well tremble for the fame it enjoys of being the most
beautiful of Irish lakes.
Loch Erne is divided into upper and lower lakes. The clean and thriving
town of Enniskillen is situated on the straight, or narrow river, that
joins the two lakes; but it may be said that there are not two lakes, but
only one, for Enniskillen is situated where the lake narrows into what
might be called a river, but a river full of islands and bays, just as the
upper lake is. Its multitude of islands is the charm of Loch Erne. The
best authorities say that there are a hundred and nine islands in the
lower lake, and ninety in the upper. It is a shame that a small steam-boat
does not ply regularly, at least in summer time, from one end of this
noble sheet of water to the other. If Loch Erne, with its marvellous
variety and beauty of scenery, were in any other European country, there
would be not one but half-a-dozen steam-boats on it. It is strange that
the inhabitants of Enniskillen do not make an effort to establish a line
of light draft-steamers on Loch Erne that would ply on both upper and
lower lakes. A small steamer does sometimes, according to report, ply in
the summer between Enniskillen and Beleek; but it does not appear that any
steamer has ever navigated the waters of the upper lake, which is the more
picturesque of the two. Nothing could more plainly show the backward
condition of Ireland than the fact that there is no regular line of
passenger steam-boats either on the Upper Shannon or on Loch Erne.
Tourists, or those in search of picturesque localities, will never go to
places where there is not proper accommodation for them. No matter how
beautiful the scenery may be, it will not be visited by any large number
of people unless they can have comforts in travelling and lodging.
Switzerland attracts more rich people to visit it in summer-time than any
other country in the world; but, with all its marvellous beauties of
mountain, lake, and river, it would never attract the multitudes that go
there every year if they did not find good travelling and good hotel
accommodation. In Switzerland there are steam-boats on every lake and on
every river where there are beautiful sights to be seen. There are lakes
in it that are visited every year by crowds of tourists, who would find
sights as beautiful on Loch Erne or on Loch Ree, and who would visit those
lakes if they knew that they could find on their waters, or on their
shores, the travelling comforts and the hotel comforts they find in
Switzerland. It has to be frankly admitted that the reason why the
beauties of Ireland are so comparatively little known is largely owing to
the Irish themselves. Let them provide better accommodation for the
travelling public, and Ireland will attract people who heretofore have
never visited it.
Loch Erne is, as has been already stated, thirty-five miles long, and is
navigable, or could with very little expense be made navigable, for light
draft steam-boats all that distance. If there is anything in the shape of
an aquatic excursion that could be really delightful, it would be a sail
on Loch Erne, especially on the narrow waters of the upper lake, where, on
the windiest day, the most nervous or the most delicate would have nothing
to fear from a rough sea, as they would on Loch Ree or on Loch Dearg,
where the water is sometimes very far from smooth, even in summer. On Loch
Erne, especially on the upper lake, change of scene takes place every
minute. It is a continual surprise of green islands, flowery promontories,
swelling hills, and tortuous passages, and is on a fine summer or autumn
day something to enchant even the most indifferent to the beauties of
nature.
It is really deplorable that not alone the antiquities but the beauties of
Ireland are not better known to people of other countries. They never can
be known as they should be until better facilities for knowing them are to
be had. Much has been done of late in providing better hotel
accommodation, and much more will be done in the same line before long. Up
to a few years ago it was impossible to find an hotel where any
respectable person would like to stay in some of the most beautiful places
and amid some of the grandest scenery of Donegal, Mayo, and Kerry; but
there are now dozens of hotels in those localities where the most
fastidious will find all the comforts they could reasonably expect. But
the internal navigation of the country is fearfully neglected. The
peculiar glory, or at least one of the principal attractions of Ireland in
a scenic point of view, is its lakes and rivers. No other country perhaps
in the world, of equal size, has such an abundance of lakes and rivers;
but in no country, except it may be Finnland or Central Africa, are so few
steam-boats to be seen on inland waters. It was right to move first in the
direction of good hotel accommodation, but the next move ought to be to
provide passenger steam-boats to ply on the great waters of such noble
lakes as Loch Erne, Loch Corrib, Loch Ree, and Loch Dearg, and on all the
waters of the Upper Shannon. It is to be hoped that the present sad want
of accommodation on Irish lakes and rivers will be of short duration, for
the people of Ireland seem to be awakening to the knowledge not only that
they have a country, but that it is one of the most beautiful countries in
the world.
But Loch Erne has attractions besides its multitudinous islands, its
jutting promontories, winding shores, and encircling hills. It has
attractions for the antiquarian as well as for the lover of nature.
One of the most ancient of Ireland's ancient round towers stands on
Devinish Island, in the upper lake. It is one of the most perfect, if it
is not one of the highest, round towers in the country. There would be no
use in speculating on its age, for we are generally left completely in the
dark as to the time of the erection of round towers. There are many
allusions to them in Irish annals, but the time of the building of them is
mentioned only in a few places. The first mention of Devinish by the Four
Masters is in A.D. 721, telling of the death of one of its abbots.
Devinish, spelled correctly, _Daimhinis_, means "ox island." A Christian
church was erected on it at a very early date, probably during the
lifetime of St Patrick, for we are told in ancient Annals that Molaise,
who appears to have been the first abbot of the monastery that was there,
died in 563. A Latin life of St Aeden says that Molaise "ruled many monks
in an island in _Stagno Erne_, called Daimhinis by the Irish." It was
plundered and burnt many times by the Danes, or some other Northmen, but
almost devastated by them in 836, and at other times; it was burnt in 1157
and in 1360. It seems, not like Glendaloch, Monasterboice, and many other
places that were abandoned at an early date, to have had a church or
monastery on it until the beginning of the seventeenth century. The last
mention of it by the Four Masters is under the year 1602.