Fermanagh Museum

The County Museum’s award winning displays ‘Country People, Country Places: The Making of a Landscape’ give an insight into Fermanagh’s natural history, archaeology and rural lifestyle. Life-like dioramas illustrate the natural habitats of Fermanagh, allowing visitors to identify the typical flora and wildlife found in woodland, bogland, meadows, limestone caves, and on the lake shores. Next comes the story of people’s place in this natural landscape, beginning in 6000BC with flint tools belonging to the earliest settlers in Fermanagh and continuing with vivid displays of models of prehistoric dwellings and numerous artefacts left by later settlers, of stone, bronze and gold.


^{Limestone Cave Display.} ^{© Fermanagh County Museum}	^{Mesolithic Hunters and Gatherers.} ^{© Fermanagh County Museum}

The traditional life style of 20th century rural people is illustrated, similar in many ways to that of their prehistoric ancestors. There is an authentic life-sized reconstruction of a family at work beside an open fire in a country kitchen; an adjoining display set in a byre and farmyard provides a backdrop for all the farm equipment of the day.. A history of lace craft includes that of the Fermanagh cottage industry of Inishmacsaint lace. The history of the celebrated Belleek Pottery is represented by examples of fine porcelain china, figures, vases, and ornaments and by a wide variety of earthenware pieces, all beautifully decorated. There are many examples of pottery with transfer-printed designs, and the copper plates used in the process of transfer printing are also displayed.


^{Fermanagh Country Kitchen.} ^{© Fermanagh County Museum}	^{Farmyard and Byre.} ^{© Fermanagh County Museum}

A short film can be viewed on request. ‘Enniskillen Today and Yesterday’ is the story of a market town told through the memories of its inhabitants. It explores the close relationship between Enniskillen and its rural hinterland and conveys something of the special character of Fermanagh and its people.