Lough Erne
Archived: 20 October 2026
Abstract
A Winter Made PassableFor Ireland, 1435 opened in a landscape temporarily remade by cold. The annals call it an exceptional frost: lakes and rivers were hard enough to be crossed on solid ice. The Annals of Ulster add an unusually vivid detail from Fermanagh. When Eóghan Ó Néill entered the region with an army, the people of Fir Manach moved cattle, horses carrying loads and other portable goods westward across Lough Erne—not in boats, but over the frozen lake. This was not merely a picturesque curiosity. It changed the practical geography of a frontier lordship. Water that normally protected communities,