Enniskillen’s Biscuit Ford
Archived: 17 October 2026
Abstract
In 1594, a struggle centred on Enniskillen turned a dispute over crown authority in Fermanagh into a warning of a wider Irish war. The year is conventionally treated as the opening of the Nine Years’ War, though that label should not obscure how local its immediate stakes were. Hugh Maguire, lord of Fermanagh, was defending a lordship threatened by sheriffs, garrisons and the prospect of a Monaghan-style land settlement. Yet his allies included Hugh Roe O’Donnell of Tír Chonaill and men connected to Hugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone. Their success on the Arney River showed that the English administration could