Enniskillen TOWN with Nicholas Crane

I've seen towns grow into cities,

I've seen towns with their hearts ripped out.

Every town has its own tales of triumph and catastrophe.

All of them face challenges.

Smaller than a city, more intimate, much greener,

towns are where we first learned to be urban.

Harbour towns, market towns, islands towns, industrial towns.

Collectively, they bind our land together.

As a geographer, I believe that towns are communities of the future.

This time I'm in beautiful Enniskillen,

the most westerly town in the whole of the UK.

This Northern Irish county town suffered the terrible Remembrance Day bombing in 1987.

But today it's a thriving country town

known as the Venice of Ireland, surrounded by lakes,

busy with independent shops and forward-thinking entrepreneurs.

It's also the only island town in Ireland.

Strategically placed, naturally defensive,

it has always attracted invaders.

In Enniskillen I'll be discovering how this Irish castle stronghold

remains a town steeped in tradition.

The family have had the shop for 100 years from 1912

and I've been here for 40 years.

I'll see what tricks Enniskillen has in store for trainee jockeys...

I'm going to turn her on.

You'll get a feel of how she moves.

-Whoo! Ha!

-Just sit! Just sit!

-All right.

..and I'll find out why this town, in post-Troubles Northern Ireland,

is fighting a new threat.

It's a beautiful part of the world.

We have hills and valleys and lakes

and I just didn't want that to be destroyed.

Join me on a journey to discover the turbulent past,

the intriguing present, and the dynamic future of towns.

I'm flying over County Fermanagh. Below me is Upper Lough Erne,

which leads into Lower Lough Erne.

Between the two, on its very own island,

sits the town of Enniskillen.

The natural beauty surrounding this town is unlike anything in the UK.

It is breathtaking. Extraordinary.

But Enniskillen, set in this watery paradise,

has lived through the hardest of times.

It was the scene of one of the most shocking atrocities

of Northern Ireland's Troubles.

On the 8th November 1987,

one of the worst bombings of the Troubles brought unimaginable horror to this quiet country town.

It was Remembrance Sunday, crowds had gathered by the war memorial

to honour the laying of wreaths,

to remember the dead of two World Wars

and to observe two minutes' silence.

But at 10:43am, a bomb exploded.

The Remembrance Day bombing, carried out by the Provisional IRA,

killed 11 people in Enniskillen that day,

left 63 injured and plunged the town into deep shock and distress.

Pictures of a heartbroken community were beamed around the world.

It was the kind of notoriety no town would ever wish for.

But the bombing in Enniskillen is now seen as one of the watershed

incidents in the peace process that transformed Northern Ireland.

Catholics and Protestants united in their revulsion,

and despite their pain, the people of Enniskillen

showed the world what is meant by the word "courage".

Nowadays, the campaigns of terror are in the past

but that doesn't mean Enniskillen wants to forget its history.

Far from it.

It's a quiet September afternoon and a troop of strangely-costumed

players are making their way through the town.

BAGPIPES PLAY

These are the Aughakillymaude Mummers,

a band of folk players who have an interesting take

on some aspects of Northern Ireland's troubled past.

Here comes I, Prince George!

From England I have came!

AUDIENCE BOOS

-What's going on, Jim?

-This is a Mummers play about life,

death and rebirth.

And that's symbolised by the two heroes - St George of England,

who we don't like here...

And then back to Ireland to conquer again!

-Go back where you came from!

-AUDIENCE BOOS

..and Sir Patrick of Ireland, the more braver, glorious.

He beats the life out of St George, down he goes...

..only to be revived by the shaman, quack doctor.

And fight again!

So it's symbolising life, death and rebirth all in one.

And then of course you have the music and the dance.

Where do these incredible straw costumes come from?

We grow them each year.

It has to be harvested traditionally to get a long straw stalk

in order to plait the hats.

So the longer the straw the better.

And then we have four or five straw craft workers,

who all gather together to make the costumes.

And at the end of the Mumming season, Nick, they're burnt.

So you have to make a new set of costumes each year?

Yes. Anyway the mice will eat them anyway.

FOLK MUSIC PLAYS

The Mumming tradition dates back to the 12th century in Ireland

and provides a symbolic way of dealing with the age-old Irish-English conflict.

You don't see many folk traditions

that strike such a chord in the 21st century.

CHEERING

During the Troubles, Enniskillen suffered along with many other

communities in Northern Ireland but now it's looking forward.

But I wonder how does an island town on the edge of the UK

re-invent itself in a world that has moved on?

Has Enniskillen been set back several decades?

Or has it been preserved from urban developments

that have sapped the life out of so many towns across the UK?

I want to know is this town stuck in the past

or can it show us the future?

Going back in time,

this town has a romantic history as well as a troubled one.

Enniskillen and its county, Fermanagh,

had a key role in ancient Ireland.

This island was a place of huge strategic value,

also renowned for music and poetry.

It had great castles and benevolent rulers.

It was very much part of the land of the bards.

Enniskillen's place at the heart of Fermanagh began with a castle.

In the early 15th century, the Gaelic rulers of Fermanagh,

the Maguires, built a stone tower house here on Inis Ceithleann.

It was a clever choice of location.

From here on the island they could control trade

between Upper and Lower Lough Erne

and guard one of the only passes into Ulster.

And it was on a major pilgrimage route

so there were always people passing through.

It was also surrounded by water so it was a perfect defensive location.

Enniskillen was the strategic hot spot.

The member of the Maguire clan who built the first castle here

at Enniskillen was known for his good humour and welcoming nature.

So much so that he was known as Hugh the Hospitable.

Hugh was the younger brother of a Maguire chieftain, Thomas the Great.

As a family they were extremely successful.

The Maguires ruled Fermanagh for more than 300 years,

from the end of the 13th century until the beginning of the 17th century.

They supported great bards,

poets who wrote elegies celebrating Maguire lands,

Maguire generosity and Maguire exploits in battle.

Enniskillen came to be seen as the heart of the Maguire empire.

It was described by one 16th century bard as,

"The fairy castle of surpassing treasure with glistening bays,

"overhanging oaks and hunting dogs driving deer from the wood."

But there was a price to pay for being in such a perfect location.

The Maguire castle frequently attracted trouble.

Throughout the 16th century Enniskillen Castle

was attacked time and again by neighbouring chieftains -

the O'Donnells of Donegal and the O'Neills of Tyrone.

But despite the repeated onslaughts, it remained in Maguire hands.

All that would change, however, when Elizabeth I, a foreigner,

set her sights on Ireland.

The Virgin Queen feared that Philip of Spain would use Ireland

as a base to mount an attack on England.

To counter the threat,

Elizabeth launched a ruthless campaign to conquer Ireland.

On the 26th January 1594, English forces reached Enniskillen Castle

and laid siege to the Maguire stronghold.

A first-hand account of the siege,

written by English Captain John Dowdall, reveals what happened next.

"The ninth day of our siege of Enniskillen, we did assault

"the castle by boats, by engines by sap and by scaling."

The weakened Irish garrison were completely overwhelmed.

Dowdall had one of his men record, in astonishing detail, the English triumph.

And here it is.

Out here on the water there's an armoured galley

approaching the castle. There are two more boats firing shot,

another armoured boat down here, breaching the wall.

There are batteries of siege engines surrounding the castle.

Ranks of massed infantry.

This was the climax of a scorched earth campaign of extreme barbarity.

Here's Dowdall himself, drawn out of scale, the conquering giant.

But the part of this map that draws the eye, that says it all,

is this sickening vignette in the corner.

It's Dowdall's camp and in it are the severed heads of Maguire's men.

It was the end of the idyllic land of the bards.

On the ninth day, the Maguires surrendered their castle to the English.

Following the Elizabethan campaign, the Irish earls were left

with reduced powers and income,

the Maguire chieftain, along with the other Ulster earls, fled Ireland in 1607 looking for Spanish support.

They would never return.

Their lands were confiscated and the Plantation of Ulster began in earnest.

Plantation had nothing to do with crops.

The Plantation of Ulster was initiated to plant

Scots and English Protestants on confiscated Irish land

in order to protect it for the crown

and to minimise the risk of native rebellion.

The man charged with building the town was a professional soldier

from London, his name was William Cole.

As constable of the Royal Fort in Enniskillen,

Cole was expected to construct a church, a jail,

a school and a market hall, all of them on the island.

He rebuilt the castle and added that impressive water gate.

And he paid for all the bricks, the roof tiles

and the timber needed for the new town.

William Cole was granted 1,000 acres of land across the county

and his descendents were made Earls of Enniskillen.

Cole's grandson built a great house eight miles from the town,

the spectacular Florence Court,

where the family lived until the 1970s.

Take one look at a house like this and you realise the wealth,

privilege and confidence that planters could acquire.

Enniskillen was built by an English constable

and so it looks rather like an English town.

Plantation towns were typically composed

of a cross of broad streets enclosed by a town wall

with a central marketplace known as a diamond.

Enniskillen follows that pattern up to a point

but it does have some significant differences.

Because Enniskillen was built on an island,

the layout of the town had to respect the local geography.

There was only room for one main street

and it wasn't particularly wide

because the builders had to keep to the high ridge

along the centre of the island.

They decided to place the town's most important buildings

and the town square, the diamond,

on the highest point,

both for prominence and to protect them from flooding.

There was no need for a town wall

because Enniskillen was surrounded by water already, a natural moat.

The main street in Enniskillen changes name six times

along its length as it crosses the island.

It starts as East Bridge Street then becomes Town Hall Street,

High Street, Church Street, Darling Street and finally Anne Street.

It's almost as if all the town's early streets were set

end-to-end rather than being laid out in a grid.

Perhaps another quirk of island town-building.

And although at first sight, the main street

seems like a bewildering succession of shops that go on forever,

I have a theory about this street and I'm going to put it to the test.

Way back in time, towns used to organise their activities

into districts or neighbourhoods - leatherworkers in one area,

metalworkers in another, food, cloth and so on.

But what happens if a town doesn't have a grid or web of streets,

just one very long single main street?

Do similar activities still congregate in clusters?

I think they might.

I think there may be a pattern to the shops

and businesses in Enniskillen's main street.

So I'm going to take a walk with my notebook and see if I'm right.

Starting here, on East Bridge Street,

since it's one of the two main entrances into town,

perhaps it's not surprising that I can already see a cluster

of gateway businesses.

There's one, two, three, four estate agents.

One, two, three solicitors.

All of them the kinds of businesses you need

first if you're thinking of buying into town.

Next off, we seem to have a health district -

two health food shops and Dr Dong's Chinese Clinic.

Then there's a civic zone - the court office and facing it,

the offices of the county's main newspaper,

the wonderfully titled Impartial Reporter.

A journalistic mission statement and brand name all in one!

Now it's become Townhall Street.

I think I know what's coming next.

Walking up the main street,

I can't help noticing that nearly all the shops are independent.

There's not even a coffee shop chain or restaurant chain in sight.

For the last 100 yards or so

I've been climbing up through a lifestyle zone - hardware, phones, sportswear.

All the kind of businesses that serve a busy, modern lifestyle.

But still very few of those amorphous national chains

that dominate so many British high streets.

And there's a jewellery quarter here too -

two independent shops selling rings and watches

for those special occasions.

The shops are getting fancier as we climb the hill.

Indications that we're closing on the spot most people would call their town centre.

And here it is. The town square, known as the Diamond.

Looming above it this imposing town hall.

Just over there a great big independent department store.

Look, there's Enniskillen's Post Office.

And this grand-looking pub, Pat's Bar, right in the middle of town.

Looks like the kind of place you might come and meet people.

Now there's a wardrobe zone -

places to buy clothes, a gentleman's outfitters, specs.

And there's a change of name to reflect the street's change of status.

It's become High Street.

Heading down the hill, I feel as if we're entering the traditional zone

where you find the kind of businesses that have been

serving Fermanagh's country shoppers for generations.

'This is a very distinctive high street'

so who are the people running these businesses?

And how do they keep their customers coming back?

How long have you had a shop on this part of the High Street?

The family have had the shop for 100 years. 1912.

-I've been here for 40 years.

-How long have you been here?

We've been here 44 years, in this location.

Before that we were over 100 years in another location.

We've been established since 1943. My father-in-law started it up.

We're newcomers to the game cos we only opened in '79.

Oh, really? OK.

So we're surrounded by businesses that are going 50,

60 and 100 years, you know.

So what's the secret?

How does an independent shop survive for so long in this day and age?

We are very service orientated.

Any customer who comes in to this shop, they're looked after,

they're spoken to and if it's not on our shelves, we'll get it for them.

I think our service in Enniskillen is outstanding.

You have to move with the times.

I mean, what we have for sale on our counter today

isn't what was for sale 5, 10, 15 years ago, you know.

How do you manage to keep customers coming back over and over again?

We manage by keeping on top, being friendly to people,

trying to get the best product at the best price

and hopefully people have a good experience.

We look after our customers very well and once

we get to know our customers, we're on first name terms, which is nice.

And also, the food is made on the premises daily, fresh every day.

Our daughter starts at 5.30.

So she has an early start and she's into food and my staff,

I have a wonderful team.

-It's a happy atmosphere, isn't it?

-Yes.

Very happy. That's why we're called the Jolly Sandwich!

I feel as if I've just stepped back in time.

So many of Enniskillen's shops seem rooted in a lost age,

they've been here for so long.

But this isn't a stagnant street, the stock is modern,

it changes, the windows beckon you in.

This is what high streets used to be like -

shops with character, run by characters,

customers known by their first names,

offering that forgotten commodity, service with a smile.

This town is not like anywhere else and that's incredibly attractive.

Walking up hill again and here the Main Street becomes

Church Street, the town's area of worship.

It may seem surprising

but there are a cluster of churches here all together,

Catholic on the right, Church of Ireland on the left and Methodist straight ahead.

These are the most impressive buildings in town,

almost squaring up to one another across the street.

I'm in Darling Street now,

and it seems to mark a final change of zone.

The street's tipping downhill

and somehow it all looks a lot less active.

Ordinary houses are cropping up between shops.

There are a couple of funeral directors,

a cabbie, a second-hand shop.

It feels more like the way out of town, rather than the way in.

It's almost as if you can live a whole life in this street,

from buying into town at one end

to being carried off in a coffin at the other.

So that's Enniskillen High Street.

138 shops and businesses in all.

Everything you could possibly need is on this one street.

Today, really all that's on the island is the high street.

Where do people live? Well, most of them live off the island.

But it wasn't always like that.

Up until the late 1960s, behind the main street of shops

were densely-packed residential areas known as the back streets.

The old photos in the town hall show a close community,

two-up two-down houses, children playing out in the street.

But it seems that all the houses were knocked down.

The back streets were demolished as part of a slum clearance

programme in the '60s and '70s

and all the residents were moved off the island to new housing estates.

Today, those areas are covered with car parks and a ring road.

Enniskillen lost its communities from the heart of town.

The main street remains but that's all that's left.

You hear it time and again across the UK,

slums were cleared in the name of progress

and better living conditions.

But tight-knit communities were often lost as well

and I think that was detrimental to our towns.

I feel very torn about Enniskillen and its car parks.

I can see that ample car parking, much of it free,

brings a steady stream of customers to the high street.

The people out of town, out in the county

and from further afield need somewhere to park.

Being able to drop the car right behind all those traditional shops

is good for local business.

It's good for the character of the town.

But I can't help thinking that the handling of the back streets could have been done much better.

It's town planning without the planning.

If those houses hadn't been demolished,

the communities moved out, then the original island of Enniskillen

would still be a place to live.

Homes have been traded for car parks and a ring road, for steel and tarmac.

It might look like an amenity but it feels like a loss.

It's disappointing.

Apart from Enniskillen, islands in both Upper and Lower Lough Erne have long been inhabited.

It's not just Enniskillen that has had a population

moving on and off the island.

Devenish Island, just downstream from Enniskillen,

was an important monastic community founded in the sixth century

and raided by the Vikings.

There are several early Celtic sites on islands in the Lower Lough.

A Hare Krishna community on one island,

and a luxury holiday resort named Lusty Beg on another.

Most extraordinary of all,

I've heard there's one island only populated by pigs.

The pigs on the island belong to one of Enniskillen's butchers, Pat Doherty.

And his shop in the town has become famous

for the Black Bacon he produces.

So where did your Black Bacon come from? Where did you get the idea?

The idea about the Fermanagh Black Bacon came about ten years ago

and it actually came from, basically,

the request of just one customer coming in here.

And she just said one day,

"You just can't get real Irish bacon any more."

And I said, "If you come back on Friday, I promise you, missus,

"we will have the real bacon."

She came back on Friday

and it was one of the only promises I've ever broken!

THEY LAUGH

So I said at that stage that I would make a quest

to try to regenerate what old Irish bacon was in yesteryear.

So what makes Black Bacon so special?

Well, there's three main ingredients.

The first thing is the salt and the spices and the herbs,

the second thing is quality pork,

and the third, and equally important as the first two, would be time.

You haven't mentioned pigs. Where are they from?

Whenever we started the Black Bacon first, we tried to get the

best possible pork, and we found it quite difficult to get outdoor pigs.

I thought in me own heart that we really wanted to put

something back into pigs again.

So the idea really, when an island came up for sale in Lough Erne,

I thought if we could just possibly, maybe possibly

have an opportunity to buy that island,

we could just buy it just for the pigs.

Heading out to pig island with Pat feels like quite an adventure.

The pigs he keeps out here do eventually become Black Bacon

but the stunning wetland is a very unusual piggery.

How often do you come out here, Pat, to see the pigs?

They don't need to see you every day.

Really, I could be here twice a week.

It's almost a spiritual thing, you know,

you feel great, just even the journey over,

you're sort of getting away from the world.

You enter then into the magical world of pig life

and into the world of the natural world.

Do you sometimes see them along here in the grass?

Sometimes. We're going to go all up.

No sign of any pigs yet.

Is that something black over there? Is that a pig or not?

No, no, that's a stone!

I'm beginning to wonder how likely it is to see pigs

when you're on safari with a butcher.

HE CALLS TO THE PIGS

When you want them, then you can't see them!

Getting a bit dark now but Pat assures me

that we will find some of his elusive pigs.

There's one there! Yeah, yeah!

HE CALLS TO THE PIGS

HE CALLS TO THE PIGS

OINKING

The pigs have turned up, just as Pat said they would.

And it's clear that they like him.

They're happy to follow him anywhere for a bit of food.

The type of pigs Pat keeps on the island are Saddlebacks.

They're a hardy breed that thrive in the outdoors,

they're also quite calm and make excellent mothers.

They look pretty happy.

They're very healthy looking, that's what I love about them, you know,

so pig life out here isn't so bad after all.

Quite a contradiction, though, a butcher creating a pig paradise.

What you gain from this type of project is you respect

the meat that you handle as if it's something special,

which it is, then you transform what you do to another level.

It's really peaceful out here,

and I can see why Pat's pigs like it so much.

I really admire Pat's enterprising spirit,

his sense of adventure.

The way he's rediscovering traditional ways of keeping pigs and curing bacon.

His mission to re-educate us on the real value of the meat

that people like me see every week in the supermarket.

That Pat pops out here on his boat, after work in his butcher shop,

says so much about the way the town of Enniskillen relates

to this wetland, the countryside surrounding the town.

Fermanagh is Enniskillen's back garden.

Enniskillen is the county town of Fermanagh.

And there's a lot that feeds into the town from the surrounding countryside -

cattle on market days, great bacon and dairy produce.

Enniskillen is also the centre for education in the county.

Most of Fermanagh's secondary schools are in the town,

including Portora Royal School,

founded in 1608 by decree of James I.

The school that Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett attended.

As well as its many schools,

Enniskillen also has a whole college

devoted to helping young people

realise their dreams in the horse world,

CAFRE, the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise.

In a post-Troubles Northern Ireland this town is reinventing itself

as a place to nurture ambition.

I've come to meet lecturer Shelly Annan who's going to show me around.

Is this your class in here?

Yeah, this is the Prepare Horses for Presentation module.

What are they learning in here?

They're learning how to produce a horse for sale, for show or for inspection.

Start at the horse's head and give him three good strokes with the body brush.

Work your way, then, from the front to the back.

OK? Do you want to start and have a go?

We've got a couple of students up here that are just working

with one of our oldest horses, Bluefire.

-How old is Bluefire?

-He's 21.

That is old!

-And has Bluefire been here for all of that time?

-Most of it.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Really?

-Yeah. He's great for the younger students as well.

What are you learning here today?

Learning how to pull a mane.

Push it back and pull a few strands out.

It makes it all even.

So how long do you think you'll stay here?

Two years for this course and I hope to go on to do the degree.

Does it feel like school?

No, it doesn't.

It's not every day you get to groom a horse for class!

And in another part of the campus, away from the stables,

is an ordinary-looking cabin.

This is where they put the next generation of world-beating

Irish jockeys through their paces before they get

anywhere near the Grand National.

I'm wondering a bit nervously what Shelly's got in store for me.

OK. We've got Diane here, the yard supervisor on the racing yard.

-Hello, Diane.

-Hi, how are you?

I can't help noticing these horses are missing something.

-Nice to meet you.

-Where are the legs?

Doesn't have any legs!

-Can I have a go sitting on it?

-Sure, you can. Do you want to come round this side?

Why are you wearing a helmet?

For safety reasons, for students, in case they get tired and fall off.

We encourage them to ride with helmets.

Obviously, it's up to themselves but when you ride horses, you wear helmets.

-Should I put one on?

-I think we'll put one on. Just in case you wobble off.

OK. There you go.

'I hope I can manage to stay on a legless horse but just in case.'

Have you ever been on a horse before?

Erm, yeah, but I normally, I don't do very well on horses.

-That's OK.

-This looks a more friendly horse

than the ones I normally go on.

OK, so far so good. Haven't fallen off.

So these leathers is probably going to feel quite short

-cos you are naturally very tall, OK?

-Yeah.

-But this is what you would call a racing length.

This is the difference from riding race horses to ordinary horses.

Cos you're riding at a shorter level.

So your weight's transferred up off the horse

so you stand up on your stirrups.

OK. Take up your reins. OK.

-I'm going to turn her on.

-What do you mean?

She's gonna be used by the motor

and she goes up from speeds one, two, three, four and five and she gets quicker each time.

All right? So just to switch her on.

You'll get a feel of how she moves. This is only programme one.

-Whoo!

-Just sit! Just sit!

-Right, OK.

-Keep your hands down. Yeah. Just feel...see?

That's actually quite rough.

It just gives you a feel of what's actually happening.

What you're actually supposed to do is stand up.

-Just sort of stand up.

-I'll fall off.

No, no, no. Put your weight here. OK. Just lift yourself up.

Keep your weight down. Now, keep... Put your weight...there you go.

Put your whole weight down.

Straighten your knee if you want, a wee bit. Look up. There you go.

HE LAUGHS

That is impossible! God! It's knackering!

Yeah. That's only walking speed

but that's how that improves the students, OK.

'I'm not going to give up.' Can we do this a different way?

-Can you just show me?

-I can show you. Surely, yes.

-No, no.

-You just show me how. Perfect. See what you're doing now.

So slightly bent legs.

Ideally what you're supposed to do when you ride race horses,

-stick your bum out behind you.

-Doing that.

-More.

Now lift your head up and look between his ears.

Keep your hands down and balance either side.

So you're keeping your support, there.

Now that's...see that position? You need to keep that.

All right. I'm ready. OK.

-Are you ready?

-Giddyup!

-Sit.

-Relax. Relax. Breathe. Relax.

-Relaxing, yeah.

-Perfect.

Don't let your upper body go forward because that will tilt you up.

Lift your head up slightly. This bit up if you want.

Stick your backside out

and then that will encourage your back to go level.

-Now, that's not bad.

-Not bad?

'Churchill said, "There is something about the outside of a horse

'"that is good for the inside of a man."

'But he never tried one of these.'

Do you think we dare go up a notch? Another kind of...

-Not much difference.

-No, that's not bad.

-That's not bad.

-Shall we try three?

-OK.

Whooah! So is this like a canter? What have we got to?

Yes, it is. Yes.

We're cantering. Whoo!

Shall we try a bit of galloping? Yeah.

Whooah! Ha!

THEY LAUGH

-That's just...that is tiring.

-Very tiring, yeah. Yeah.

-How do jockeys do it?

-Fitness. Fitness and balance.

Someone who's got both of these qualities is newly-qualified jockey

Danielle McKeever who's in her last year at the college.

How old were you when you started riding horses?

-Five.

-You're kidding.

And I am 23 now so it's been a long, long career.

Somebody told me that you are the only jockey here.

Yep, a newly licensed jockey last year.

I didn't have a lot of interest in racing before I came to the college.

I would have been much more into show jumping.

Then I started riding out and I got a real feel for it.

The lecturers encouraged me, and another girl at the time,

to go forward and try and get a point-to-point licence.

So it seemed like a far away ambition at the time.

We put a bit of work in and we ended up doing the exam

and we got it so we were delighted.

So what's the big dream, way down the horse track?

Have me own yard, have my own set-up

and be making a few quid out of horses, which isn't easy done.

93% of CAFRE students get jobs or go on to further education

within six months of completing their courses.

This college provides a vital link between young people's ambitions

and the real world.

Being out at the college today has made me realise

that you could begin by mucking out here at Enniskillen

but one day perhaps become a top jockey,

a top trainer, a top farrier.

This town really knows how to create opportunities.

Training young people for careers in the big business,

competitive world of horse racing puts Enniskillen on the world stage.

Small town, big ambitions.

And it's not just horse racing that Enniskillen specialises in.

This was also one of the first towns in the world to hold yacht races.

Years before there was racing at Cowes,

there was racing at Enniskillen.

Back in the early 19th century, a group of Enniskillen sailors

decided to adapt the rules of horse racing for the water.

They used a "post boat" instead of a starting post,

the starters were called "chief stewards", just as in horse racing,

and boats anchored in a start line

between the steward and the post boat.

It was just like a horse race but on water.

The lakes here are popular with motorcruisers

but I've heard that there are a handful of locals who still

race the traditional Irish wooden yachts over 100 years old.

I've come to Lough Erne Yacht Club to meet yachtsman Mick Whaley,

and as a keen sailor myself, I'm longing to have a go on the water.

-What a beautiful boat, Mick. What's she called?

-She's called Maeve.

Maeve was the queen of the fairies and this is a fairy class yacht.

And when were fairy boats built?

There was a fleet originally built for Belfast Lough.

And the people in this area decided they liked

the look of them and they got the builder,

Hilditch in Carrickfergus,

he built a further batch of ten for Lough Erne.

-So there were only ten built.

-Yes.

What kind of people commissioned them, bought them?

They would have been the local aristocracy

and probably wealthy tradespeople.

And what are the characteristics of a fairy boat?

They were built as a racing boat.

So they're narrow and they're long

and they do tend to keel over when you sail but they're very safe.

-Would you be prepared to take me out for a little spin?

-I'd be delighted to.

-Take it off?

-Yeah.

As soon as these fairy boats find a good wind, you're at racing speed.

They're incredibly fast.

It's energetic!

Those bankers from Enniskillen like getting a bit of exercise, clearly.

Yeah.

'Enniskillen always had a strong boating history all the way back

'to the Maguires with their "groves of tapering ship-masts"'

and their original crest was a sailing ship.

The first full record of a race on Lough Erne was in 1822.

It was one of the first regattas in the world.

The sailing out here is exciting, a real buzz.

Time for me to have a go steering this beauty.

She's light on the tiller, isn't she? Isn't she?

Struth! Like a dingy.

She's quite well-balanced. Bring her up a bit more.

Just beautiful. I tell you another thing,

she kind of feels in tune with the water too.

Lough Erne is a pristine water...

..and this is a pristine, very pure kind of thoroughbred boat.

Best let Mick take the tiller now.

There's a squall ahead and I really don't fancy a swim.

If this was the Lake District or the Norfolk Broads,

on a beautiful day like this you'd be dodging boats all the time.

But there's no-one else out here.

Perhaps the Troubles limited sailing's growth

around Enniskillen or maybe it's just a well-kept secret.

For high-octane sailing, try Lough Erne in a force four

in a classic racing yacht.

Although wonderful for sailing, there is one disadvantage

to building a town in the middle of two lakes and a huge waterland.

For centuries Fermanagh has suffered from massive floods.

In the 1950s however, a new hydro electric dam was built

downstream from Enniskillen, just inside the Republic of Ireland.

The Republic got the electricity

and Lower Lough Erne was made deeper so it could contain more water

and lessen flooding in Enniskillen's county.

It should have been a win-win situation

but unfortunately the natural environment suffered.

Salmon and eels couldn't get past the dam into waters of Lough Erne.

They didn't take to the salmon and eel passes built into the dam.

Today there are no wild Erne salmon left

and it was found that the turbines in the dam were killing

and injuring mature eels as they tried to swim out to sea.

To ensure eel survival, the only answer seemed to be

to stop commercial eel fishing,

catch the eels before they reached the dam

then release them in the estuary.

Now Enniskillen's last two eel fishermen,

Roy Shaw and Eugene Brasil,

work together on an eel "trap and transport" programme

funded by the Irish Electricity Supply Board.

Enniskillen is perhaps showing us the future.

If we want energy, we have to preserve nature.

-Are these good, healthy eels?

-Perfect. Perfect.

What are the ideal conditions for catching them?

When there's no moon in the sky, rain and fast-flowing brown water.

And what makes these lakes flow fast and brown?

Whenever you get loads of rain, the water will rise,

so they start generating electricity down at Ballyshannon,

letting the water out at great speed.

So it flows through here at five or six knots.

What do you feel about, sort of, converting from being fishermen to conservationists?

Because that's who you've become now.

Well, it's a big decline in your income, obviously,

and in the time that you spend fishing as well.

Are you proud about your part in trying to save the eels?

The eel's been saved in Ireland

but it's not being done to the same scale all over Europe.

Actually, some European countries are doing nothing at all.

They're weird looking things, aren't they?

What's the next thing to happen to these eels?

-These eels have to be now put into a poke.

-A what?

A poke of netting, a bag!

-It's a bag.

-A bag of netting.

And then they will then be transferred into this bin

and we will weigh them to find out what kilos we have,

then they're put into a box and wait for collection.

And is the weighing because you're keeping a careful check

of how many you're sending going down to the sea?

Yes, but it's also because we get paid per kilo.

-So we need to know exactly what we have!

-OK.

-22. Call it 22.

-Call it 22.

The eels Eugene and Roy have trapped will now be driven

to the other side of the dam and released in the estuary

where they can swim out to sea

and head to their spawning grounds 4,000 miles away in the Atlantic.

These eels will never see the waters of Enniskillen again

but hopefully their offspring will return.

In the '70s and '80s there was a mass exodus of people

from town centres across Northern Ireland because of the Troubles.

Ordinary people did not want their homes or families

to be caught up in town centre bombings.

Enniskillen itself has a proud military history.

It's the only town in the UK to have raised two British Army regiments -

the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and The Inniskillings Sixth Dragoons.

Hundreds of Enniskillen men served in the British Army over the years.

This town was used to soldiers.

But when the Troubles began, the future looked bleak.

Young people left, now it seems they might be coming back.

Artist Claire Falconer left Enniskillen to pursue an acting

and producing career in Hollywood.

She's exhibited her paintings internationally

but now she's returned to her hometown.

And I want to know what she thinks is special about this place.

What brought you back to Enniskillen?

I think it suits my nature.

I think it generally suits your nature to eventually

come back to the place where you were from,

be it to consolidate or solidify your notions of what

your childhood memories were and what they mean to you in adulthood.

And many of the places that I've lived in, worked in,

had been really the polar opposite

of what I find the reality of living here.

Very busy, very bustling, very multi multicultural,

which inevitably results in a little bit of a loss of your own identity.

Temporarily, you become a bit of a chameleon.

And then climate-wise as well.

I was starting to feel old and wrinkly

in the aridity in the places that I was spending time.

I was drinking so much water and then you come home here,

you just walk outside and think, "This is good for my skin.

"I'm soaking wet and my hair's frizzy but it's good for me'.

When you were living in the States, if one of your LA friends

had said to you, "What's this place Enniskillen like?

"What does it look like? What does it feel like? The town?"

How would you have described it?

Compact little watery gem

with so much going on that you will never, ever be bored.

And the possibility just to leave the hub of the centre,

which is really busy and bustling and friendly and energetic,

and just be in the middle of another century in two minutes of boat ride.

You can get a little taxi boat that takes you out to Devenish Island,

with the monastic towers,

and you can really feel like

you're living in the fifth century for the afternoon.

It's hard to beat.

-Have you painted many local people here in Enniskillen?

-A few.

The ones that are hanging in public places are...

I did the ex-principal of Portora School, Richard Bennett.

Then latterly I painted the painting of Donal Blake.

They're the two public ones hanging here.

And then I've worked on a few private commissions for people.

Do you have a secret shortlist of people in Enniskillen

that you would like to paint?

I would like to paint some of the really rugged faces that we have.

I just see some of these long, white-bearded folk

that I remember having been out in bars when I was really, really young

and they're still there.

And I can just see them as being big Neptunes with flowing cloaks on the front of a boat or something.

I've said this to them and they were like,

"Really? Really? You see me that way?"

To many people, Enniskillen was once seen as a troubled place.

Today, perhaps, it's enjoying a golden age of freedom.

It's funny, you scrutinise a town, try to figure it out,

you see a lot, learn a little.

Then you meet somebody like Claire, an artist,

and suddenly you get a bigger picture.

Enniskillen sits well in its waterland,

the currents that flow through it, the clouds cavorting overhead

fill the place with a natural energy, a positive energy.

It's the kind of energy that calls people home,

that brings belief, passion even, to the streets.

It's key to the town's survival.

Enniskillen's resilience is based on something beyond the town itself.

The lakes, rivers and countryside of Fermanagh.

And this town can't allow its natural environment to be compromised.

When problems arise the town has to act.

Today there is an untapped resource beneath Fermanagh

and there are plans to start exploring it.

Its supporters say it's a move towards promoting economic

prosperity and energy security in a new Northern Ireland

but it's also one of the most controversial

fossil-fuel industries of the moment, shale gas.

Having seen off the spectre of the Troubles,

which sought to divide this town,

it seems Enniskillen and her county may need to present

a united front once more in order to see off this very new threat.

Mike Young is the Director of the Geological Survey

of Northern Ireland and is advising the Northern Irish Government

on shale gas exploration in Fermanagh.

What is shale and how did it come to have gas in it?

Well, shale is a very impervious rock, originally a mud if you like,

which has been compressed and compacted

and on this map it shows this yellow line which you can follow round here.

-And this is Lower Lough Erne here, is it?

-Lower Lough Erne and Upper Lough Erne,

and Enniskillen is just there.

And how will the gas be extracted from the shale?

Well, let me draw a sketch to illustrate that.

This is the surface, ground surface and this is the sedimentary section.

Here is the target shale.

An exploration well will be drilled down

the middle of this formation and deviated horizontally.

When that's completed, this horizontal section

will be perforated, probably with explosive charges.

Then a slurry of, typically of water and sand,

will be pumped under pressure from the surface,

through these holes, to create fractures.

Like this.

And that will allow the gas in the shale to escape into the fractures,

into the well, up the well into a holding tank at the surface,

from where it's exported.

What affect does this kind of drilling have on the surface?

How many wells will there be in Fermanagh? How big is each well?

Each well is drilled on what's called a pad

and each pad may contain up to about 16 of these wells.

How many pads will there be?

Over a course of time, perhaps 30 or 40 years,

there could be as many as 90 to 100 of these pads.

How much gas might there be in this shale?

In this particular basin,

we think there might be something in the order of four trillion cubic feet.

That's round about in the same order of gas

that is used every year in the whole of the UK.

So one year's worth of supply to the UK.

For the whole of the UK.

'I have to say that doesn't sound like a huge amount of gas to me.

'The Geological Survey of Northern Ireland'

and the Northern Ireland Assembly the government here,

might be keen to explore shale gas reserves in Fermanagh

but local people have huge concerns about the impact

of big industrial processes on Enniskillen's green, rural county.

Near Blackpool last year, offshore fracking caused an earthquake.

Both France and Bulgaria have banned the process altogether.

People in Enniskillen are concerned for their county.

So concerned that they have formed a Fermanagh Fracking Awareness Network

and tonight they're having a meeting.

Good evening everybody. I'm absolutely delighted to see

the number of people that are here tonight

and also very delighted to see that the vast majority of people

I do not recognise, which means that this campaign

is attracting more and more people

to come here to find out more about fracking.

Scientist Dr Aedin McLoughlin is determined to inform the people

of Enniskillen and Fermanagh about the implications of fracking.

You're not talking about one site,

you're talking about...

..50,000 acres being covered by these.

And what would that do for not only your land

but your way of life as well?

Tourism. Does anybody want to come to see the pads?

Might come once, I suppose, just out of curiosity.

But will it create jobs? And that is what is being promised.

Initially there is a lot of employment.

We're not saying that there won't be some jobs.

So you're talking about 400 people arriving

and working on this for maybe up to 15 years...

..and then the number of jobs dwindles.

They reckon that in Fermanagh there would be about 180 jobs left.

So I'm afraid that the jobs are migratory and won't last

and the gas certainly, even if it's there, won't be cheap,

so why would we take the risk?

Thank you all very, very much. APPLAUSE

Do you already believe fracking is a bad idea for Fermanagh?

Of course I do, yeah. There's many reasons for that.

I mean, you've got the health issues, the pollution issues,

the whole industrialisation of the area

that's really a beautiful area, a unique area.

There's a unity of protest in this room,

no matter what background people hail from.

The message is clear, everyone here values their environment.

I'm from seven miles outside Enniskillen.

It's a beautiful part of the world.

We have hills and valleys and lakes and mountains and greenery

and it's just beautiful and I just didn't want that to be destroyed.

Any slip, any spillage, any accident up in the high ground

and what happens? The pollution runs down, gets into Lough Erne.

That supplies the water for all of Fermanagh and half of Tyrone.

If you ruin the water supply, I mean, what do we do? Everybody leave?

What brings you to this meeting tonight?

Well, I'm very concerned about fracking.

I live here but I'm originally from Pennsylvania

and it's a very big issue in my home state

so I don't want to see the same damage happen here.

To come and frack a limestone area,

I don't think you have to be a geologist or a hydrologist

to understand the craziness of this scheme.

And that's what I think it is, crazy.

We need energy.

But fracking a county whose well-being depends upon

environmental purity seems to me inappropriate and short-sighted.

Fracking puts blots on the landscape

and detonates risks beneath the landscape.

So much of what I've seen here from local bacon to lough-side fishing,

eel preservation, tourism, quite apart from the town's status

as the capital of a region famed for beauty and tranquillity.

So much of that could be threatened

if Enniskillen became a fracking casualty.

Enniskillen's lived under threats for long enough.

The Troubles are over,

the last thing it needs now is to be fractured.

It's Friday night in Enniskillen and there's only one place I could possibly go,

Blakes of the Hollow.

A bar that has lasted through a century of upheaval unchanged.

Still family-owned, still serving Guinness and good craic.

Somewhere that makes you think that sense will prevail

as long as everyone can sit down with a drink,

talk things through and listen to some good music.

This town has lived through turmoil and come out the other side.

Its country air, its traditional charms are things we value

more than ever in this high-speed, high-stress world.

Enniskillen lies at the heart of its county and it's a good heart -

it's kind, it's honest, it's a friendly place.

The secret of Enniskillen's success is the way it's used

those qualities to serve its county, Fermanagh.

And that county with its exquisite network of rivers

and lakes is the town's greatest asset, its birthright.

Enniskillen has shown me

that old-fashioned virtues have a place in a modern town.

Long may they last.

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