Well I would say that, wouldn’t I? I was born and raised in Fermanagh near the village of Ederney, beside the old monastic site of Kiltierney where St Tierney (Tiarnach of Clones) founded a Christian monastic settlement around the year 600AD. It is a few miles from Lower Lough Erne which once was the main thoroughfare to the Atlantic at Ballyshannon where Assaroe monastery was founded.
Another famous monastic settlement at White Island is a few miles away and we are not far from Boa Island and the Janus Stone in Caldragh graveyard and another well- known island on Lower Lough Erne – Lusty Beg -now a well- known holiday resort. This place is teeming with history and Christian and pre-Christian archaeological sites that have never been properly excavated.
But what makes this place -and Fermanagh county -so special is the people. In my experience, having lived here most of my life and having travelled a fair bit of the world, I have long ago concluded without fear of contradiction, that the people of Fermanagh are the friendliest and most generous people you will ever meet anywhere in the world.
I think Fermanagh has a great future as a place for local industry, for shopping, for visitors from all around the world, for historical research, for the promotion of the native Irish language, for education and for caring for the sick and disabled.
Fermanagh has had a difficult and troubled history over many centuries and especially since the island of Ireland was divided but there is, since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, a new atmosphere and a new outlook that will bring Fermanagh back into an all-Ireland scenario which will inevitably bring immense benefits to all the citizens of this fair county.
In spite of our troubled history, the people here in Fermanagh still get on well and work together and respect one another. There have been some outstanding successes in local industry like Encirc and the Glass factory in Teemore and the Balcas sawmills at St Angelo near Enniskillen.
Outsiders sometimes try to sow the seeds of sectarianism and division but they will never succeed because the desire of the vast majority of the local people of Fermanagh is for living in harmony and for the well-being of the whole community. I experience that every day.
So, the future for Fermanagh is bright -no matter what. And, of course, the future is all about the people who live here.
There is a beautiful quality of life, a great interest in Irish culture and in promoting the beauty of the lakes and the mountains.
Let us all work together for the common good to bring about a flourishing Fermanagh in a new and flourishing Ireland. The growing momentum towards Irish unity cannot be stopped so let us make the most of this opportunity to create a new beginning. We, in Fermanagh, have so much to give to the rest of the people of Ireland.
All that is needed now is generosity of spirit from everyone to create a new and vibrant community that has so much to contribute to a new and agreed Ireland
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