Erne

Erne , river, 72 mi (116 km) long, rising in Lough Gowna, Co. Longford, N Republic of Ireland. It flows NW through SW Northern Ireland, then back through the Republic before entering the Atlantic Ocean at Donegal Bay. Grazing predominates in the Erne basin; Enniskillen is the chief town. In Northern Ireland the river expands to form two large lakes—Upper Lough Erne (10 mi/16.1 km long) and Lower Lough Erne (18 mi/29 km long). An international flood-control scheme (completed 1959) controls the water level in the lakes. Hydroelectricity is produced along the 150-ft (46-m) drop in the river's course between Belleek and Ballyshannon; the lakes are a natural reservoir.

Erne. Waterway in Ireland flowing 75 miles NW from Lough Gowna in Co. Longford through Lough Oughter and Lough Erne, counties Cavan, Fermanagh, and Donegal, to Donegal Bay south of Ballyshannon. Two bodies of water are called Lough Erne, the smaller Upper to the south-east and larger Lower to the north-west. The entire region is rich in ruins of pagan Irish, Danish, and monastic origin. Most remarkable are three islands in Lower Lough Erne: Boa Island, which can be reached by bridge, containing a well-preserved, double-faced, phallic Janus figure and a smaller figure, the ‘lusty man’, so named from its origin on Lustymore Island; Devenish Island, a 6th-century monastic settlement founded by St Molaise; and White Island, containing caryatid-like standing figures of Christian and apparently pagan origin, including a sheela-na-gig. The fabled cataract of Assaroe, now flooded for a hydroelectric project, was on the Erne.

Bibliography

See W. F. Wakeman , Lough Erne (Enniskillen, 1870);
John Charles Roy , The Road Wet, the Wind Close (Dublin, 1987).

Earn (river) Perth. Erne 1190. ‘Flowing one’. Pre-Celtic.