A mixed bag of emotions accompanied us as we departed Swan Island: joy that we were on our way again, a little sadness to be leaving Pat and the security of his moorings, and varying levels of concern about our next destination. This was to be our last day cruising in the Republic for some time as, just a few miles ahead of us, was the border with Northern Ireland and none of us knew what to expect. A number of people had suggested that we remove our Irish courtesy flag before we left the South and Ted and Eric took down their national colours, so we cannot deny being nervous. From here on in it would be a case of going gently and being careful.

On passing Ballyconnell we met the border, although we did not cross it as the waterway that we were traveling on, The Woodford River, is the border: to our north lay Ulster and to our south was Cavan. The first physical sign of The Troubles was the George Mitchell Peace Bridge that spanned the river west of Ballyconnell.  A few hundred yards further and we passed between the buttresses of the old bridge, blown up by the British Army as they struggled to control the border in 1970.  Cruising down the river as it meandered through pastoral countryside, it was very hard to imagine that just a few years ago this route would have been firmly closed and heavily policed. Now, but for the information garnered from the river guides, we would never have known about recent history so peaceful was our day.  We moored that night on the northern bank - quite literally just in Northern Ireland, and set off the following morning for Belturbet, a town just to the south. Getting to it meant a day’s cruising along the border- if we kept to the starboard side for the whole journey we would, technically, remain in the South. The previous day we’d mentioned to a lock keeper the ugliness of the new housing that is a feature of the run through Ballyconnell. His reply that planning was a formality in Cavan and anybody could build anything was made clear by the development we passed on what would have once been a lovely part of the River Erne on the run up to Belturbet. This eyesore wins the prize for the worst development yet:

My kingdom for an architect!

what was once a green hill had been graded and regimented lines of new chalet style houses built. Nearly all of them were unoccupied. Just round the corner from it a lovely little cottage had been abandoned and a new ‘posher house’ built immediately adjacent - a classic example of something we seen often on our travels

We were disappointed in Belturbet and did not linger. Returning down the  River Erne we finally crossed the border and made our way out into the mass of waterways, lakes and islands of Upper Lough Erne. As ever, when possible, we have chosen to moor on remote jetties not near houses or roads. Upper Lough Erne with its plethora of islands looked ideal. We chose Galloon Island for our first night on it.

Galloon Island was perfect and we soon set out to explore. Just over the little lane that led to the moorings was a graveyard. Oddly there was no sign of a church. Even odder were the gravestones that we could see from the graveyard wall - there were a number of skull and crossbones. The joy of being in the company of Eric, an archaeologist and historian, is that he is able to explain these things either from his own experience or from books he has onboard. We soon learnt that Galloon Island had an ugly past. The site of a monastic settlement until Sir Thomas Cromwell's men  locked the monks in their church and set it aflame. The land was then given to Freemasons and it was the freemason’s headstones that featured the skull and crossbones. Such was the atmosphere of this place that neither Jill or I went into the churchyard even before learning of its history. The good news was, with the loughs water level having been dropped by three metres in the 1880s, the jetty was a lot further from the graveyard than it would have been previously. We were relieved to find that this jetty was unlit, a welcome improvement over the Republic where the lights on the jetties often feel intrusive and unnecessary. After a very quiet and dark night, we were keen to be off to Crom Castle, a few miles further up the lough.

Crom jetty was busy, a rare thing for moorings in the North but, with a little trickery, we were able to get the three boats moored and wandered off to explore. In common with many of the seventeenth century castles in the region, Crom Castle was derelict. Unlike many of the others which had been ransacked in the uprisings of 1641 and 1689, Crom had withstood the sieges only to be destroyed in an accidental fire in 1764. The new castle remains private but the vast majority of the estate is now National Trust property. We spent a happy hour in the old castle grounds where there are two Yew trees which are purported to be the oldest trees in Ireland  (we doubted that there are more twisted trees in Ireland!) and, after a long walk around the estate, returned to the jetty. Here we had the pleasure of meeting the owners of the another boat called Hawthorn - an ex flying boat tender that had been recovered from Lough Derg and restored  - before heading off downstream and dropping anchor in a quiet corner of Trial Lough. Surrounded by woods and meadows, we re-established our little floating crannog, and went for a (bloody cold) swim. The night was still and dark but we rose early when, with a change of the wind direction, the boats swung round the anchor and a new mooring had to be found. A truly rare event followed: Eric was up and functioning at eight in the morning! With a friend visiting Eric, we moored on a public jetty and considered our next few days cruising: a little further up the lough was an island owned by the Hari Krishnas which we thought we might visit. Or should we go on to Naan Island nature reserve, or just wander about the maze of channels, loughs and islands that make up this extraordinary waterway? The arrival of  Eric’s mate Darren, another gifted musician, settled things and we put the kettle on as the air filled with guitar and flute. We had no need to rush: one empty and quiet lough is much the same as another.

                                         Jill's Twisted Crom Yew