DERRYGONNELLY

Daniel Kirkpatrick

DERRYGONNELLY Heritage Profile

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By

Daniel Kirkpatrick

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By | Compiled 2026-05-05 | N08000611
293 historic sites 45 scheduled monuments 38 listed buildings 7 archaeological periods

DERRYGONNELLY covers 474.3 km² in Northern Ireland. With 293 historic sites and 45 scheduled monuments on record, the ward sits at the 98th percentile across all 462 NI wards for combined archaeological heritage. It also records 38 listed buildings (HED Historic Buildings Record), the 68th percentile for listed-building density across NI wards. Per 1,000 residents, this works out at 133.6 recorded sites — the 100th percentile across NI wards (a measure of heritage density relative to current population). Dated archaeological evidence runs from the Mesolithic through to the Modern period, spanning 7 archaeological periods, placing the ward in the 79th percentile NI-wide for chronological depth.

Detailed boundary map of DERRYGONNELLY ward, Fermanagh and Omagh
DERRYGONNELLY boundary detail
Regional context map showing DERRYGONNELLY ward within Fermanagh and Omagh
DERRYGONNELLY in regional context

Heritage at a glance

Percentile rankings throughout this profile compare each ward only against the other 461 Northern Ireland wards.

293
Historic sites
99th percentile
45
Scheduled monuments
99th percentile
38
Listed buildings
68th percentile
0.79
Sites per km²

Population context

6
Persons per km²
2nd percentile
133.6
Sites per 1,000 residents
100th percentile
2,815
Total residents (2021)

The recorded heritage of DERRYGONNELLY

Of the 293 historic sites recorded, the most common are Rath (77, 26% of historic sites), Burnt Mound (58), and Non-Antiquity (11). For Raths, this is placing the ward in the top 1% nationally for this type. For Burnt Mounds, this is the 89th percentile across NI wards that record this type. Across the ward's 474.3 km², this gives a recorded density of 0.79 sites per km² (all heritage types combined). Scheduled monuments are distributed across approximately 0.10° of latitude and 0.21° of longitude within the ward, indicating dispersed rather than clustered placement.

Most common monument types

TypeCountDescription
Rath 77 —
Burnt Mound 58 —
Non-antiquity 11 —

Chronological distribution

Mesolithic
72
Middle Late Bronze Age
21
Iron Age
12
Early Medieval
121
Medieval
3
Post Medieval
15
Modern
4
Unknown
45

Terrain and environment

With a mean elevation of 122m, this ward sits above the NI median (80th percentile), but the ward reaches 372m at its highest point — a vertical span of more than 250m within its boundary, indicating significant topographic diversity. The terrain is consistently steep, with a mean slope of 6.2° (90th percentile across NI); localised maximum slopes reach 17°, typical of stream-cut valleys, escarpments, or bluffs within the wider landscape. The Topographic Wetness Index of 10.0 (28th NI percentile) indicates moderate drainage, balanced between upland shedding and lowland accumulation. The land-cover mosaic combines improved grassland (56%), woodland (28%), and open water (16%), giving a mixed agricultural and semi-natural landscape. In overall character, this is an upland landscape of steep, elevated terrain, with land use dominated by improved grassland.

Terrain measurements

Mean elevation121.6 m 81st pct
Max elevation371.9 m 88th pct
Mean slope6.2° 91st pct
Wetness index (TWI)10.03 28th pct
Grassland55.9% 51st pct
Woodland27.5% 77th pct

Where this ward sits in NI

Elevation
81st
Slope
91st
Drainage
28th
Grassland
51st
Woodland
77th

Geology and preservation

The dominant bedrock formed during the Palaeozoic era (Carboniferous period). Ancient sedimentary or metamorphic rock dating to before the age of dinosaurs; the resulting landscape has been long-stable enough to host every period of human activity. Bedrock composition is varied (complexity index 0.77, on a 0-1 Simpson-style scale), with multiple geological units within the ward boundary. Geologically diverse wards historically offered a wider range of stone types for building, toolmaking, and quarrying — a relevant factor when interpreting the material culture of nearby sites.

Bedrock eraPalaeozoic
Bedrock periodCarboniferous
Peat coverage0.0%
Bedrock complexity0.77

Placename evidence

The combined OSNI, Logainm NI, and GeoNames sources record 198 placenames for this ward. Diagnostic heritage strata identified within these are: 4 pre-Christian defensive (rath-, dún-, lios-, caiseal-), 21 ecclesiastical (cill-, teampall-, mainistir-, díseart-), and 1 Plantation-era (17th c English/Scots settlement names). Note: Irish-language (name_ga) forms are recorded for roughly half of NI placenames in the combined sources, so anglicised forms whose Irish original could belong to multiple categories may be misclassified.

Placename categories

Ecclesiastical (kil-, temple-, monaster-)21 names
Pre-Christian Defensive (rath-, dun-, lis-)4 names
Plantation Era1 name

Scheduled monuments in DERRYGONNELLY

Scheduled monuments are sites legally protected under the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, designated by the Historic Environment Division (HED).

MonumentTypePeriod
RathRathEarly Medieval
RathRathEarly Medieval
RathRathEarly Medieval
Court TombCourt TombNeolithic
Abbey(Traditional site)Abbey(Traditional Site)Medieval
Crannogs in Bunnahone Lough (3)Crannogs In Bunnahone Lough (3)Unknown
Court tomb: Giant's GraveCourt Tomb: Giant'S GraveNeolithic
Penannular enclosurePenannular EnclosureIron Age

Recorded historic sites

NamePeriodType
A.P. SITEUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITEUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE – 3 cropmarksUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE – 4 cropmarksUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE – NON-ANTIQUITYUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmarkUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmarkUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmarkUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmarkUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmarkUnknownUnknown

Listed buildings in DERRYGONNELLY

Address / NameGradePeriod
Castletown House Monea Enniskillen Co Fermanagh BT93 7ARB11860 – 1879
Domestic Yard Castletown House Monea Enniskillen Co Fermanagh BT93 7ARB11860 – 1879
North gate to Castletown Demesne Monea Enniskillen Co Fermanagh BT93 7ARB11860 – 1879
Hall Craig Springhill Enniskillen Co FermanaghB+—
DOVE COTE CASTLEHUME ROSS INNER DERRYGONNELLY Enniskillen CO.FERMANAGHB+—
STABLE BLOCK CASTLEHUME ROSS INNER DERRYGONNELLY Enniskillen CO.FERMANAGHB+—
ST. MOLAISE'S C OF I CHURCH MONEA ENNISKILLEN CO.FERMANAGHB—
RC CHURCH OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION MONEA ENNISKILLEN CO.FERMANAGHB—
ST. PATRICK'S RC CHURCH DRUMARY Derrygonnelly Enniskillen CO.FERMANAGHB—
INISHMACSAINT PARISH CHURCH (ST.NINNIDH'S C OF I) BINMORE GLEBE Derrygonnelly Enniskillen CO.FERMANAGHB—

Further reading

Discover more in Fermanagh and Omagh

Grounding History report mockup

Want a deeper view?

Grounding History: 10 Maps of Northern Ireland’s Past

A spatial history report bringing together analysis of all 462 wards into one place through 10 high-quality maps — covering monument density, archaeological periods, placename heritage, terrain, wetland, and the historic landscape at first survey.

View the report — £12.99

About this profile

What is a ward?

A ward is the smallest electoral and statistical geography used by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA). The boundaries used here are the 2014 NISRA / OSNI Wards (462 across Northern Ireland), each typically covering 1-700 km² and a population of a few thousand. Wards do not align with parishes, townlands, or any historic administrative unit — they are a modern statistical convenience, used here only as a fixed spatial frame within which to summarise heritage records.

What counts as a site?

Three distinct heritage record types are reported separately, not combined: (1) Historic Sites — entries in the Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record (NISMR), the inventory of recorded archaeological sites and findspots, dated from prehistoric to early-modern; (2) Scheduled Monuments — sites legally protected under the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (NI) Order 1995 and maintained by the Historic Environment Division (HED); (3) Listed Buildings — buildings of architectural or historic interest protected under the Planning Act (NI) 2011 and graded A, B+, B1, B2, or Record-Only by HED. A site appearing in more than one register is counted in each register independently.

Editorial principles

These ward profiles describe evidence, not history. They report what is recorded, not what occurred. Where the data is ambiguous, we say so. We do not infer historical processes — population movements, settlement expansion, periods of decline — from patterns in the record. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence: in Northern Ireland, where antiquarian survey was uneven and modern excavation is geographically biased, a gap in the record almost always reflects the limits of recording rather than a genuine historical absence. We mark such gaps explicitly where they appear in the data.

Limits of coverage and known caveats

Several caveats apply to every ward profile: (1) NISMR coverage is uneven across NI — some areas (notably parts of the south-east and the Belfast urban fringe) have been more intensively surveyed than others, so a low recorded site count does not reliably indicate a low past density of activity; (2) period attributions in NISMR are often 'Unknown', and chronological breakdowns reported here reflect only the dated subset; (3) placename classification depends on the Irish-language form (name_ga), which is recorded for approximately 50% of NI placenames in the combined sources, so ecclesiastical and pre-Christian counts may be understated where anglicised forms remain unparsed; (4) terrain percentile ranks compare each ward only to the other 461 NI wards; they are not absolute thresholds. For absence-dominant land cover categories (wetland, water, cropland), percentile ranks are suppressed below 1% raw value, since the ranking of zero-value wards is not meaningful.

Data sources (11)
Spotted an error? This dataset is updated continuously. Email contact@danielkirkpatrick.co.uk with corrections, missing records, or suggestions for improvement.