Linen 7-8ths wide is manufactured to some ex tent, and there are several bleachfields which finish for sale the linens sent to England. Illicit distilla tion is said to be very general, much of the oats and barley grown in the county being consumed in this way.
Fermanagh is in the ecclesiastical province of Ar magh, and is divided into eighteen parishes, of which fifteen belong to the diocese of Clogher, and three to that of Kilmore. It is computed that the Catho lics exceed the Protestants in number in the propor tion of three to one. None of the former have pro perty enough to entitle them to be on the grand jury.
The other subdivisions are:baronies, of which there are five to the east of Lough Erne, and three on the west. Two members are sent to Parliament from the county, and one from the borough of Enniskillen, the only town in it of any extent. The number of freeholders, a few years ago, according to Mr Wake field, was 5000; but the three greatest proprietors, when unanimous, can always return what members they please. One of them, the Earl of Enniskillen,
is also patron of the borough, which has twelve self elected burgesses.
There is little or no gradation of rank here; the only intermediate classes between the few great pro prietors and the labourers, being the small squire and the large farmer, neither of them a numerous body. A military turn has long prevailed among the inhabitants. The protestants are a fine race of people, much superior in appearance to those of any of the northern districts.
In 1790, Fermanagh was computed to contain 11,969 houses, and 71,800 inhabitants ; but by the last census, the population is found to be 111,250, or at the rate of one person for about four acres.—See Young's Tour in Ireland.—Beaufort's Memoir of a Map of Ireland.—Newenhain's View of the Natural, Political, and Commercial Circumstances of Ireland. —Wakefield's Account of Ireland, Statistical and Po litical ; and the Parochial Survey of Ireland, Vols. I. and II. (a.)