Qualla: Boho, County Fermanagh

Boho, County Fermanagh: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. James Gamble, who co-founded Procter and Gamble, was born in County Fermanagh in 1803, emigrated to Ohio as a child, and is celebrated as a local son of the wider Fermanagh region. He left behind a village of perhaps a few hundred souls, a parish with three mountains, and a landscape so studded with Neolithic monuments that you could walk a kilometre in any direction and stumble across stones older than the pyramids. Boho today still has fewer people than a Cincinnati office floor, but it has something Cincinnati does not: a soil bacterium that fights superbugs, a fairy who plays the tin whistle, and a high cross from the tenth century carved with Adam and Eve.

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Image: Kenneth Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Boho, County Fermanagh: Stones That Predate Writing

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Youngbohemian, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Reyfad Stones lie in a field five hundred metres behind the Sacred Heart Church. They are Neolithic, carved with cup and ring marks similar to the ones at Newgrange, and they have been a scheduled monument since the Northern Ireland Environmental Agency designated them as SM ...

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Image: Youngbohemian | CC BY-SA 3.0

Boho, County Fermanagh: Three Mountains, Three Cave Systems

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gerd Eichmann, CC BY-SA 4.0. The parish straddles three peaks: Belmore at 398 metres, Tullybrack at 386 metres, and Knockmore at 277 metres. Beneath each runs a separate karst cave system. Reyfad Pot, under Tullybrack, is the deepest cave on the island of Ireland. Noon's Hole, under Knockmore, has the deepes...

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Image: Gerd Eichmann | CC BY-SA 4.0

Boho, County Fermanagh: The Folk Cure That Worked

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dean Molyneaux, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Reverend James McGirr served as Boho's parish priest in 1803. Locals revered him, and after his death they used soil from his gravesite as a folk remedy for infections, toothaches, and ailments their physicians could not cure. The practice persisted for generations. In recent...

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Image: Dean Molyneaux | CC BY-SA 2.0

Boho, County Fermanagh: Stones, Crosses, and Curses

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Youngbohemian (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The High Cross at Boho graveyard stands on an eminence overlooking the Sacred Heart Church, on the site of a much older church dedicated to Saint Feadhbar, also called Saint Faber. The cross is weathered sandstone, possibly tenth century, and was moved to its current position in ...

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Image: Youngbohemian (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Boho, County Fermanagh: A Rebellion Over Cattle

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ramón from Llanera, España, CC BY-SA 2.0. In the medieval period, the Boho area sometimes refused to pay tribute to Magnus MaGuidhir, the King of Fermanagh. The Maguire historian recorded one incident with relish. When Maguire sent stewards to collect cattle in lieu of tribute, the Flanagan of Toora refused, then pursued...

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Image: Ramón from Llanera, España | CC BY-SA 2.0

Boho, County Fermanagh: Flora at the Edge of Decline

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Youngbohemian, CC BY-SA 3.0. Boho has a botanical richness that is rare in Northern Ireland. Fen meadows, calcareous grasslands, limestone pavement, and bog support species that have largely vanished elsewhere on the island: small white orchid, bee orchid, mountain avens, marsh helleborine, and bird's-nest o...

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Image: Youngbohemian | CC BY-SA 3.0