I've just finished reading a book on conditions in "my" part of Fermanagh about 10 or 15 miles South-East of Enniskillen in 1947. Not 1847, 1947. Study area of about 50 square miles had 160 houses. 2 had piped water in the house; 10 of them had running water; 130 had no water reasonably near (i.e. within 100 yards); 80 did not have their own well at all, and were forced to use river or pond water. All drinking water, well or surface, had to be boiled. A team comment was that it sent tea back to its original use in Ireland of disguising the taste of bog water. One house had a flush toilet, 86% had none at all. None had electricity. For cooking, 98% used an open hearth fire and only one house had a cook stove. A 1944 government housing survey found that 58% of the houses in the county were either overcrowded or totally unfit for habitation. Only 14% had a working battery radio. Farmers or their herdsmen were 80% of the occupiers. Others included one craftsman (a carpenter), some retired people and a few service workers, mailman (who delivered by bicycle) etc. Around 120 farms, only 2 tractors, and many farms even shared a horse. I must admit that, although I was used to English rural slums in that period (my grandpa owned some, earth floors, ladder to the sleeping loft, water tap out in the yard etc.), I was taken aback by the descriptions made by a study team from Queens Univ. Belfast. Their book "Rural Life in Northern Ireland" was commissioned by the Northern Ireland Council for Social Service, partly financed by the Carnegie (UK) Trust and published by Oxford University Press in 1947. The chapter on Fermanagh is the longest (61 pages). Other areas covered are in Down and Antrim. Well worth reading if you can find it. Crawford.