ENNISCORTHY, a market town of Co. Wexford, Ireland, in the north parliamentary division, on the side of a steep hill above the Slaney, which here becomes navigable for barges of large size. Pop. of urban district (1901) 5458. It is 77½ m. S. by W. from Dublin by the Dublin & South-Eastern railway. There are breweries and flour-mills; tanning, distilling and woollen manufactures are also prosecuted to some extent, and the town is the centre of the agricultural trade for the district, which is aided by the water communication with Wexford. There are important fowl markets and horse-fairs. Enniscorthy was taken by Cromwell in 1649, and in 1798 was stormed and burned by the rebels, whose main forces encamped on an eminence called Vinegar Hill, which overlooks the town from the east. The old castle of Enniscorthy, a massive square pile with a round tower at each corner, is one of the earliest military structures of the Anglo-Norman invaders, founded by Raymond le Gros (1176). Ferns, the next station to Enniscorthy on the railway towards Dublin, was the seat of a former bishopric, and the modernized cathedral, and ruins of a church, an Augustinian monastery founded by Dermod Mac-Morrough about 1160, and a castle of the Norman period, are still to be seen. Enniscorthy was incorporated by James I., and sent two members to the Irish parliament until the Union.
ENNISKILLEN, WILLIAM WILLOUGHBY COLE, 3rd Earl of (1807-1886), British palaeontologist, was born on the 25th of January 1807, and educated at Harrow and Christ Church, Oxford. As Lord Cole he early began to devote his leisure to the study and collection of fossil fishes, with his friend Sir Philip de M.G. Egerton, and he amassed a fine collection at Florence Court, Enniskillen—including many specimens that were described and figured by Agassiz and Egerton. This collection was subsequently acquired by the British Museum. He died on the 21st of November 1886, being succeeded by his son (b. 1845) as 4th earl.
The first of the Coles (an old Devonshire and Cornwall family) to settle in Ireland was Sir William Cole (d. 1653), who was “undertaker” of the northern plantation and received a grant of a large property in Fermanagh in 1611, and became provost and later governor of Enniskillen. In 1760 his descendant John Cole (d. 1767) was created Baron Mountflorence, and the latter’s son, William Willoughby Cole (1736-1803), was in 1776 created Viscount Enniskillen and in 1789 earl. The 1st earl’s second son, Sir Galbraith Lowry Cole (1772-1842), was a prominent general in the Peninsular War, and colonel of the 27th Inniskillings, the Irish regiment with whose name the family was associated.
ENNISKILLEN [Inniskilling], a market town and the county town of county Fermanagh, Ireland, in the north parliamentary division, picturesquely situated on an island in the river connecting the upper and lower loughs Erne, 116 m. N.W. from Dublin by the Great Northern railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 5412. The town occupies the whole island, and is connected with two suburbs on the mainland on each side by two bridges. It has a brewery, tanneries and a small manufactory of cutlery, and a considerable trade in corn, pork and flax. In 1689 Enniskillen defeated a superior force sent against it by James II. at the battle of Crom; and part of the defenders of the town were subsequently formed into a regiment of cavalry, which still retains the name of the Inniskilling Dragoons. The town was incorporated by James I., and returned two members to the Irish parliament until the Union; thereafter it returned one to the Imperial parliament until 1885. There are wide communications by water by the river and the upper and lower loughs Erne, and by the Ulster canal to Belfast. The loughs contain trout, large pike and other coarse fish. Two miles from Enniskillen in the lower lough is Devenish Island, with its celebrated monastic remains. The abbey of St Mary here was founded by St Molaise (Laserian) in the 6th century; here too are a fine round tower 85 ft. high, remains of domestic buildings, a holed stone and a tall well-preserved cross. The whole is carefully preserved by the commissioners of public works under the Irish Church Act of 1869. Steamers ply between Enniskillen and Belleek on the lower lake, and between Enniskillen and Knockninny on the upper lake.
ENNIUS, QUINTUS (239-170 B.C.), ancient Latin poet, was born at Rudiae in Calabria. Familiar with Greek as the language in common use among the cultivated classes of his district, and with Oscan, the prevailing dialect of lower Italy, he further acquired a knowledge of Latin; to use his own expression (Gellius xvii. 17), he had three “hearts” (corda), the Latin word being used to signify the seat of intelligence. He is said (Servius on Aen. vii. 691) to have claimed descent from one of the legendary kings of his native district, Messapus the eponymous hero of Messapia, and this consciousness of ancient lineage is in accordance with the high self-confident tone of his mind, with his sympathy with the dominant genius of the Roman republic, and with his personal relations to the members of her great families. Of his early years nothing is directly known, and we first hear of him in middle life as serving during the Second Punic War, with the rank of centurion, in Sardinia, in the year 204, where he attracted the attention of Cato the elder, and was taken by him to Rome in the same year. Here he taught Greek and adapted Greek plays for a livelihood, and by his poetical compositions gained the friendship of the greatest men in Rome. Amongst these were the elder Scipio and Fulvius Nobilior, whom he accompanied on his Aetolian campaign (189). Through the influence of Nobilior’s son, Ennius subsequently obtained the privilege of Roman citizenship (Cicero, Brutus, 20. 79). He lived plainly and simply on the Aventine with the poet Caecilius Statius. He died at the age of 70, immediately after producing his tragedy Thyestes. In the last book of his epic poem, in which he seems to have given various details of his personal history, he mentions that he was in his 67th year at the date of its composition. He compared himself, in contemplation of the close of the great work of his life, to a gallant horse which, after having often won the prize at the Olympic games, obtained his rest when weary with age. A similar feeling of pride at the completion of a great career is expressed in the memorial lines which he composed to be placed under his bust after death,—“Let no one weep for me, or celebrate my funeral with mourning; for I still live, as I pass to and fro through the mouths of men.” From the impression stamped on his remains, and from the testimony of his countrymen, we think of him as a man of a robust, sagacious and cheerful nature (Hor. Epp. ii. 1. 50; Cic. De sen. 5); of great industry and versatility; combining imaginative enthusiasm and a vein of religious mysticism with a sceptical indifference to popular beliefs and a scorn of religious imposture; and tempering the grave seriousness of a Roman with a genial capacity for enjoyment (Hor. Epp. i. 19. 7).
Till the appearance of Ennius, Roman literature, although it had produced the epic poem of Naevius and some adaptations of Greek tragedy, had been most successful in comedy. Naevius and Plautus were men of thoroughly popular fibre. Naevius suffered for his attacks on members of the aristocracy, and, although Plautus carefully avoids any direct notice of public matters, yet the bias of his sympathies is indicated in several passages of his extant plays. Ennius, on the other hand, was by temperament in thorough sympathy with the dominant aristocratic element in Roman life and institutions. Under his influence literature became less suited to the popular taste, more especially addressed to a limited and cultivated class, but at the same time more truly expressive of what was greatest and most worthy to endure in the national sentiment and traditions. He was a man of many-sided activity. He devoted attention to questions of Latin orthography, and is said to have been the first to introduce shorthand writing in Latin. He attempted comedy, but with so little success that in the canon of Volcacius Sedigitus he is mentioned, solely as a mark of respect “for his antiquity,” tenth and last in the list of comic poets. He may be regarded also as the inventor of Roman satire, in its original sense of a “medley” or “miscellany,” although it was by Lucilius that the character of aggressive and censorious criticism of men and manners was first imparted to that form of literature. The word satura was originally applied to a rude scenic and musical performance, exhibited at Rome before the introduction of the regular drama. The saturae of Ennius were collections of writings on various subjects, written in various metres and contained in four (or six) books. Among these were included metrical versions of the physical speculations of Epicharmus, of the gastronomic researches of Archestratus of Gela (Hedyphagetica), and, probably, of the rationalistic doctrines of Euhemerus. It may be noticed that all these writers whose works were thus introduced to the Romans were Sicilian Greeks. Original compositions were also contained in these saturae, and among them the panegyric on Scipio, unless this was a drama. The satire of Ennius seems to have resembled the more artistic satire of Horace in its record of personal experiences, in the occasional introduction of dialogue, in the use made of fables with a moral application, and in the didactic office which it assumed.
But the chief distinction of Ennius was gained in tragic and narrative poetry. He was the first to impart to the Roman adaptations of Greek tragedy the masculine dignity, pathos and oratorical fervour which continued to animate them in the hands of Pacuvius and Accius, and, when set off by the acting of Aesopus, called forth vehement applause in the age of Cicero. The titles of about twenty-five of his tragedies are known to us, and a considerable number of fragments, varying in length from a few words to about fifteen lines, have been preserved. These tragedies were for the most part adaptations and, in some cases, translations from Euripides. One or two were original dramas, of the class called praetextae, i.e. dramas founded on Roman history or legend; thus, the Ambracia treated of the capture of that city by his patron Nobilior, the Sabinae of the rape of the Sabine women. The heroes and heroines of the Trojan cycle, such as Achilles, Ajax, Telamon, Cassandra, Andromache, were prominent figures in some of the dramas adapted from the Greek. Several of the more important fragments are found in Cicero, who expresses a great admiration for their manly fortitude and dignified pathos. In these remains of the tragedies of Ennius we can trace indications of strong sympathy with the nobler and bolder elements of character, of vivid realization of impassioned situations, and of sagacious observation of life. The frank bearing, fortitude and self-sacrificing heroism of the best type of the soldierly character find expression in the persons of Achilles, Telamon and Eurypylus; and a dignified and passionate tenderness of feeling makes itself heard in the lyrical utterances of Cassandra and Andromache. The language is generally nervous and vigorous, occasionally vivified with imaginative energy. But it flows less smoothly and easily than that of the dialogue of Latin comedy. It shows the same tendency to aim at effect by alliterations, assonances and plays on words. The rudeness of early art is most apparent in the inequality of the metres in which both the dialogue and the “recitative” are composed.