Drumcully ASSI

This area is of special scientific interest because of its species-rich wet grassland.  Species-rich grassland tends to occur only where land management is not intensive, in particular where traditional farming practices have been maintained.  As a result, it is not a widespread habitat in Northern Ireland and is often fragmented, consisting of individual fields, parts of fields or banks.  Species-rich grasslands, like those found at Drumcully, are a particularly scarce resource in Northern Ireland.

Drumcully is situated close to the Fermanagh-Leitrim boundary, 9km southeast of Garrison. Drumcully is in the marginal uplands with an altitude of approximately 100m above sea level.  The site is underlain by the Carboniferous Glenade Sandstone Formation. These are near-shore or deltaic in origin and are some 330 million years old.  The soils at Drumcully are derived from the parent rock, the resultant soils are primitive (shallow) with poor drainage characteristics and are known as humic rankers.  Due to a combination of factors such as slope, altitude and the westerly geographical position, these soils are kept consistently moist.  This combination of underlying geology, topography and the related soil hydrology has resulted in a complex range of species-rich wet grasslands within a small area.