Peadar Livingstone's The Fermanagh Story (1969) is the definitive history of County Fermanagh and a key source on the Maguires. It charts their rise as lords of Fermanagh through to their decline after the Plantation of Ulster.
Peadar Livingstone's The Fermanagh Story (1969) is widely regarded as the standard one-volume history of County Fermanagh, covering the county from prehistoric times to the twentieth century. For anyone researching Maguire history, it is essential reading. Livingstone traces the rise of the Maguires as lords of Fermanagh from the late thirteenth century and their centuries as the county's ruling Gaelic dynasty. He covers the clan's role in the Nine Years' War under Hugh Maguire, the Flight of the Earls, and the Plantation of Ulster, which stripped the family of its lands and power. The book draws on annals, state papers, and local tradition, and it places the Maguires within the wider social, religious, and political history of Fermanagh. That context helps genealogists and historians understand both the family's prominence and its dispersal.