“When reports appeared on Monday that exploratory drilling was finally going ahead in Belcoo part of me disappeared down that hole with the huge Australian drill bit,” says Enniskillen-born actor Ciaran McMenamin.

Ciaran, who lives in London, will return to Fermanagh in a few weeks for the Beckett Festival. He has previously voiced his opposition to fracking in his home county through The Impartial Reporter.

During a recent visit home, he took a drive along the Marlbank scenic loop near the Marble Arch caves.

"Half way along I parked up and stood in the rain looking down over where all the concrete will go at Lough McNean and the mouth of my beloved Arney river and my heart began to break."

He keeps on top of all the developments in relation to fracking, saying: "I am shell shocked that after years of stringent environmental protection this company from another country may even allowed to drill there (Marble Arch) too,” he comments.

From the moment Ciaran began researching the process of fracking he says he quickly came to the conclusion that “there are so many down sides to having this industry in such a delicate environmental area that inevitably the focus of the debate gets stuck on specific possibilities”.

He believes that for "every 'possible contamination' or hypothetical spillage' there is a concrete factual reality that will be literally staring at you for generations to come"; the infrastructure and concrete frack pads that will be left behind.

He is urges locals to “focus on the actual scale of what has been proposed; sixty, six acre concrete frack pads two kilometres apart.

"These will cover vast tracts of the most delicate, beautiful countryside in all of Britain and Ireland. Our countryside. The French and the Germans have actually completely banned fracking because they are so proud of theirs,” he continues.

The actor adds that, if fracking goes ahead, “it will effect everyone, not just the people in Belcoo and Boho”.

Noise from the fack sites will disrupt the lives of locals, he states and he is sceptical of the amount of local jobs that will be provided.

Tourism is essential in County Fermanagh, according to Ciaran. “If I proposed this scale of physical environmental change to the landscape of say ‘The Ring of Kerry’ or ‘The Causeway Coast’ you would all laugh at me, so why should Fermanagh be thought of as any less?” The keen fisherman points out that fishing and agriculture could be at risk from fracking. “It will only take the stigma of fracking to end confidence in our pork, beef, milk and eggs. Consumers won’t need charts ‘proving’ contamination, they just wont take the risk and neither will the tourists or the fisherman. Why should we?” Ciaran concludes: “It is time for our local politicians from all parties to take their heads out of the sand and get involved in stopping what without doubt is the biggest change in Fermanagh’s history, whether you believe the water will get contaminated or not. “It shouldn’t be about facts and possibilities and pros and cons. It should be about having the common sense and the collective will to not take the risk at all.

“If you do one thing this weekend, take a drive around your beautiful county and see it for what it truly is before it is changed forever.”