Qualla: Lough Neagh

Lough Neagh: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. Forty percent of Northern Ireland's drinking water comes from a lake whose bed is privately owned by an English earl. Forty-three percent of Northern Ireland's land surface drains into it. Five of the six counties of the territory have shores on it. The lake is 383 square kilometres - the largest in the British Isles - shallow enough that strong wind can whip the whole surface into a hazard within minutes, and 80 feet deep at its deepest point. The Irish called it Loch nEachach, Eachaidh's lake, after a young Munster prince of legend who fell in love with his stepmother and tried to elope. The lake, as the story has it, exists because someone forgot to put the lid back on a magic well. This is Lough Neagh.

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Image: Kenneth Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Lough Neagh: Eachaidh's Lake

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. The old Irish tale, written down in the Middle Ages but probably much older, names the lough after Echaid, son of Mairid, a king of Munster. Echaid falls in love with his young stepmother Ébliu, and the pair flee north with their retainers. The Dagda kills their horses; the great...

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Image: Kenneth Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Lough Neagh: Five Counties, One Lord

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ardfern, CC BY-SA 3.0. Lough Neagh is the only major lake in the world whose entire bed and fishing rights are owned by a single private individual. In 1660, Charles II gave the rights to the fish and bed of the lough to John Clotworthy, 1st Viscount Massereene. The title passed through inheritance to ...

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Image: Ardfern | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lough Neagh: The Eel-Men of Toomebridge

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. For centuries, the lough's most distinctive industry was its eel fishery. Lough Neagh eels - born in the Sargasso Sea, drifting as glass eels across the Atlantic and up the Lower Bann - have been caught at Toomebridge and along the lough's shores using long lines and traditional ...

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Image: Kenneth Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Lough Neagh: Roads of Water

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Erl Johnston, CC BY-SA 4.0. Lough Neagh sat at the heart of an inland navigation network. In the nineteenth century, three canals linked the lough to ports and cities across Ulster. The Lagan Navigation ran east to Belfast, the Newry Canal southeast to the port of Newry, and the Ulster Canal west to Lough E...

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Image: Erl Johnston | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lough Neagh: The Algae

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bosonic dressing, CC BY-SA 3.0. In the summers of 2023 and 2024, Lough Neagh turned green. Cyanobacterial blooms - blue-green algae - spread across the surface in patches large enough to be photographed from space. The water became toxic to dogs, fish and waterfowl. Birds died. The lake had been classified as h...

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Image: Bosonic dressing | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lough Neagh: What Belongs to Whom

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. Around the shores of Lough Neagh sit villages whose names are written in older languages: Maghery, Ardboe, Toomebridge, Ballyronan, Moortown. Ram's Island, Coney Island and Derrywarragh Island scatter across the surface. The lough is a Ramsar wetland of international importance a...

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Image: Kenneth Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0