is a large freshwater lake in Northern Ireland and, at 392 square kilometres, the largest lake on the island of Ireland, the United Kingdom and the British Isles in general. It supplies 40% of the water in Northern Ireland. Its main tributaries are the Upper Bann and the River Blackwater and its main outlet is the Lower Bann. Its name comes from the Irish Loch nEachach, meaning ‚Eachaidh’s lake‘. The loch is owned by the Earl of Shaftesbury and managed by the Lough Neagh Partnership Ltd.
History
In 839, the Vikings established a fleet at Lough Neagh, where they overwintered in 840-1.
Sir Hugh Clotworthy settled from England near Antrim during the reign of Elizabeth I and was given the office of „Captain of Lough Neagh“ with a grant in exchange for keeping ships on the lake to enforce royal authority. Clotworthy’s successors as captain were his son and son-in-law, the first and second Viscount Massereene. In 1660, Charles II granted the first viscount rights to the fish and the lake bottom.
Geology
Geologically, the Lough Neagh basin is a depression formed by a series of tectonic events 400 million years ago. These tectonic events are responsible for the NE-SW bedrock structure that has controlled many subsequent events. During the Palaeozoic, the Lough Neagh Basin was a graben.
Fishing
Eel fishing has been an important industry in the river for centuries. These European eels make their way from the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean some 6,000 km along the Gulf Stream to the Bann Estuary and then into the Lough. They stay there for about 10 to 15 years, mature and then return to the Sargasso Sea to spawn. Today, Lough Neagh eels are exported to restaurants around the world and Lough Neagh eels have been granted protected geographical status under European Union law.
Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney has published a collection of poems, A Lough Neagh Sequence. Celebrating traditional eel fishing techniques and the natural history of their catch.
Other species of fish in the loch include dollaghan – a species of brook trout native to the loch – salmon, trout, perch and roach; bream, bream, pike and rudd are also present but less common.
