An Irishman’s Diary: Lough Neagh, a nature lover’s paradise

I saw a Gazelle in the sky above Lough Neagh the other day. No, I was not on drugs. It was a helicopter, one that the British army fly and which used to be a very common sight in my youth in the savannah-sky of Belfast. Truth be told, it has been a long time since I saw one.

I thought that they were extinct in the Not-So-Occupied Six Counties. But, no, there it was flying north above the moorland.

Yes, the lough is more famous for its eels than its gazelles — though no one seems to eat them locally. One of the elders of the area told me that in days gone by the locals would serve the eels with soda bread, all the better to mop up their juices. I have to say that I have never seen “eel and soda bread” on the menu of local eateries but it sounds like a good bit of eating to me. Should TG4 ever launch a series of Máistir Chef, I might well try that one out on the judges — and add a little salad, just for colour. (No refunds if I cook the eel badly and you end up boking up your guts!)

Usually, on my cycles around the lough, it is the birds that attract my attention. City boy I may be but 20 plus years by the shores of Lough Neagh have given me an appreciation for the diversity of wildlife that is on our doorstep.

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The buzzard is a common sight in these parts. You see it on quieter days trying to catch the thermals and, when it does, it spirals upwards with the minimum of effort. The kestrel too is often to be spotted, quartering along the shore and inland, hovering with ease while it waits to dive. Once, just once, I saw a sparrow hawk in action. It came over the hedge like a cartoon missile — straight up, straight down, headed for the bottom of the field and away. And there is the heron, always there, standing with a sniper’s patience in the boggy ground, waiting, waiting.

There are finches galore, wag tails, sparrows, blackbird, thrush, magpie — I hate those balaclava-clad killers! — starling and even, for a while, some bats which used to emerge at dusk and hunt around the house. Of course, there are the African migrants too — the swallows. We once read a story at school in which returning swallows played a major role. There were no swallows in Belfast however and our teacher did not think to show us a picture of one or to explain fully their significance. Decades later, I realised what they were, the journey they took and a light — yes, a very dim light — went off in my mind: “Aaahhh. So that’s what that story meant.”

Every since, I mark the beginning of summer with the arrival of the swallows and its end when they begin to disappear. They are magnificent little birds and are very common to these parts. There is good eating on the lough for them as there are plenty of lough flies. The lough flies themselves are a sight to behold. I can’t say I enjoy eating them though I have consumed one or two accidently while on my bike. (Wash them down with a good swig of orange from your bottle and you will live to tell the tale.)

They are certainly unpleasant to cycle through. You plough through a cloud of them and emerge the other side with flies in your hair, on your hairy legs, in your ears. But when the lough flies gain height and come together in one huge bunch, it is like watching a living Chinese lantern. Round and round they go, into the air, a dark, moving smudge on the wing, shifting one way, then the other. Truly a wonderful sight.

No wonder the swallows come back year after year for a taste of the lough fly; they are the ultimate take-away. Or perhaps it is the view the swallows love. In the summer, I look across to the Sperrins and its green slopes and it is as beautiful a sight as you will see anywhere on this planet.

In winter, if there is snow, the Sperrins shine in the distant, like big lumps of coal, fighting against being smothered by the white. They look ‘epic’ as the young ones might say.

Yet, epic is an appropriate term. There have been people living around the lough for thousands of years. Indeed, Seán Duffy in his marvellous book, Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf, writes that Brian Boru campaigned along the area I cycle. How's that for company?

Not that we should be surprised by such history. Pat McKay writes in his great book, A Dictionary of Ulster-Place Names, that Lough Neagh, aka Loch nEathach, gets its name from Eochu "the mythical progenitor of the sept of Uí Eachach 'descendants of Eochu' who inhabitated the area at an early date".

And one final comment. The Irish word “loch” is masculine in Standard Irish but feminine in Donegal Irish. So, be you male or female, the lough belongs to you.