Lough Corrib

Where is Lough Corrib?

Countries on its shores: Ireland.

Largest lake of: Ireland.

Middle of the lake: 53.43° N, 9.23° W

The story behind it

Lough Corrib is about 43 km long and up to 51 m deep. Its area is usually given as about 176 km², although some books say 200 km². It is the largest lake in the Republic of Ireland; on the whole island, only Lough Neagh is bigger. The lake was shaped by glaciers and by water slowly dissolving the limestone rock. A long arm reaches north-west towards another lake, Lough Mask. An old legend says Lough Corrib has 365 islands, one for every day of the year. But the man who made the modern charts of the lake counted 1 327! On Inchagoill, one of the biggest wooded islands, you can still see two old churches from the time of early monks. Anglers come to catch salmon, trout and pike, and boats take visitors from Cong and Oughterard across the lake. The water flows out through the River Corrib, which runs through Galway into the Atlantic Ocean.

Find it on the globe

Lough Corrib is there as a small blue dot with its name, right on the water. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.