Ellen Lloyd – AncientPages.com – If you travel to the Glens of Antrim, a few miles from the seaside town of Ballycastle, in Northern Ireland, you may or may not see Loughareema. Whether you can spot the lake depends on if the water is blocked or not.
Known as the Vanishing Lake, it has been a source of amazement not only because of its odd geological behavior throughout the year. “The Vanishing Lake” is a chalk sinkhole that occasionally gets blocked up when peat washes into it.
Water draining off from surrounding land fills the lake up, sometimes flooding the nearby road after particularly heavy rains. Once the blockage is cleared, or the aquifer beneath can accept more water, the “Vanishing Lake”… vanishes.” 1
This beautiful place has been mentioned in several strange tales. One of the older accounts describing a tragic event related to Loughareema appears in Coleraine Chronicle, published in October 1898.