Lough Corrib Charts

20/04/2026

The Limestone Pavements of Lough Corrib

A limestone pavement is formed when glaciers scrape away the soil and loose material on top of limestone and leave a smooth limestone slab. Limestone tends to fault in straight lines. Slightly acidic rainfall then finds all the faults and cracks and is drawn in by capillary action. As the cracks widen they channel more water and these faults and cracks deepen and dissolve away.

What you see in the sonar picture is the result of thousands of years of rainfall on a sheet of rock which is now 5m underwater, and this process occurred at some time since the end of the last Ice-Age, around 12000 years ago

These photos are of Clydagh Point limestone pavement and the Long Shallow submerged limestone pavement.

The Long Shallow pavement itself is evidence of the changing nature of Corrib - the now submerged pavement was above the shoreline of the lake for long enough for the rain to dissolve away the limestone in the cracks. The lake then rose dramatically and submerged the pavement under 5m of water.
Other indicators that we have point to the possibility that this happened sometime between 4000 and 6000 years ago.

The submerged pavements provide a hunting ground for predators, and a hiding place for others, as well as being beautiful and fascinating dive sites.

20/04/2026

16/01/2026

At no time during the global uptake of GPS and Starlink did we consider that the USA may become the aggressor. It will be interesting to see what the intentions are for these systems. Time to check your GNSS units can access the other constellations.

14/08/2025

Finding the the Viking era war canoe and Corrib Axes.

How the amazing Viking era Carrowmoreknock boat, and its unique battle axes were found. https://anglingcharts.com/war-canoe-beneath-the-waves-the-viking-era-carrowmoreknock-logboat-of-lough-corrib/

04/08/2025

One of the problems with modern chartplotters is that there is limited screen size to give you real situational awareness.
In these videos Donnchadh MacCobb, who runs Safe Water Training is using both the AnglingCharts A3 Boat Charts and the AnglingCharts GPS chart to safely tear up the Corrib on a rainy day !
The A3 Boat Charts are a set of 4 tough laminated charts covering the entire lake, which not only give you the "big picture", but keeps you safe when the batteries die, or you dont have a GPS chart at all, and they make planning the next shallow, or how to avoid it, much simpler.
https://anglingcharts.com/product/lough-corrib-a3-boat-charts/

03/08/2025

The Annaghkeen Boat, this had been sitting there on the lakebed outside Annaghkeen Bay for 2500 years by the time the Romans invaded Britain, it had been there, untouched, for 3500 years when the Vikings were sailing up the lake. Its astonishing to think about what this boat has seen, and the the hands that made it. The vessel is from the late neolithic, around 4500 years ago, predating the introduction of metal tools, it is over 12 meters long, and made from a single straight oak trunk.

Next to the boat is the Rinnaknock boat - the only of the historic vessels under the lake to have been raised, and refloated. It was found quite close to the Annaghkeen boat, was lifted and taken the pier in Annaghkeen, where it was drawn and studied, and the taken back out and re-sunk next to the Annaghkeen boat, where it can be monitored. The Rinnaknock boat is a small one man vessel from the iron age.

https://youtu.be/yB2z6vnQrSc

25/07/2025

Pop over to our new AnglingCharts website !!.
All the Books, Wallcharts, Boat charts, GPS maps are there, easy to access, with an easy to use shop ! Lots of underwater and historical stuff too !
https://anglingcharts.com/

23/06/2025

Join us on Wednesday June 25th at 1:00 pm in the Galway City Museum Ireland for an exciting talk by Karl Brady entitled:” Beneath the Surface: Exploring the Mysteries of Lough Corrib's Ancient Logboats”
More details at https://corribbeo.org/beneaththesurface/
We recommend you book on Eventbrite. Click on link below to reserve your place.
https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/beneath-the-surface-exploring-lough-corribs-ancient-logboats-tickets-1413094566889

06/07/2024

Corrib has changed dramatically over the millenia, there is geological evidence that the shoreline was at sometime, since the retreat of the ice, 5m lower for a considerable time. Corrib would have been a very different lake, and much smaller, with its exit to the sea being via a series of sinkholes, in the same way Mask flows into Corrib today.
There is possible evidence of habitation below the existing shoreline, with some intriguing sonar returns in an area close to where several artefacts have been found during work by the IFI.

I spotted a very faint trace of a buried object, and set about identifying it over the course of a few weeks. The sonar return was difficult to pin down, until I compared it to a sketch in "Lake dwellings of Ireland". The similarity was astonishing.
Ive included the original sonar trace, so you can see just how difficult some of these things are to spot !

01/07/2024

Rather an interesting collection of papers. Corrib features on page 24 onwards.
Some fascinating work by the Underwater Archaeology Unit.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Veronica-Walker-Vadillo/publication/381660282_Delivering_the_Deep_Maritime_Archaeology_for_the_21st_century_selected_papers_from_IKUWA_7/links/6679855e1dec0c3c6fa1d428/Delivering-the-Deep-Maritime-Archaeology-for-the-21st-century-selected-papers-from-IKUWA-7.pdf