Strangford Lough (from

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

''Strangr Fjörðr'', meaning "strong sea-inlet"PlaceNames NI
- Strangford Lough) is a large sea

loch ''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots language, Scots and Irish language, Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is Cognate, cognate with the Manx language, Manx lough, Cornish language, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh language, Welsh w ...

inlet An inlet is a (usually long and narrow) indentation of a shoreline, such as a small arm, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea. Overview In marine geogra ...

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to the ...

, in the east of

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

. It is the largest inlet in Ireland and the

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...

, covering . The lough is almost fully enclosed by the

Ards Peninsula The Ards Peninsula () is a peninsula in County Down, Northern Ireland, on the north-east coast of Ireland. It separates Strangford Lough from the North Channel of the Irish Sea. Towns and villages on the peninsula include Donaghadee, Milli ...

and is linked to the

Irish Sea The Irish Sea or , gv, Y Keayn Yernagh, sco, Erse Sie, gd, Muir Èireann , Ulster-Scots: ''Airish Sea'', cy, Môr Iwerddon . is an extensive body of water that separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is linked to the Ce ...

by a long narrow channel at its southeastern edge. The main body of the lough has at least seventy islands along with many islets (pladdies), bays, coves, headlands and mudflats. Historically it was called 'Lough Coan' (

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

''Loch Cuan'', "sea-inlet of bays/havens"), while 'Strangford' referred to the narrow sea channel. It is part of the 'Strangford and

Lecale Lecale (, ) is a peninsula in the east of County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies between Strangford Lough and Dundrum Bay. In the Middle Ages it was a district or ''túath'' in the Gaelic Irish kingdom of Ulaid, then became a county in the Anglo ...

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is an area of countryside in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Areas are designated in recognition of thei ...

. Strangford Lough was designated as Northern Ireland's first

Marine Conservation Zone A Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ) is a type of marine nature reserve in UK waters. They were established under the Marine and Coastal Access Act (2009) and are areas designated with the aim to protect nationally important, rare or threatened habit ...

in 2013, and has been designated a

Special Area of Conservation A Special Area of Conservation (SAC) is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), also known as the ''Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora''. They are to protect the 220 habitats and ap ...

for its important wildlife. Strangford Lough is a popular tourist destination noted for its fishing and scenery. Towns and villages around the lough include

Killyleagh Killyleagh (; ) is a village and civil parish in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is on the A22 road between Belfast and Downpatrick, on the western side of Strangford Lough. It had a population of 2,483 people in the 2001 Census. It is best ...

Comber Comber ( , , locally ) is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies south of Newtownards, at the northern end of Strangford Lough. It is situated in the townland of Town Parks, the civil parish of Comber and the historic barony of Cast ...

Newtownards Newtownards is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies at the most northern tip of Strangford Lough, 10 miles (16 km) east of Belfast, on the Ards Peninsula. It is in the Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish of Newtownard ...

Portaferry Portaferry () is a small town in County Down, Northern Ireland, at the southern end of the Ards Peninsula, near the Narrows at the entrance to Strangford Lough. It is home to the Exploris aquarium and is well known for the annual Gala Week Flo ...

and Strangford. The latter two straddle either shore of the narrow Strangford channel, and are connected by a car ferry.

Name

The name ''Strangford'' comes . The

Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

were active in the area during the Middle Ages. Originally, this name referred only to the narrow channel linking the lough to the sea (between the villages of Strangford and

). Up until about the 18th century, the main body of the lough was better known by the (older)

name ''Loch Cuan'', meaning "loch of the bays/havens". This name was anglicized as ''Lough Coan'', ''Lough Cone'', ''Lough Coyn'', ''Lough Coin'', or similar. The narrow channel may have been known in Latin as the ''fretum Brene''. In Ulster-Scots the lough's name is spelt ''Strangfurd'' or ''Strangfirt Loch''.

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...

's ''

Geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...

'' (2nd century AD) described a point called Ουινδεριος (''Winderios'', "pleasant river") which may have referred to Strangford Lough.

Geology

The loch was formed at the end of the last ice age and is generally under deep, but can reach in parts, generally the centre channel.

Flora

Flowering plants

Common cord-grass (''

Spartina anglica ''Sporobolus anglicus'' (common cordgrass) is a species of cordgrass that originated in southern England in about 1870 and is a neonative species in Britain. It was reclassified as '' Sporobolus anglicus'' after a taxonomic revision in 2014,Pe ...

'') C.E. Hubbard was introduced in the mid-1940s is now abundant.

Algae

Maerl is a calcareous deposit, in the main, of two species, of

calcareous Calcareous () is an adjective meaning "mostly or partly composed of calcium carbonate", in other words, containing lime or being chalky. The term is used in a wide variety of scientific disciplines. In zoology ''Calcareous'' is used as an adje ...

algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...

''Phymatolithon calcareum'' and ''Lithothamnion glaciale'' which form free-living beds of unattached, branched

corallines Coralline algae are red algae in the order Corallinales. They are characterized by a thallus that is hard because of calcareous deposits contained within the cell walls. The colors of these algae are most typically pink, or some other shade of ...

, living or dead, in Strangford Lough. The rocky and boulder shores toward the south of the lough are dominated by the seaweed knotted wrack ''

Ascophyllum nodosum ''Ascophyllum nodosum'' is a large, common cold water seaweed or brown alga (Phaeophyceae) in the family Fucaceae, being the only species in the genus ''Ascophyllum''. It is a seaweed that only grows in the northern Atlantic Ocean, also known in ...

''. The usual zonation of weeds on these shore is, at the top channel wrack (''

Pelvetia canaliculata ''Pelvetia canaliculata'', the channelled wrack, is a very common brown alga (Phaeophyceae) found on the rocks of the upper shores of Europe. It is the only species remaining in the monotypic genus ''Pelvetia''. In 1999, the other members of this ...

'' (L.) Dcne. et Rhur.), followed by spiral wrack (''

Fucus spiralis ''Fucus spiralis'' is a species of seaweed, a brown alga (Heterokontophyta, Phaeophyceae), living on the littoral shore of the Atlantic coasts of Europe and North America. It has the common names of spiral wrack and flat wrack. Description '' ...

'' L.), then knotted wrack (''Ascophyllum nodosum'' (L.) Le Jol) with some admixture of bladder wrack (''

Fucus vesiculosus ''Fucus vesiculosus'', known by the common names bladder wrack, black tang, rockweed, sea grapes, bladder fucus, sea oak, cut weed, dyers fucus, red fucus and rock wrack, is a seaweed found on the coasts of the North Sea, the western Baltic Se ...

'') L. and then serrated wrack (''

Fucus serratus ''Fucus serratus'' is a seaweed of the north Atlantic Ocean, known as toothed wrack or serrated wrack. Description and reproduction ''Fucus serratus'' is a robust alga, olive-brown in colour and similar to ''Fucus vesiculosus'' and ''Fucus spir ...

'' L.) before coming to the low water kelps. Other algae include:

Fauna

Strangford Lough and Islands is an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

. Strangford Lough is an important winter

migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...

destination for many wading and sea

birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

Animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...

s commonly found in the lough include

common seal The harbor (or harbour) seal (''Phoca vitulina''), also known as the common seal, is a true seal found along temperate and Arctic marine coastlines of the Northern Hemisphere. The most widely distributed species of pinnipeds, pinniped (walruses ...

basking shark The basking shark (''Cetorhinus maximus'') is the second-largest living shark and fish, after the whale shark, and one of three plankton-eating shark species, along with the whale shark and megamouth shark. Adults typically reach in leng ...

s and

brent geese The brant or brent goose (''Branta bernicla'') is a small goose of the genus ''Branta''. There are three subspecies, all of which winter along temperate-zone sea-coasts and breed on the high-Arctic tundra. The Brent oilfield was named after ...

. Three quarters of the world population of pale bellied brent geese spend winter in the lough area. Often the numbers are up to 15,000. The

Castle Espie Castle Espie is a wetland reserve managed by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) on the banks of Strangford Lough, three miles south of Comber, County Down, Northern Ireland, in the townland of the same name. It is part of the Strangford Lough ...

wetland reserve sits on the banks of the lough near

. The invasive carpet sea squirt, '' Didemnum vexillum'', was found in the Lough in 2012.

Tidal electricity

In 2007 Strangford Lough became home to the world's first commercial tidal stream power station,

SeaGen SeaGen was the world's first large scale commercial tidal stream generator. It was four times more powerful than any other tidal stream generator in the world at the time of installation. It was successfully decommissioned by SIMEC Atlant ...

. The 1.2

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units, International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), ...

underwater tidal electricity generator, part of Northern Ireland's Environment and Renewable Energy Fund scheme, took advantage of the fast tidal flow in the lough which can be up to 4 m/s. Although the generator was powerful enough to power up to a thousand homes, the

turbine A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced by a turbine can be used for generating e ...

had a minimal

environmental impact Environmental issues are effects of human activity on the biophysical environment, most often of which are harmful effects that cause environmental degradation. Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the natural environment on t ...

, as it was almost entirely submerged, and the rotors turned slowly enough that they pose no danger to

wildlife Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animal species (biology), species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous ...

. In 2008 a

tidal energy Tidal power or tidal energy is harnessed by converting energy from tides into useful forms of power, mainly electricity using various methods. Although not yet widely used, tidal energy has the potential for future electricity generation. Ti ...

device called

Evopod Evopod is a unique tidal energy device being developed by a UK-based company Oceanflow Energy Ltd for generating electricity from tidal streams and ocean currents. It can operate in exposed deep water sites where severe wind and waves also make ...

was tested in Strangford Lough near the Portaferry Ferry landing. The device was a 1/10 scale prototype, monitored by

Queen's University Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

. The device was a semi-submerged floating tidal turbine, moored to the seabed via a buoy-mounted swivel. The scale device was not grid connected.

Sports

In July 2016, the Strangford Lough and Lecale Partnership, Scottish Coastal Rowing Association,

Newry, Mourne and Down District Council Newry, Mourne and Down District Council ( Irish: ''Comhairle Ceantair an Iúir, Mhúrn agus an Dúin'') is a local authority in Northern Ireland that was established on 1 April 2015. It replaces Down District Council and Newry and Mourne Distri ...

and

Ards and North Down Borough Council Ards and North Down Borough Council is a local authority in Northern Ireland that was established on 1 April 2015. It replaced Ards Borough Council and North Down Borough Council. The first elections to the authority were on 22 May 2014 and it ...

hosted the "Skiffie Worlds 2016" rowing championships. The event was attended by 50 clubs from Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, the Netherlands, The United States, Canada and Tasmania. Racing was held over a 2 km course on Strangford Lough at

Delamont Country Park Delamont Country Park is located on the shores of Strangford Lough in County Down, Northern Ireland. It covers an area of approximately 200 acres 2 km south of Killyleagh. It is currently maintained by Newry, Mourne and Down District Council h ...

Ferry

The

Portaferry–Strangford ferry The Portaferry–Strangford ferry service crosses Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland at its narrowest point, close to where the lough joins the Irish Sea. The ferry links the two disconnected sections of the A2 road, Muff to Portaferry and St ...

service has linked

and Strangford, at the mouth of the Lough, without a break and for almost four centuries. The alternative road journey is and takes about an hour and a half, while the ferry crosses the strait in 8 minutes. The subsidised public service carries both passengers and vehicles, and operates at a loss of more than £1m per year but is viewed as an important transport link to the Ards Peninsula.

References

External links

Strangford Lough OnlineJNCC

Selection {{Coord, 54.483, N, 5.583, W, display=title, type:waterbody_region:GB-NIR_source:dewiki Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in County Down Important Bird Areas of Northern Ireland Special Protection Areas in Northern Ireland Special Areas of Conservation in County Down Portaferry Strangford Newtownards Marine reserves of Northern Ireland Ramsar sites in Northern Ireland Landforms of County Down Inlets of Northern Ireland