Ram’s Island is the largest island in

Lough Neagh Lough Neagh ( ; ) is a freshwater lake in Northern Ireland and is the largest lake on the island of Ireland and in the British Isles. It has a surface area of and is about long and wide. According to Northern Ireland Water, it supplies 4 ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

. It lies near the eastern shore of the lake and is about long by wide. Thickly wooded, it is a wildlife haven and includes the ruins of a medieval

Irish round tower Irish round towers ( (singular), (plural); Literal translation, literally 'bell house') are early medieval stone towers of a type found mainly in Ireland, with two in Scotland and one on the Isle of Man. As their name indicates, they were ori ...

History

The island's original Irish name was ''Inis Dar Cairgrenn'', which could mean "island of Cairgriu's daughter", and later became ''Inis Dairgreann''.Ram's Island
Place Names NI. This name was anglicized as "Enish Garden" and also survives in the name of an area on the mainland called "Darachrean".Ram's Island

Placenames Database of Ireland The Placenames Database of Ireland (), also known as , is a database and archive of place names in Ireland. It was created by Fiontar, Dublin City University in collaboration with the Placenames Branch of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, ...

. The English name "Ram's Island" could have come from the Irish ending ''–reann'' or from the island's "resemblance in form to a ram's horn". In the Middle Ages, an Irish monastery and

round tower A fortified tower (also defensive tower or castle tower or, in context, just tower) is one of the defensive structures used in fortifications, such as castles, along with defensive walls such as curtain wall (fortification), curtain walls. Castle ...

were built on the island. Irish outlaw

Redmond O'Hanlon Redmond O'Hanlon FRGS FRSL is an English writer and scholar. Early life and education O'Hanlon was born in Dorset, England. He was educated at Marlborough College and then Oxford University. After taking his M.Phil. in nineteenth-century Eng ...

is said to have taken refuge on the island in 1679. Several of the founders of the

United Irishmen The Society of United Irishmen was a sworn association, formed in the wake of the French Revolution, to secure Representative democracy, representative government in Ireland. Despairing of constitutional reform, and in defiance both of British ...

, including

Wolfe Tone Theobald Wolfe Tone, posthumously known as Wolfe Tone (; 20 June 176319 November 1798), was a revolutionary exponent of Irish independence and is an iconic figure in Irish republicanism. Convinced that, so long as his fellow Protestantism in ...

, visited the island in 1795.Rams Island Timeline
Ram's Island Heritage Project. Retrieved 1 December 2021. Ram's Island grew in size from approximately after Lough Neagh was lowered in the 19th century. In the early 19th century, the island was bought by the

Baron O'Neill Baron O'Neill, of Shane's Castle in the County of Antrim, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1868 for the musical composer The Reverend William O'Neill, 1st Baron O'Neill, William O'Neill. Born William Chichester, ...

, who built two houses there. The island's last permanent inhabitants were the Cardwells, previously caretakers for the O'Neills, in the 1920s. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, there was a

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

flying boat A flying boat is a type of seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in having a fuselage that is purpose-designed for flotation, while floatplanes rely on fuselage-mounted floats for buoyancy. Though ...

base at nearby Sandy Bay (RAF Sandy Bay). In 2005, the River Bann and Lough Neagh Association signed a thirty-year lease for Ram's Island. It received funding from the Lough Neagh Partnership, which was supported by the

Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA; initials pronounced as 'Dare-aa') ( Irish: ''An Roinn Talmhaíochta, Comhshaoil agus Gnóthaí Tuaithe''; Ulster Scots: ''Depairtment o' Fairmin, Environment an' Kintra Mat ...

. In 2006 a ferry named ''The Island Warrior'' began regular boat trips to the island for tourists.

References

{{authority control Uninhabited islands of Northern Ireland Lough Neagh Lake islands of Northern Ireland