Chapter 2: Description of Loch Coirib

• Geography of Loch Coirib
  
• Sources, Rivers and Turlochs
  
• Scenery and Mountains Surrounding the Lake
  
• Geology
  
• Bogs and Turf
  
• Navigation
  

On the north-west the principal supply is from the Dumha éaga, which drains the watershed between the west and south-west sides of Binn Shleibhe and the south shoulder of the hills that run from Loch na Fuathaí [fn4-1] and Loch Measca to Loch Coirib, and which delivers its waters near Corr na Móna -- "the pinnacle of the bog". The great water source is Loch Measca, (surface area twenty two thousand statute acres) that has, with its tributaries and the Partraí range of mountains, a catchment basin of two hundred and twenty-five thousand statute acres, and which, filtering subterraneously through the cavernous limestone neck that divides the two lakes between Ross Hill and Cong, rises in an immense body of water at the latter place, and forms the great river of Cong; besides which, the waters of Loch Measca pour into the Coirib lake in numerous places from Cong to Cross, where there is a small stream feeding it with the various springs and turlochs [fn4-2] of that end of the barony of Kilmaine, and also from the well of St. Fraochan, in the immediate vicinity of the village of Cross.

Still farther to the south-east the rivers of Shrule Cloch- an Uabhair, Coill Rua, Creaga, Claregalway, pour in their tributes; the latter, in particular, which is now partially converted into a canal, and has drained several of the principal turlochs on the eastern border of the lake from Tuaim westwards, is, next to the Loch Measca supply, one of the chief water sources of Loch Coirib and also affords ready transit and good spawning ground for salmon for many miles inland.

On the west and south sides are a number of small streams, carrying down the surplus waters of the range of hills that stretch from the village of Magh Cuilinn by Carn Suí Finn till they culminate in Leac Aimhrei, which shadows the upper lake opposite the romantic basin in which rest the island and castle of Caislean na Circe. On this side also underground passages and now a canal carry in the waters of Baile Uí Chuirc Lake, but the chief stream is the Fuathaí, or Abhainn Ruibhe, which, collecting all the waters from the chain of lakes that margin the great road into Conamara, and especially those of Lochs Bó Finne and Gleann Gabhla, to the east of the summit level, enters the lake at Uachtar Ard. The Acha na nIubhar river also affords a full stream. From all this it will be seen that the chief supply to Loch Coirib is independent of springs, and hence the water is remarkably soft.