Reservoir at Lough Acorrymore in Achill
I just saw a sign for Lough Acorrymore and decided to see where it led to. Surely, if it wasn’t meant for tourists, they wouldn’t have put a nice brown sign pointing to it. It doesn’t seem that a lot of people make it here. There are a few vehicles I saw making their way to the lough and one which seemed to be unsure of continuing since it didn’t look like it was going anywhere interesting. At the very end of the road which isn’t really that far, you would eventually end up at Lough Acorrymore. With luck, you might be the only person here.
Exploring Lough Acorrymore
There seem to be a few terms to learn here. Corrie and tarn, both mean the same thing. Basically, it is a lake formed by glaciation. A lake is formed among the mountains when the glacier disappears. Back in the Ice Age, much of Ireland was covered in ice and glaciers. A lot of land forms were carved out by the ice. In the case of Lough Acorrymore, it carved out a new lake which basically catches all the water from the nearby mountains. The locals have made full use of this lake and turned it into a reservoir. While the lake isn’t really that large, it is enough to fulfill the water needs of the nearby areas. Visitors can even walk along the small dam and see where the water goes. There is a gate where excess water just flows out to ensure that the dam doesn’t hold anything more than it’s capacity. There seem to be two levels of overflow, perhaps that is to take care of instances where the water is too much to handle.
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