Loughareema, whose name derives from the Irish Loch an Rith Amach ('the lake that runs out'), is an upland lake near Ballycastle in north Antrim that empties through a sinkhole in its limestone basin and refills from three feeder streams, sometimes within a single day. The lake can be brimming at dusk and bone-dry by morning, leaving its bed as passable ground. A road was constructed through the lake — sensible enough when it was empty — but fatally misleading when water returned in the dark of night.
The story
Local tradition holds that in the nineteenth century Captain McNeill's coachman drove a two-horse brougham across the hidden lake surface on just such a night. The horses, sensing the rising water, panicked, rearing and plunging until the carriage was dragged beneath the surface. The coachman and both horses were drowned after what witnesses described as 'a terrible struggle for life'. The event passed quickly into folklore, and from there into ghost story: the phantom coach and horses are said to appear at the shoreline on nights when the lake is full, replaying the fatal crossing for those who wait in the dark.
The lake's dual nature — vanishing lake by day, ghost-haunted water at night — made it a persistent subject of local legend along the Antrim coast. The Geological Society of London has since recognised Loughareema as a significant geological site for its remarkable ephemeral behaviour, and the lake is documented in both scientific and folklore literature. Several Ulster folk accounts record the ghost story, emphasising the coachman's inability to distinguish the road from the water surface in darkness.