Coney Island

Coney Island is about 9 acres of thick woodland in the south-west corner of the lough, between the mouths of the Blackwater and the Upper Bann and roughly a kilometre out from Maghery. Its old Irish name, Inis Dabhaill, means 'island of the Blackwater'; the English one comes from coney, an old word for rabbit. Digs in 1962–64 found traces of prehistoric settlers, an Anglo-Norman castle and an Elizabethan Irish fort. The island was an O'Neill stronghold until it was handed to the Lord Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, in 1567, and a 16th-century stone tower survives. Lord Charlemont built a summer house here in 1895; since 1946 the island has belonged to the National Trust, and the council manages it on the Trust's behalf. Trips have run at weekends from Maghery and Kinnego; we have no information on landing your own boat.