Lough Neagh’s annual pest is really thriving

From our garden we had a splendid view of Slieve Gallion mountain, there was the River Bann where we went fishing, and best of all there was Lough Neagh where with my siblings and endless cousins we fiddled around in boats and camped on the sandy bits which hadn’t disappear over the previous winter. I was a mere child then and childhood dreams develop realism as time moves on.

The family home eventually became too small for us and we moved on, but not far away. My mother pined to get back to the area which she eventually did by which time I had left school, had started working and soon that meant living away from home except for the Christmas holidays. That was the one time of the year you could be guaranteed to escape what we called the midges or mayflies, to give them their proper title, harmless little blighters but a great nuisance. And this year, particularly this month, it seems, those mayflies are ‘torturing‘ the locals because August is the month of the mayfly and if it’s a good, warm month they breed in their zillions.

I remember having to close up bedroom windows at night and if I went to visit my elderly Aunt Lizzie, who lived right on the shore at Ballyronan, she kept a permanently rolled up newspaper which she took everywhere with her.

Her laneway was fairly long and when I visited I always dreaded having to cycle though this buzzing throng with mouth closed and breath held until I could reach her front door.

The mayflies first arrive in May but this balmy warm August, has been particularly perfect weather for the second generation of little blighters on all shores of the lough. Barbeques? Out of the question. Strolling around the shore on a calm evening? Forget it. The mayflies cover the walls of houses and the windows, for all the world resembling a black plague.

My mother would spend her mornings shovelling them away from the doors and windows; yes, even those that got inside. When the well-known McGarry Brothers were building boats on the shore not far from Ballyronan (they owned the famous Maid of Antrim) I recall seeing the dead flies stacked high in their boatyard, the perfect dung heap for locals keen for valuable free compost for their gardens.

Tennis, GAA matches, even paddling on the shore was out of the question when the flies took over.

The sadness of it all is that most parts of the shores of Lough Neagh are scenically beautiful and understandably people want to build homes there.

Those who haven’t done their homework and have built a home overlooking the water will get a shock when the first tranche of mayflies arrive.

These creatures spread themselves over everything including the highest trees. Fly killing sprays are useless.

They come, set up home and don’t die off or go away until it suits them. And, it was that that persuaded me that no matter how much I loved the place I could never live there.

I wasn’t even keen to visit the family home until the flies had gone.

I try to avoid driving in the area when the mayflies are active as they splatter the windscreen ruining your vision and needing to be scraped off because they harden like glue. Step ouside the car and you’re covered in them.

In sense they are not unlike the coronavirus – a first tranche arrives taking lives and scaring us witless.

We try to get it under control only for a second lot to move in or at least we have been told to expect one.

Even our scientists are fairly certain the virus will return with the cold weather. Our Health Minister Robin Swann has us well warned.

So the police needed go looking for beach parties or illegal raves around the shores of Lough Neagh. The mayfly, though harmless, is a thorough pest which comes and goes as it pleases.