Keeldra Lough

Keeldra Lough is located in Leitrim. There are restrooms and a parking space nearby. No dogs allowed on the beach. Enhanced accessibility for disabled persons.
The Keeldra Lake area may be classified as possessing a muddy composition, accompanied by a semi-natural riparian zone. Its bathing area spans roughly 2,000 m2, with the prevailing swimming stretch situated on the shore side of a pier specifically fabricated for this purpose.
This amenity has undergone extensive improvements in the past few years with the addition of further picnic benches and car parking facilities. A new car park was constructed on the eastern side of the toilet block in addition to the existing roadside parking. A walking trail that circumnavigates the lake was opened in 2019 with the trail head being located at the western boundary of the site. The 3km trail wraps around the lake to the southern end where the trail veers uphill to a vantage point over the lake. From here the trail leads uphill on to a quiet local road, before returning to the lake shore and back to the car park. This trail makes Keeldra an attractive year round amenity. Largest visitor numbers are recorded during swim weeks and fine weather periods during the summer months. Swimmer numbers during swim weeks have been increasing year on year with 217 swimmers participating in 2018 and 2019 Swim Weeks. There are no life guard provisions outside of the swim week period. Swimming and Life Saving instruction is conducted during the bathing season each year. Map 1: Bathing Water Location & ExtentNationally this initiative is under the auspices of Irish Water Safety Council and Local Authorities which together run an extensive summer and winter program across the country. Summer training generally extends to rural areas- lakes, rivers, beach front. Annual water safety/ swim training courses are of two distinct groups consisting of swim weeks and water safety weeks. As it suggests, swim weeks consist of instruction in swimming with water safety weeks developing skills in rescue, survival and resuscitation. Keeldra Lough is an ideal location for angling, with easy access for boats, and off pier fishing with fishing competitions held twice yearly. Kayaking and Paddle Boarding have also become popular at Keeldra in the past few years. A Family Fun Day is held each year, mid-July, where there’s kayaking, swimming and music.
Keeldra Lake is a small lake in rural South Leitrim approximately 6 kilometres East of Mohill Town and 4 km South of Cloone Village in Co. Leitrim. It is approximately 444 metres wide and 1030 metres in length, has a surface area of 0.33km2 and a shore line of 2.8km. Keeldra Lake lies within the sub-catchment 26C_4 Cloone(Lough Rinn)_SC_010 in the 26C Upper Shannon catchment The inputting and receiving waterbody for the lake is the Cloone_020 river. The bathing area is situated at the Northern Shore of this lake. A concrete enclosure/ pier that runs 20m out into the lake body from the shore and forms a right angle to the West for 30m forms a sheltered swimming area. This bathing area is approximately 2,000 m2 and the principal swimming zone is expected on the shore side of this man-made pier. At an estimate the bathing area constitutes 25% of the Northern shore (380km).