‘It’s dying in front of our eyes’: how the UK’s largest lake became an ecological disaster

Signs tout a natural paradise, but pollution from over-farming has left Northern Ireland’s Lough Neagh choked by toxic algae

The bright, cheery signs dot the shoreline like epistles from another era, a time before the calamity.

“Ballyronan marina is a picturesque boating and tourist facility on the shores of Lough Neagh,” says one. “Contours of its historical past embrace the virginal shoreline.”