All swimming spots › Inland, Northern Ireland
Can I swim at Rea's Wood?
Inland, Northern Ireland · Inland
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Before you get in
Inland water is cold all year, and there are no lifeguards here.
If you get into trouble, float on your back until the cold shock passes. Full advice below.
In an emergency call 999, or 112 in the Republic of Ireland.
Water quality today
The last fortnight
What this verdict covers
Independent site, not an official one. This verdict is about water quality. It does not tell you whether the water is safe to get into today.
How it has been rated
The annual grade, which is worked out from bacterial samples taken over several seasons.
Every sample, 2024 to 2026
45 samples, 2024 to 2026. The highest E. coli count in them was 10,000 per 100ml, on 4 June 2026; the standard for Excellent is 500 or below and for Good 1,000 or below.
One bar for each sample, oldest on the left. The taller the bar, the more E. coli that bottle held.
The scale is the same on every beach on this site, which is why a clean beach looks flat — the bars are measured against the standard rather than against that beach’s own worst day. Hover or tap a bar for that day’s figures. A single count over a line is not a failed beach. The classification is worked out as the 90th and 95th percentile of four years of samples, so one bad morning does not decide it — and one good morning does not either. 5 of these are above the Good standard, so they are pinned to the top with a notch rather than the chart stretching to fit them. 26 of them recorded blue-green algae visible at the sampling point.
What these bacteria mean for you
Neither one is what makes people ill by itself. They are markers: they live in the gut, so finding them means sewage or animal waste has reached the water, and whatever else came with it is likely there too.
The usual way to catch something is swallowing the water, and the usual result is a stomach upset. Ear, eye, chest and skin infections are the other common ones. Putting your head under and swimming with an open cut both raise the odds.
The riskiest time is the day or two after heavy rain, when storm overflows discharge and rain washes off farmland — including at beaches rated Excellent for the rest of the season. That is the whole reason this page shows you rainfall and discharges alongside the grade.
Rea's Wood was rated Poor for 2025, below the minimum standard, based on samples taken across recent seasons. That grade comes from bacterial samples taken over several seasons rather than from the water today — but a Poor rating does not only describe the past. Advice against bathing is posted at a Poor bathing water for the whole season, which is why it sets the verdict at the top of this page every day until the season closes.
DAERA samples this beach through the season and publishes the result. NI Water does monitor its storm overflows, and by May 2026 had 466 monitors covering 31 of the 33 designated bathing waters, but it publishes a yearly summary rather than live status. Nothing here can tell you whether an overflow is discharging right now.
The rest of its file
What the regulator holds for this place. None of it describes the water today.
- Water
- Inland
- Area
- Inland, Northern Ireland
- Storm overflows
- Monitored, but only published yearly
Wind, water and weather
The weather here today and for the week ahead. Not the water quality verdict above.
Today
Rain, the week behind and ahead
The weather for the week ahead
Water temperature
There is no water temperature for this place, and no honest way to give one. Nobody publishes a live temperature for Britain and Ireland’s rivers and lakes: SEPA and Natural Resources Wales measure none at all, and the satellite products that cover lakes do not include this one and run weeks behind.
Air temperature is not a substitute. Inland water stays cold through the summer, and it is coldest relative to the air on the warm still days when most people get in. The RNLI says inland water like lakes, rivers, lochs and reservoirs can be colder than the sea, even in summer, and it defines cold water as anything below 15°C. Cold water can seriously affect your breathing and your ability to move. Treat this water as cold, get in slowly, and know how to float.
Where it is, and what discharges near it
Directions to this bathing water
That is DAERA’s sampling point, which is at the water rather than at a car park. Your maps app will take you to the nearest road it can reach.
The nearest mapped car park is about 240m away in a straight line (Lough Shore Car Park). That is not a walking distance: OpenStreetMap knows where the car park is and nothing about the path, which may be longer, steeper or not there at all.
No toilet, drinking water or cafe is mapped within 500m of here in OpenStreetMap. That is a gap in the map as much as it is a fact about the place.
Other swimming spots nearby
The closest bathing waters on the regulators’ lists, straight-line distance. Each has its own checks and its own verdict.
Check the official source
The regulator’s own page for this bathing water. If it disagrees with this one, believe theirs.
Rea's Wood's official profile (PDF) at DAERA · See it on a map
This page is not official. It reads published data and presents it plainly; if a sign at the water says otherwise, believe the sign.
If you get into trouble
This is the RNLI’s advice, not ours.
Float. Tilt your head back with your ears in the water. Relax and let your breathing settle. Move your hands and legs gently to stay level. Your legs may sink, and that is fine, everyone floats differently. The first shock of cold water passes in less than a minute, so do not try to swim straight away. Once it has passed, call for help or swim to safety.
In an emergency call 999 and ask for the fire service, or for the Coastguard at a tidal river. In the Republic of Ireland call 112 or 999.
Inland water has its own hazards and none of them are visible from the bank. The bottom shelves away without warning, weeds and submerged branches catch legs, and a river runs faster and colder after rain than it looks from the side. There are no lifeguards and no flags at almost every place on this list.
Never jump in. You cannot see what is under the surface, and the cold on entry is what causes the gasp, not the depth.
This advice is the RNLI’s. Their Float to Live pages are worth two minutes of anyone’s time.
Use this page elsewhere
One sheet of A4 with a QR code to this page, for a clubhouse, a campsite reception, a surf school or a harbour office. The address is printed underneath in words, so it still works for anybody who would rather not scan a code.
Print a sign for Rea's WoodOr put today’s verdict on your own site.
Put this swimming spot on your own site
A small card showing today’s verdict for Rea's Wood, updating itself. Paste this where you want it to appear. It loads nothing of yours and sets no cookies, and it costs your visitors about ten kilobytes, most of it the readings themselves.
Click the box to select it all. There is also a feed for this swimming spot, if you would rather be told than have to look.