Most distressing accident on Lough Neagh — three young gentlemen drowned
It is with painful regret we have to announce a very afflicting calamity that occurred on Lough Neagh, on Friday, by which Mr Alexander Charters, son of our esteemed townsman, Mr John Charters, Mr Henry Nelson, son of Mr James Nelson, Ballinderry, and Mr Allen Bell, Glenavy-water-foot, have been consigned to an early grave.
They had that day gone on the lake on a pleasure excursion; and between three and four o’clock in the afternoon, when rounding Ram’s Island, the yacht in which they were capsized in a sudden and violent squall and sunk, when the three young men perished. Several persons on the shore witnessed the occurrence, but at the distance, and the wind blowing an unusually stiff gale from the north, no assistance could be afforded.
All the bodies have been recovered. Mr Alexander Charters, whose untimely death it is thus our melancholy duty to record, had been on a visit to his uncle, who resides near the shore of the lake.
The Dublin Monitor 3 May 1844, quoting the Northern Whig
Irish waterways history 