Sunken ship has broken into three pieces
The MV Shingle was sunk into Killala Bay last September.
A former smuggling ship, which was sunk into Killala Bay last September as part of a tourism project, has broken up into three pieces.
The MV Shingle was sunk into the waters about four kilometres out from Enniscrone as part of a joint effort between Killala Bay Ships 2 Reef (KBS2R), the Revenue Commission and Mayo and Sligo County Councils to become Ireland’s first artificial reef and a diving hotspot. The sinking of the ship attracted considerable media attention.
However, it has now emerged that the sunken ship was badly damaged during Storm Éowyn last January. Recent underwater surveys have revealed that the 60-metre steel-hulled cargo boat has broken into three pieces with the bow and stern coming apart from the main structure.
Cllr Michael Loftus was one of the driving forces behind the project and an avid diver. He believes the damage to the vessel was caused during Storm Éowyn, which generated record wind speeds off the Atlantic coast on January 24th.
“Unfortunately, the big storm not alone caused damage on the shoreline, it also damaged the Shingle and broke it into three pieces,” he told the . “It is upsetting from our point of view. We did it for the right reason, to bring marine tourism to Mayo and Sligo.”
However, Cllr Loftus was upbeat about the impact of this latest development in the storied history of the Shingle.
“In doing so much damage, the storm has given us three dive sites. There are now three separate locations for divers to explore and we have marked them out with buoys. They have been renamed as well.
“You will no longer say you’re going down to see the Shingle, you’ll be going to see the Saoirse, the Thomas or the Mikey,” he added.
Cllr Loftus said the goal of creating an artificial reef has been a success.
“The goal was to create an artificial reef and we’ve now created three with the breaking up. There is fish life flocking to all three sites which is very positive,” he said.
“There has been a massive growth of barnacles and this has become a habitat for fish. That is exactly what we were aiming for.”
He said the three parts of the ship are now deemed as wrecks and have been marked as ‘obstacles’ on the Commissioner of Irish Lights' admiralty charts.
“It is something we will have to continue to monitor but we’re conscious they’re embedded into the seabed,” he said. “We’re reasonably confident they will stay where they are. Storm Éowyn was a one in 100-year storm.”
He added there is no risk to infrastructure in the nearby waters, such as the nearby subsea fibre cable that links the USA with Europe.
“The ship has moved in the opposite direction of the cable and gone more towards Sligo. We were originally 500m from the cable and we got the maritime licence based on that. Now it has moved around 200m away from the original location, which is astonishing in itself.”
Cllr Loftus also noted that the damage to the ship had not been caused when it was sunk last September. He said the ship had been fully intact on the seabed until Storm Éowyn when it was dislodged and damaged.
Cllr Loftus is anticipating a busy summer from a marine tourism point of view in the north Mayo and west Sligo area.
“We have had a lot of divers down to see the ship, recently groups from Roscommon and Trinity College, and there will be a lot more wanting to come and see for themselves over the summer months,” he said.
The MV Shingle first came to national prominence when it was seized by the Revenue Commissioners in June 2014 during an operation that led to the detection and subsequent seizure of a significant quantity of cigarettes and tobacco aboard that were being illegally smuggled into the country.
