Army bomb disposal officers spent yesterday making safe second World War incendiary bombs which are being washed up up on the coastline in Co Louth and north Co Dublin. The bombs, which contained sticks of phosphorus about a foot long, are highly dangerous and self-ignite when exposed to air.
The Army team were particularly concerned to receive a call yesterday from a man in Skerries who had found a device and brought it home. He was told to submerge the device in water until ordnance officers arrived. When the device was taken from the water it ignited quite quickly.
Later yesterday the Army was called to a stretch of coastline at Greenore, north of Dundalk. Nine bombs washed up on the tide ignited spontaneously after the area had been cleared. While the Army was there, other devices were being deposited on the beach.
The incendiary bombs are among millions of tonnes of ordnance dumped in the Beaufort Dyke, a deep trough between Belfast Lough and Scotland, by the British Ministry of Defence after the second World War. The bombs have been coming ashore in Ireland and Scotland in small numbers over the past decade.
It is thought some may have been disturbed during the laying of a telephone cable in the 1980s. There may also have been further disturbance with the more recent laying of a natural gas pipeline.
A large section of the Louth coastline was being searched last night. Gardai advised members of the public not to touch any suspicious objects. Last night, the Minister for the Marine, Dr Woods, said those who found any unusual object on the beach should not touch it but should contact the Garda or the Irish Marine Emergency Service by dialling 999.
He also has insisted on an urgent reply from the British authorities on any activity which has led to disturbance of the seabed in the Beaufort Dykes area.