No treasure, only small fine pieces of wood and bits of shell encrusted metal were recovered at the weekend from the wreck of the liner Laurentic that lies in the sea 40 metres down off north Donegal. The vessel sank in 1917 with the loss of 354 of its crew when it hit a mine at Fanad Head en route to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Some 121 crew members survived.
A plan to lift the safe from the White Star liner, built by Harland and Wolff, was abandoned after divers had worked 12 hours at the wreck on Saturday. The divers, from clubs all over Ireland, found the safe was attached to a heavy metal object and could not be lifted.
On Sunday morning the 17 divers, led by Mr Don McGlinchey of Derry, again headed for the wreck site 21/2 miles north of Fanad Head with a plan to suck out the contents of the safe, believed to have been originally located in the purser's office.
By Sunday night they had managed to extract only a quarter of the contents, which were heavily embedded in black silt.
Mr Christy Maloney, from Ennis, Co Clare, whose grandfather, Able Seaman Martin Maloney, died on the ship, laid a wreath above the wreck and was presented with a tile from the Laurentic by the diving team. The Laurentic was carrying the 1917 equivalent of £5 million in gold and a reported £3 million in silver coins to pay for arms for the British war effort. A Royal Navy salvage operation recovered 3,186 gold bars in the 1920s.
In 1969 Mr Ray Cossum from Derry bought the rights to the Laurentic from the British Ministry of Defence. He has spent the last 30 years trying to find more of the ship's treasure.
All markers and guides on the Laurentic wreck laid by Mr McGlinchey's authorised dive team were removed on Sunday evening after a Southampton diving team arrived at the site and were told to go away.