An Irish diving team has discovered munitions on board the wreck of the Lusitania, which was sunk by a German submarine off the Co Cork coast during the first World War.
The story of the sinking of the Lusitania, and claims that it was carrying wartime munitions, has been the subject of international controversy since 1,195 people lost their lives on the ship some 11½ miles off the Old Head of Kinsale on May 7th, 1915.
The ship was en route to Liverpool from New York when it was hit by a torpedo from a German submarine, but there is still a mystery over the cause of the substantial and fatal blast which occurred an estimated 18 minutes later.
The diving team, led by Patrick Glavin of Cork Sub Aqua Club, found up to 15,000 rounds of .303 bullets in cases in the bow section of the ship during a licensed dive on the hull in some 90 metres of water earlier this month.
However, a subsequent check of the ship's manifest has shown that the munitions may have been legitimate.
The find, photographed by the divers and left in situ under the terms of the dive licence, is still significant as the first known discovery of munitions on the wreck.
The expedition, involving six divers and 17 support crew, was supervised by the Department of the Environment's underwater archaeology unit, which will be given a full report.
Mr Glavin, who was licensed with the approval of the wreck's owner, Gregg Beamis, said that the ship's manifest listed some 2.4 million rounds of ammunition, and the bullets discovered by his team during a second dive would have been part of this.
"I guess the manifest listing for some 90 tonnes of unrefrigerated butter and cheese for some British navy garrison may hold the clue to any other munitions being present," he told The Irish Times.
Claims that the liner was carrying extra arms have been denied by authorities, and in the 1950s Britain attempted to destroy the wreck, according to Mr Beamis.
International diver and author Robert Ballard suggested that the second blast was caused by coal dust from a boiler, but Mr Beamis, who dived on the wreck himself, says that all the boilers are relatively intact.
Mr Beamis believes that determination of the truth is being impeded by the Irish Government's heritage order on a wreck which is less than 100 years old. Under the 1995 order, passed by former arts minister Michael D. Higgins, the area is covered under the National Monuments Act.
One of the reasons the order was issued was that Sir Hugh Lane was on board the liner when it sank. He was said to have been carrying art treasures with him, placed in lead containers in the hold.
The State is currently appealing a High Court ruling last year in Mr Beamis's favour, challenging the State's refusal to grant him a licence to carry out a $2 million (€1.6 million) research expedition on the hull.
Mr Glavin's expedition involved considerable training in the use of mixed gases, which enables divers to descend to greater depths. A full report has been prepared by him for a forthcoming edition of Subsea , the quarterly published by Comhairle Fo-Thuinn (CFT), the Irish Underwater Council.
