‘Illegally smuggled’ cannon at Tower of London subject of dispute with Ireland Newly released documents show Irish officials sought return of cannon sold by ‘gang of British treasure hunters’.
Rare cannon allegedly smuggled out of Irish waters by a gang of British treasure hunters and acquired for a knockdown price by a Tower of London official were at the centre of a decades-long dispute between British and Irish officials, according to newly released records.
The publications alleged the cannon had been smuggled out of Irish waters by a “gang of British treasure hunters” before being sold in an Essex scrap garage at the “knock-down price” of £3,250 to a senior Tower official who did not ask where they came from.
Irish officials made extensive efforts to convince UK authorities to return the bronze cannon after claiming they were “illegally smuggled” from a Waterford shipwreck and sold to the Tower of London.
The cannon, each measuring 2.75 x 1.8 metres, were allegedly removed in the early 1970s from a shipwreck off the south-east coast of Ireland, near the Metal Man navigation beacon at Tramore Bay, according to papers from the Irish national archives in Dublin, reported by PA Media.
