The Sword and the Salmon

Russia has started running its rusting shadow fleet of oil tankers along the Irish coast at an increased rate to avoid Royal Navy seizures. Ireland, of course, focused on policing fishing, doesn’t have the naval resources to deal with this. And now in the Irish Times, Ireland’s military intelligence are warning about the risk of a catastrophic oil spill off the Irish coast. I like that the salmon of knowledge is the logo of our intelligence services, but a new naval service should use Fragarach, the sword of Manannán mac Lir, as its logo. Ireland is no longer a place the world forgets about. It needs to adapt to the world showing up on its doorstep.

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“If one of these single-skinned 19-year-old tankers hits a bag of crisps off the Aran Islands, you now have millions of tonnes of oil in the water and there’s no more Wild Atlantic Way. We don’t have the capacity to deal with an oil slick that size,”