NI Waters Not Deep Enough For Trident Subs Says MLA

26th July 2016

HMS Vengeance is one of four submarines in the controversial Trident missile defence programme Credit: Tam McDonald/MOD

#Trident - Trident won't be coming to Northern Ireland - as there are no waters deep enough to host the nuclear deterrent submarines, according to one MLA.

As the Belfast Telegraph reports, Ulster Unionist MLA Steve Aiken says that from his own experience, the region has no suitable deepwater ports or inlets necessary for the 150m-long Vanguard-class submarines in the Trident programme, which are currently stationed off western Scotland.

"It's not deep enough, we can't do it," he said. "I tried to bring my submarine, HMS Sovereign, to Belfast towards the end of its time.

"Because you need deep water at all states of the tide, even though entrance to Belfast Lough is dredged to 10 metres, it's not deep enough.

"You can't bring it into Larne because there is a rock sill coming into Larne Lough which you would have to blast out; same for Carlingford Lough, and Lough Foyle is too shallow."

The Belfast Telegraph has more on the story HERE.

Published in News Update

Tagged under

About The Author

MacDara Conroy

Email The Author

MacDara Conroy is a contributor covering all things on the water, from boating and wildlife to science and business

We've got a favour to ask

More people are reading Afloat.ie than ever thanks to the power of the internet but we're in stormy seas because advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news sites, we haven’t put up a paywall because we want to keep our marine journalism open.

Afloat.ie is Ireland's only full–time marine journalism team and it takes time, money and hard work to produce our content.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

If everyone chipped in, we can enhance our coverage and our future would be more secure. You can help us through a small donation. Thank you.