A claim that cannons made for British royal Henry VIII were illegally removed from a ship in Irish waters was never fully resolved, according to newly released State papers.
As The Irish Times reports, two 9ft x 6″ bronze barge cannons were removed in the early 1970s from the wreck of HMS Post, a warship which sank off the south-east coast in 1566.
The ship went down near the Metal Man at Tramore Bay on the Waterford coast. When displayed at the Royal Armouries and Tower of London, no reference was made to them having been retrieved off the Irish coast.
The cannons were reportedly purchased by a Tower official, Howard Blackmore, from a vendor at a garage in Essex in November 1972.
National Museum of Ireland acting keeper of Irish antiquities Eamon P Kelly complied an extensive report after he had examined the Tower of London files, and this included a reference to Ulster Museum keeper of antiquities Laurence Flanagan stating the cannons had been removed from Irish waters “in doubtful circumstances”.
Concerns had also been raised by architectural historian Maurice Craig, who was a member of the Maritime Institute of Ireland and said that he “advised [the Tower] that both Irish and English law had been broken [during the acquisition of the items] by the failure to report the cannon to the Receiver of Wreck”.
However, the keeper of the firearms at the Royal Armouries disputed the claims and suggested the cannons might have been raised from a wreck off the Sussex coast.
The Tower of London “stood firm”, stating the Irish case had “not been proved”.
Read The Irish Times here
