A shallow sea between two islands powers trade and turbines
The Irish Sea covers roughly 46,007 square kilometres between Ireland and Great Britain, joining the Celtic Sea via St George’s Channel and Scotland’s Inner Seas via the North Channel. Anglesey is its largest island; shores touch Scotland, England, Wales, and both parts of Ireland.
The Isle of Man ranks second among its islands, and the waters are sometimes called the Manx Sea. A western trench about 300 kilometres long and 30 to 50 wide drops from 80 to 275 metres, while eastern bays stay shallow; Cardigan Bay and the area east of Man are under 50 metres. About 80 percent of its 2,430 cubic kilometres of water lies west of Man. Its width ranges from 200 kilometres down to 75. Hydrographers bound it with lines from the Mull of Galloway to Ballyquintin Point and from St David’s Head to Carnsore Point.
At the glacial peak, the middle of today’s sea was probably a long freshwater lake that rejoined the ocean as ice retreated about 10,000 years ago. Romans named it Mare Hibernicus. Norman forces crossed in stages in the late twelfth century from Porthclais in Wales to Wexford, and Tudor caravels and carracks invaded in 1529. Wrecks found recently include HMS Mercury, lost in 1940, and SS Mesaba, sunk in 1918 by a U-boat and remembered for trying to warn the Titanic about ice.
With no bridge or tunnel, most heavy freight moves by ship. More than 12 million passengers and 17 million tonnes of goods cross yearly; Liverpool alone handles 32 million tonnes of cargo, and Ulysses, the largest car ferry in the world, sails between Dublin and Holyhead. Ferries also link Fishguard and Pembroke to Rosslare and Cairnryan to Belfast and Larne.
Beneath the seabed, Liverpool Bay’s five oil and gas fields began producing in the mid-1990s, sending gas to a power station at Connah’s Quay. Operators estimated 210 billion cubic metres of gas and 176 million barrels of oil in the eastern basin, and the untested Dalkey prospect near Dublin might hold about 870 million barrels. Sewage sludge dumping in Liverpool Bay was banned in December 1988, and estuaries from the Dee to Wexford Harbour shelter much of the wildlife.
Source: Irish Sea
