A seized smuggling ship is now a thriving ocean reef

A smuggling ship that Irish customs officers seized in 2014, loaded with 32 million illegal cigarettes, has become a working reef off the west coast of Ireland. The 197-foot MV Shingle sat tied up in Dublin Port for roughly nine years, too rusted and asbestos-ridden to sell and too costly to scrap. It ran up the equivalent of about $2.24 million in fees while lawyers sorted out its fate. In 2024, the vessel was donated to a local program, Killala Bay Ships 2 Reef, which sank it 2.5 miles offshore. Marine life moved in almost immediately. Underwater footage shows the hull covered in barnacles, sponges and fish, and Ireland's Revenue Commissioners reported the wreck was fit to support a new ecosystem. "It's quite impressive to be honest," marine ecologist Jose Maria Farinas-Franco told RTE News. A ship built to carry contraband is now, by every measure the divers can find, a reef.