The Ghost Ship 

Artworks by students from the Junior Class, Goleen National School, 2024.

These imaginative pieces were created by the students in response to a tour of the recent Allegory of the MV Alta exhibition by artist Majella O’Neill Collins. The children were fascinated with the story of this modern day ghost ship

The work in Majella's exhibition imagined the journey of the MV Alta, a merchant vessel which was abandoned at sea, 1,400 miles south-east of Bermuda in October 2018 after suffering main engine failure, and washed ashore at Ballycotton, Co. Cork during Storm Dennis in February 2020, where her wreckage remains.

The mysterious vessel is a modern-day ghost ship having been abandoned by its 10 person crew. The Alta drifted for 496 days over a distance of 2,300 nautical miles before running aground in Ballyandreen Bay. The vessel’s exact position and distance travelled during this time is unknown and unrecorded and can only be estimated. Majella’s paintings capture the plight of the ship, evoking moments of that time adrift at the mercy of the sea, before being washed ashore to be broken on the rocky Irish coast.