Transatlantic tale of message in a bottle washed up in County Kerry

After 12 months at sea and a very long journey, a message in a bottle has made its way from Canada to County Kerry in the Republic of Ireland.

Oisín and Eoghan O’Doherty, from County Donegal, were on holiday visiting their cousin Odhran O’Sullivan when they came across the unlikely discovery while walking along a beach earlier this month.

After their first attempt to retrieve the bottle was blocked by the tide, the boys returned and were surprised to find a handwritten note inside.

Thrown overboard from the Arctic Eagle off the coast of Newfoundland in August 2020, the message from crab fisherman Craig Drover was still intact.

In it, Mr Drover asked the finder of the bottle to get in contact.

Even stranger, another bottle sent by a fisherman on the same Canadian boat has turned up on a beach in Wales.

The cousins have since replied and returned a message in kind, by throwing their own message in a bottle into the sea.

Who knows where it might turn up?

Video journalist: Chris Andrews