Ghost of a flea

Kelleher said the prime candidate for the find is the "Great Lewis", a 410-tonne frigate which sank in 1645 with 200 soldiers aboard. Scans of the sandbar by Kelleher's team show the wooden structure of the vessel embedded almost intact in the sand. A line of cannons are exposed above the seabed about 8m under the surface. They have been dated to between 1636 and 1670 and were made in an English foundry, according to research published by the magazine Archaeology Ireland.

"Very little is known of ship typology from this period," Kelleher told the magazine Archaeology Ireland. "The possibility that it could have been directly involved in a period of our history that has left such an immense mark adds even more importance to the wreck, as does the realisation that we could, in fact, be looking at a war grave," she added.