North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland)

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Relief map of the Irish Sea. The North Channel lies to the north of the Irish Sea, and the St George's Channel to the south. (Major ports shown as red dots. Freight-only ports as blue dots)

The North Channel (known in Irish and Scottish Gaelic as Sruth na Maoile, and alternatively in English as the Straits of Moyle or Sea of Moyle) is the strait which separates eastern Northern Ireland from southwestern Scotland. It is part of the marine area officially classified as 'Inner Seas off the West Coast of Scotland' by the International Hydrographic Organisation (IHO).

The deepest part is called Beaufort's Dyke. The Channel connects the Irish Sea with the Atlantic Ocean, and was thus a favourite haunt of privateers preying on British merchant shipping in wars up to the 19th century; in 1778, during the American Revolutionary War it was also the site of a naval duel between American captain John Paul Jones's Ranger and the Royal Navy's Drake. It is crossed by a large number of ferry services. In 1953, it was the scene of a serious maritime disaster, the sinking of the ferry Princess Victoria.

Unionist Northern Irish political leaders for decades lobbied the UK government to construct a rail-link tunnel under the North Channel, to better integrate Northern Ireland into the rest of the United Kingdom. In August 2007 the Centre for Cross-Border Studies proposed the construction of a 34 km (21 mi) long rail bridge or tunnel, estimating that it may cost approximately £3.5bn.^[1]

[edit] References

IHO Limits of Oceans and Seas ( page 12 section 18).

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