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A little further out to the north lies the wreck of the massive 32,234-ton White Star liner RMS Justicia, sunk by two German submarines on 19 July 1918 on a voyage from Belfast to New York. You may be aware that all White Star liners ended their name with ‘ic’, as in Titanic, Britannic, Laurentic etc. Justicia was to have been a Cunard liner; their ships’ names largely ending with ‘ia’, as in Campania, Carpathia, Aquitania, Mauretania etc.

However, as Cunard didn’t have a crew available, the British government handed the Justicia to the White Star Line to manage, as their crew of the newly sunk White Star liner Britannic were now available.

To add to these fine ships there are also the wrecks of the 14,892grt Laurentic, which sunk on 25 January 1917 after hitting two mines, along with the 13,580grt liner Athenia, sunk by a U-boat during World War II on a passage from Liverpool to Montreal.

In addition to these and countless other wrecks, at the end of World War II there were 156 German submarines surrendered to the Allies, of which 116 were scuttled during Operation Deadlight after the war. The U-boats were to be towed out, ostensibly to three defined areas about 100 miles north-west of Ireland where they would be scuttled. Many of the U-boats however were found to be in poor condition from a prolonged period waiting in exposed harbours for their fate to be determined – and this, allied to poor weather, meant that some 56 of them sank under tow before they reached the designated scuttling areas. Many of these have been relocated over the last 20 years or so, lying in perfect technical diving depths: pristine, virtually intact examples of several types of World War II U-boats. You can see why Malin Head is so popular with technical divers.