Message in a bottle found in Ireland prompts theories about Taiwanese crew
Internet sleuths have linked the note, a purported SOS message written in a mixture of Chinese, Indonesian and English, to the Yong Yu Sing No 18, a Taiwanese fishing vessel that was found adrift with its crew missing in 2021.
Matthew Long said that he and a friend were walking on a beach on Inisheer, a small island located about 8km (5 miles) off County Clare, last week when they came across a wax-sealed bottle containing the handwritten note.
'We used Google Translate and the first half of the message translated to an SOS message in Indonesian,' Long told Al Jazeera.
Long said he handed the note over to the local police before posting about his discovery on the social media site Reddit, where internet sleuths quickly got to work trying to track down its origin.
'We posted it in a few places online, but when we posted it in r/beachcombing, it blew up and clever Redditors were able to trace it back to a real missing ship crew,' Long said.
According to the Reddit posting, the text reads: 'Please send help! We are lost since 12/20. There are 3 of us here. We don't know the name of this island. We are injured. HELP. HELLO. SOS.'
The note ends with the Chinese character for 'Li' and the name 'Yong Yu Sing No 18.'
An Garda Síochána, the Irish police service, said it does not comment on third-party content online but confirmed it had received a 'report of an item found' on Inisheer last Saturday.
It declined to provide further information.
The Yong Yu Sing No 18 was reported missing on January 1, 2021, after its owner lost contact with the ship's captain, a man surnamed Li, two days earlier, according to Taiwan's Central News Agency.
The fishing vessel was later found approximately 600km (373 miles) from Midway Atoll, an unincorporated United States territory in the North Pacific Ocean, with its crew and lifeboat missing.
The incident was later ruled an accident by Taiwanese prosecutors, but the fate of Li and his nine Indonesian crew members remains unknown to this day.
The Taiwan Yilan District Prosecutors Office, which investigated the case in 2021, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Long's Reddit post has received nearly 10,000 upvotes, or 'likes', and 1,200 comments from users, many of them offering theories about the crew's fate and debating whether it is more likely that the note is genuine or a hoax.
In Taiwan, the note has been taken seriously by advocates for the families of the missing crew, including the Su'Ao Fisherman's Association.
'This association relays the hope that the government will verify the situation through appropriate channels, and if confirmed to be true, is willing for the government to cooperate with international organisations to coordinate rescue efforts,' the association said in a statement to local media.
The Su'Ao Fisherman's Association did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera's request for comment.
Internet users on Taiwan's PTT message board have also debated the authenticity of the note.
Some have compared it with an incident in 1992 in which a container of 28,000 plastic ducks and bath toys fell off a cargo ship during a storm.
In the decades since the incident, the ducks have washed up around the world, including as far away as Scotland.
Long said he is uncertain about whether the note is genuine, but believes it is possible.
'I don't know about the note's authenticity or if it was really sent by the crew of that ship,' he said.
'I was very sceptical at first and believed it to be a hoax when I first opened and read the message, but since then, it is starting to look more plausible to me.'
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Al Jazeera
29-07-2025
- Al Jazeera
Message in a bottle found in Ireland prompts theories about Taiwanese crew
A message in a bottle found off the west coast of Ireland has revived hopes for answers about the fate of a Taiwanese fishing crew that disappeared four years ago. Internet sleuths have linked the note, a purported SOS message written in a mixture of Chinese, Indonesian and English, to the Yong Yu Sing No 18, a Taiwanese fishing vessel that was found adrift with its crew missing in 2021. Matthew Long said that he and a friend were walking on a beach on Inisheer, a small island located about 8km (5 miles) off County Clare, last week when they came across a wax-sealed bottle containing the handwritten note. 'We used Google Translate and the first half of the message translated to an SOS message in Indonesian,' Long told Al Jazeera. Long said he handed the note over to the local police before posting about his discovery on the social media site Reddit, where internet sleuths quickly got to work trying to track down its origin. 'We posted it in a few places online, but when we posted it in r/beachcombing, it blew up and clever Redditors were able to trace it back to a real missing ship crew,' Long said. According to the Reddit posting, the text reads: 'Please send help! We are lost since 12/20. There are 3 of us here. We don't know the name of this island. We are injured. HELP. HELLO. SOS.' The note ends with the Chinese character for 'Li' and the name 'Yong Yu Sing No 18.' An Garda Síochána, the Irish police service, said it does not comment on third-party content online but confirmed it had received a 'report of an item found' on Inisheer last Saturday. It declined to provide further information. The Yong Yu Sing No 18 was reported missing on January 1, 2021, after its owner lost contact with the ship's captain, a man surnamed Li, two days earlier, according to Taiwan's Central News Agency. The fishing vessel was later found approximately 600km (373 miles) from Midway Atoll, an unincorporated United States territory in the North Pacific Ocean, with its crew and lifeboat missing. The incident was later ruled an accident by Taiwanese prosecutors, but the fate of Li and his nine Indonesian crew members remains unknown to this day. The Taiwan Yilan District Prosecutors Office, which investigated the case in 2021, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Long's Reddit post has received nearly 10,000 upvotes, or 'likes', and 1,200 comments from users, many of them offering theories about the crew's fate and debating whether it is more likely that the note is genuine or a hoax. In Taiwan, the note has been taken seriously by advocates for the families of the missing crew, including the Su'Ao Fisherman's Association. 'This association relays the hope that the government will verify the situation through appropriate channels, and if confirmed to be true, is willing for the government to cooperate with international organisations to coordinate rescue efforts,' the association said in a statement to local media. The Su'Ao Fisherman's Association did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera's request for comment. Internet users on Taiwan's PTT message board have also debated the authenticity of the note. Some have compared it with an incident in 1992 in which a container of 28,000 plastic ducks and bath toys fell off a cargo ship during a storm. In the decades since the incident, the ducks have washed up around the world, including as far away as Scotland. Long said he is uncertain about whether the note is genuine, but believes it is possible. 'I don't know about the note's authenticity or if it was really sent by the crew of that ship,' he said. 'I was very sceptical at first and believed it to be a hoax when I first opened and read the message, but since then, it is starting to look more plausible to me.'
Al Jazeera
15-07-2025
- Al Jazeera
How were babies' mass graves discovered in church-run home in Ireland?
Digging has begun to uncover the remains of some 800 infants and young children buried in mass graves in Tuam, western Ireland. These children have been unidentified for at least 65 years, and it was only a decade ago that a local historian discovered the existence of the mass graves. Here is what we know about who they may be, how they were found, and how they died. What's happening now? The excavation, which began on Monday, is expected to last two years. It will be on the site of St Mary's, a 'mother and baby home' run by the nuns of the Catholic order of Bon Secours Sisters, which no longer exists. The excavation will be by Ireland's Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention (ODAIT), in collaboration with experts from the United Kingom, Canada, Colombia, Spain and the United States. Daniel MacSweeney, ODAIT director in Tuam, who is leading the excavation, told a recent news conference that the remains will be exhumed, analysed, identified where possible, and reburied. 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Corless grew up in Tuam and held vague memories of 'gaunt, desolate children being herded into the classroom at school, always a little later than the rest of us', she wrote in The Observer late last month. 'We were instructed by the nuns not to mix with those children, told that they carried disease. They did not continue into the higher classes and were soon forgotten,' Corless wrote. In 2012, Corless remembered the children when asked to contribute to a publication by the local historical society. She learned about the home after speaking to elderly residents of the city and began piecing information together, poring through maps and records. She found that there were no burial records for the many babies and children who died before the home closed down in 1961. While they had all been baptised, the Church denied knowledge of their death or burials. 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Al Jazeera
14-07-2025
- Al Jazeera
Excavation of child mass grave at church-run home begins in Ireland
Excavation has begun in Ireland at an unmarked mass burial site to identify the remains of about 800 infants and toddlers who died at a church-run home for unmarried mothers. The digging of the site on Monday marked the beginning of a two-year investigation planned by Irish and foreign forensic archaeologists and crime scene experts in the western city of Tuam. The probe comes more than a decade after Catherine Corless, an amateur historian, first uncovered evidence of a mass grave there, forcing the government to form a commission to investigate the matter. The commission found that the remains of 802 children from newborns to three-year-olds were buried in Tuam from 1925 to 1961 as it discovered an 'appalling' mortality rate of about 15 percent among children born at all of the so-called Mother and Baby Homes, which operated across Ireland. Subsequent test excavations from 2016 and 2017 found significant quantities of baby remains in a disused septic tank at the location, which now sits within a housing complex. Ireland's Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention (ODAIT) will undertake the excavation with experts from Colombia, Spain, Britain, Canada and the United States. It will involve exhumation, analysis, identification if possible and reinterment of the remains found, Director Daniel MacSweeney said at a recent news conference in Tuam. 'Denied dignity and respect' 'These children were denied every human right in their lifetime as were their mothers,' Anna Corrigan, whose two siblings may have been buried at the Tuam site, told reporters this month, the AFP news agency reported. 'And they were denied dignity and respect in death.' The Tuam home, run by nuns from the Bon Secours Order, was demolished in the 1970s and replaced by a housing estate. Significant quantities of human skeletal remains were found in chambers along with babies' shoes and nappy pins underneath a patch of grass near a playground during the test excavations. Corless found records that show as many as 796 babies and children died at the Tuam home over the decades that it operated. State-issued death certificates compiled show that various ailments, from tuberculosis and convulsions to measles and whooping cough, were listed as the causes of death. 'It's been a fierce battle. When I started this, nobody wanted to listen. At last we are righting the wrongs,' Corless, 71, told AFP in May. 'I was just begging: Take the babies out of this sewage system and give them the decent Christian burial that they were denied.' A six-year inquiry sparked by the initial discoveries in Tuam found 56,000 unmarried women and 57,000 children passed through 18 such homes over a 76-year period. It also concluded that 9,000 children had died in the various state- and Catholic Church-run homes nationwide. Catholic nuns ran the so-called mother and baby institution from 1925 to 1961, housing women who had become pregnant outside of marriage and were shunned by their families. After giving birth, some children lived in the homes too, but many more were given up for adoption under a system that often saw church and state work in tandem.
