Posted online: Feb 25th, 2010

A Yorkshire adventurer is planning to land on the disputed rock of Rockall off the Donegal coast in June – to plant a plaque on behalf of the British Queen and in doing so to re-establish the UK’s symbolic claim over the uninhabited landmark.
But Andy Strangeway’s planned expedition could spark off fresh territorial claims about the isolated rock and the seabed around it which could contain oil and gas reserves.
The islet is currently a disputed territory between the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Denmark (The Faroe Islands) and Iceland. Rockall lies 430 kilometres off the Donegal coast but the UK formally annexed it in 1972, maintaining that it is closer to the Scottish island of Hirta.
In September 1955, the UK formally claimed uninhabited Rockall, which is just 21 metres high, to “stop the Soviets spying on missile tests,” an Admiralty spokesman announced at the time.
Then two marines and a civilian naturalist, led by Royal Navy officer Lieutenant Commander Desmond Scott, raised a Union flag on the island and cemented a plaque into the rock, by order of the Her Majesty the Queen.
Recently it came to Mr. Strangeway’s attention that the Queen’s plaque – and with it the UK’s symbolic claim to Rockall – was no longer to be found on the small rock. Following communication with the UK Government, he was informed that neither it nor the Western Isles Council in Scotland was actually aware the plaque had disappeared.
The British Government stated that it had no objection to him replacing it, during his forthcoming visit, although it advised him that he should secure planning permission first from the Western Isles Council. All the necessary paperwork has now been submitted; the first ever such application for Rockall.
Once approved, Mr. Strangeway will concentrate on his next task of securing funding for the plaque and the expedition itself. “I am determined to create British history but more importantly to re-establish the UK’s symbolic claim to Rockall by re-erecting Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s plaque where it rightly belongs,” he said.
Rockall is constantly pounded by 3,000 miles of Atlantic swell. The world’s largest recorded oceanic waves of 29 metres were recorded there in the year 2000 – six metres higher than Rockall itself.