Cork artist to unveil exhibition inspired by the MV Alta 'ghost ship' 

A West Cork island artist is to tell her version of the story of the MV Alta’s last voyage in a series of artworks which is to form the basis of the first exhibition of 2024 in the Uillinn Arts Centre in Skibbereen.

The exhibition by Majella O’Neill Collins, who lives and works on Sherkin Island, opens on Saturday, January 13, and the artist, who uses her work to try to make sense of life on a remote island, will give a talk about the exhibition on February 17.

The MV Alta, a merchant vessel, was abandoned at sea 1,400 miles south-east of Bermuda in October, 2018, after suffering main engine failure, and washed ashore at Ballycotton during Storm Dennis in February, 2020, where her wreckage remains.

The vessel is a modern-day ghost ship, having been abandoned by its 10 person crew while en route from Greece to Haiti. 

The MV Alta drifted for 496 days over a distance of 2,300 nautical miles before running aground in Ballyandreen Bay. 

The vessel’s exact position and distance travelled during this time is unknown and unrecorded and can only be estimated.