The incident that claimed 19 lives remains one of the deadliest and least-documented civilian tragedies in Irish history
A memorial to the 19 young men and boys who died during the mine explosion or afterwards from their injuries. Photo: Kenneth Allen
In the early evening of May 10, 1943, word was quickly spreading across the west Donegal community of Mullaghduff that a strange object was floating in the water about 1.6km offshore the nearby Ballymanus Strand.
Within a short time, it was established that the device was a floating sea mine primarily used for naval defences or as a weapon of attack on wartime shipping.