Small Donegal earthquake confirmed by officials
Officials have confirmed a small tremor took place in County Donegal after a teacher recorded seismic activity on his school's equipment.
Brendan O'Donoghue teaches physics at St Columba's College, which is part of the worldwide Seismology in Schools project.
The college in Stranorlar is one of the most successful in the network, tracking more than 1,000 tremors since it joined the scheme almost 15 years ago.
County Donegal itself is a hotbed of seismic activity - thanks to its geology - and the school's equipment frequently records tremors that people rarely notice.
“My children came running down the stairs asking me if I had heard the sound like snow sliding off the roof," he said.
“I had heard nothing, but I checked the seismometers and found a very clear, very local signal, probably within 10 kilometres of Ballybofey, judging by the seismogram.
“It seems very small but some people might report shaking.”
19:48 GMT this evening in Ballybofey we heard a scraping sound like snow sliding off the roof. I checked the seismometers (DL02 on the SiS network; R0392 on the Community Seismology Programme, both coordinated by @dias_geophysics ) and found these. Very local, P-S interval = 1 s. pic.twitter.com/v29CfDWrWN
— Brendan O'Donoghue (@bdono66) May 2, 2024
While such activity is not unusual in County Donegal, more significant quakes are rare, but they do happen.
The school’s equipment more often picks up larger quakes, weapons testing and even sporting events.
The INSN said the earthquake was detected by permanent seismic stations operated by the network and Dublin Institute For Advanced Studies (DIAS).
"Two INSN stations in Donegal along with stations in Antrim, Louth and Mayo registered the magnitude 1.1 earthquake," it added.
"In addition, this event was also recorded on a Quake Shake seismometer located in St.Columba's Secondary School in Stranolar, County Donegal."
It encouraged those who may have heard or felt the tremor to get in touch.
