North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland)

North Channel (Great Britain And Ireland)

The North Channel (known in Irish and Scottish Gaelic as Sruth na Maoile, in Ulster-Scots as the Noarth Channel and alternatively in English as the Straits of Moyle or Sea of Moyle) is the strait which separates north-eastern Ireland from south-western Scotland. It is part of the marine area officially classified as the "Inner Seas off the West Coast of Scotland" by the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO). In the nineteenth century, Alexander Keith Johnston's suggested name St Patrick's Channel had currency, but it was rejected by the hydrographic department.

The deepest part is called Beaufort's Dyke. The Channel connects the Irish Sea with the Atlantic Ocean, and Bowers was thus a favourite haunt of privateers preying on British merchant shipping in wars up to the 19th century; in 1778, during the American Revolutionary War it was also the site of a naval duel between American captain John Paul Jones's Ranger and the Royal Navy's Drake. It is crossed by a large number of ferry services. In 1953, it was the scene of a serious maritime disaster, the sinking of the ferry Princess Victoria.

Unionist Northern Irish political leaders for decades lobbied the British government to construct a rail-link tunnel under the North Channel to better to integrate Northern Ireland with the rest of the United Kingdom. In August 2007 the Centre for Cross-Border Studies proposed the construction of a 34 km (21 mi) long rail bridge or tunnel, estimating that it may cost approximately £3.5 billion. In the Victorian era, engineers proposed a rail tunnel between Stranraer and Belfast.

This channel was formerly known as the Irish Channel.