Stolen Celtic sea-god found by British soldiers in mountain manoeuvres

Soldiers on training manoeuvres have located the six-foot Celtic sea-god sculpture which had been cut down and stolen from an Irish mountainside last month.

Members of the British Army’s Royal Irish Regiment were alerted by ramblers who had stumbled onto the missing work and told the regiment where it was.

View of Binevenagh mountain – Limavady Image by kanbron / CC BY 2.0

The group was trekking through a forest close to Magilligan Strand when they saw the sculpture and alerted the authorities. It was dumped by the thieves within a 300m radius of where it was displayed.

The statue – Manannan Mac Lir – is made of fibre-glass and mounted on Binevenagh Mountain near Limavady, Co Derry and had become a tourist attraction since it was erected.

The Manannan Mac Lir statue thrown down the mountainside onto rocks Image by Ministry of Defence

It was created by sculptor John Sutton, who has worked on Game Of Thrones and who said he was as “shocked” on hearing of its disappearance, the Belfast Telegraph reports.

BBC Northern Ireland reports that there appears to be damage to the statue which will need to be assessed to see if it can be repaired.

When the statue was stolen, a wooden cross was left in its place at the site with the slogan – You shall have no other gods before me.