{"id":282972,"date":"2026-01-14T00:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T00:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/282972\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T00:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T00:54:10","slug":"15000-crabs-recovered-after-lorry-tips-in-inishowen-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/282972\/","title":{"rendered":"15,000 crabs recovered after lorry tips in Inishowen field"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jessica LawrenceBBC News NI<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765806968_986_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/33244250-f0b0-11f0-b546-d96774f73259.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"Getty Images A small, red crab is pictured on top of a grey rock.\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of crustaceans were recovered from a lorry which had crashed into a ditch in County Donegal<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">About 15,000 escaped crabs have been recovered after the truck they were travelling in tipped into a field in Inishowen, County Donegal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The crustaceans, which were worth about \u20ac60,000 (\u00a352,000) and bound for shops and restaurants in Portugal, spilled from aluminium containers after the crash near Carrickmaquigley in Redcastle at about 07:30 local time on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The road between Quigley&#8217;s Point and Moville was closed for 18 hours while a large recovery operation, featuring night lights and a hydraulic crane, was under way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The driver of the lorry was not injured in the crash.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Crabs, as well as some lobsters and oysters, had been caught by fishermen in Lough Foyle and were en route from Greencastle to Rosslare Port in County Wexford when the crash happened.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The story first appeared on the Donegal Daily website.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765806968_986_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/79f667e0-f0af-11f0-b546-d96774f73259.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"McLaughlin's Light and Heavy Recovery Services A wide shot of the recovery scene. It is dark outside. Large containers are toppled into the field as workers stand around trying to save the crustaceans.\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>McLaughlin&#8217;s Light and Heavy Recovery Services<\/p>\n<p>The road was closed for 18 hours as the recovery operation was under way<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">McLaughlin&#8217;s Light and Heavy Recovery Services based in Burnfoot was contacted by a company in Portugal and helped to reload the container and recover the vehicle from the road.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Odhran McLaughlin said it was one of the more &#8220;unusual&#8221; call outs they&#8217;ve had.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;It was like nothing we&#8217;ve ever dealt with before,&#8221; he told BBC News NI.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765806968_986_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/823e9d50-f0af-11f0-b546-d96774f73259.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"McLaughlin's Light and Heavy Recovery Services A drone shot of the crash scene at night. A large crane is helping to lift a large white lorry out of a field. There are a few large lights helping to light up the scene.\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>McLaughlin&#8217;s Light and Heavy Recovery Services<\/p>\n<p>The driver of the lorry was not hurt in the crash<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">McLaughlin said a salvage team of 10 worked from 13:00 local time on Monday until 05:00 on Tuesday morning to save the load.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">He said recovering the &#8220;precious cargo&#8221; was a priority, and staff worked tirelessly to put the crustaceans back into bags and get them refrigerated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">He estimated that they were able to save 95% of the crabs which had spilled out, and they were sent on to Portugal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jessica LawrenceBBC News NI Getty Images Thousands of crustaceans were recovered from a lorry which had crashed into&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-282972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115890727844306373","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}