It’s been suggested a Russian submarine which was spotted in the Irish Sea is likely to have been there on an intelligence gathering mission.

The UK’s defence secretary said at the weekend a Russian kilo-class vessel had been seen stalking Britain’s west coast.

Monitoring military activity in the region has been one of the roles carried out by the Mannin Branch of the Celtic League since the mid-1970s, particularly considering the hazard submarines posed to trawler nets.

Assistant general secretary Bernard Moffatt said: ’[The defence secretary, who broke news of the sub] is obviously hyping up the new carrier strike group that the Royal Navy has got - they’ve got new toys and they’ve got to justify them.

’But he actually specified the class of the Russian submarine, a kilo class - and they’re normally intelligence gathering [submarines].

’And the Russians have started to acquire and order more of those type of vessels, and they’re the ones that snoop on exercises - and of course twice yearly, big naval exercises off the west of Britain and particularly off the north of Scotland.

Asked what information they were trying to gather, Mr Moffatt said: ’As they always did they’re looking for the patterns of dispersal, particularly from the Clyde - because the Clyde could very swiftly be reactivated as a base for the US Navy.

’There was always a strong intelligence-gathering presence in the Irish Sea.

’You would always get, for example, because Poland was on the other [Soviet] side, Polish trawlers that were gathering intelligence, that were more interested in what was going on around them from an electronic point of view, than catching fish.

’That sort of activity will escalate again I would imagine, but of course the Russians are a one-man band now so they’ll have to do it all themselves.’

He concluded that he was sure the sub was there solely for intelligence gathering purposes, and did not believe there was a threat from ballistic missile subs in the Irish Sea.

Submarine sightings off Manx waters are not unprecedented.

In 1982, the front page of the Isle of Man Weekly Times featured a picture snapped by John Watterson of HMS Porpoise anchored off Peel.

The presence of the submarine in Manx waters - which had only days before been responsible for accidentally sinking Irish trawler Sharelga after it became entangled in its nets - was denied by the Ministry of Defence until the picture surfaced.