To most, it’s a rusting hulk of a wreck, an ugly scar on the coastline, but for island artist Majella O’Neill Collins, the ghost ship MV Alta has brought inspiration and changed her life.

Thanks to a break in the weather on Thursday, the Sherkin Island-based artist managed to ferry to the mainland the final batch of her 33 oil paintings inspired by the ship ahead of the opening next week of her debut solo exhibition in the Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen.

Majella O’Neill Collins says she's become a bit obsessed by the wreck of the MV Alta. The disintegrating ship has even inspired much of the artist's exhibition at Uillinn in Skibbereen.

There are no plans to remove a shipwreck that has languished off the Cork coast for almost four years, becoming a beacon for antisocial behaviour and fires.

Cork County Council said that it has completed its duties towards the MV Alta, which washed onto rocks near Ballycotton in East Cork after Storm Dennis struck Ireland in February 2020.

The rusting hulk of the MV Alta has become an unlikely attraction since running aground outside the East Cork town of Ballycotton during Storm Dennis in February 2020. The Alta is believed to have drifted 1,400 miles across the Atlantic after being abandoned by its crew in October 2018.