IT has been invaded more times than Iraq and is thought to hold enough oil and gas reserves to run a small country.
But despite being only 70 feet high and 90 feet wide, the small island 265 miles off the coast of Donegal has been at the center of a diplomatic dispute between Britain and Ireland for more than 50 years.
Huge waves have traditionally meant that Rockall has only been inhabited by birds.
However, the oil and gas reserves which lie beneath its north Atlantic waterline have led to four different countries laying claim to its territorial bounties.
In recent years advances in deep-sea drilling mean that previously inaccessible oil and gas reserves on the seabed surrounding Rockall may now be commercially viable.
In an effort to prevent a diplomatic dogfight, officials from the Irish, British, Danish and Icelandic governments met in Reykjavik this week to negotiate over the oil and gas reserves linked to the tiny island.
The discussions centered around international laws due to come into force in 2009 which will allow governments to claim the rights to oil rich sea-beds up to 500 miles from its territories.
Rockall may literally be sitting on a gold mine as the new laws state that governments can only claim rights to sea-bed reserves, if they can show a direct link to their own territory.
If the Rockall issue is resolved it will be the end of a 50-year-old dispute between Britain and Ireland.
In September 1955 the British government dropped two Royal Marines soldiers onto the rock by helicopter where they planted a Union Flag and cemented a plaque claiming British sovereignty.
The British government claimed it had only invaded Rockall to prevent the former Soviet Union from using it as a base to spy on missile testing taking place in the Outer Hebrides.
In 1985 former SAS soldier Tom McClean spent a month on Rockall living in a wooden box the size of a coffin. McClean painted a Union Jack flag onto the rock as proof that it was British.
However, Ireland’s claim to Rockall remained, with the Irish folk group the Wolfe Tones even penning the island’s unofficial anthem “Rock on Rockall.”
In 1984 Donegal man Jack Lavelle drowned attempting to reach Rockall. The dead man’s two colleagues were found shipwrecked on the Donegal coast after being missing at sea for more than a week.
In 1985 Donegal TD (member of Parliament) Pat “The Cope” Gallagher claimed Rockall as part of his constituency stating, “It is the wealthiest part of any constituency in the Irish Republic, surrounded as it is by thousands of square miles of unpolluted fishing grounds and large untapped reserves of oil and natural gas.”
Around the same time a former Dublin mayor changed his name by deed-poll to Sean “Dublin Bay Rockall” Loftus in protest at the British government’s claim over the island.
In 1992 Belfast brothers Philip and Fergus Gribbon attempted to land on the island to claim it as Irish territory.
SAS man McClean, who at the time was sailing along canals in France, was unaware of the attempted invasion.
However, his wife Jill warned that her husband would not allow the Gribbon brothers’ quest for Rockall to go unchallenged.
“He will not be pleased and he’ll probably dash out there after them when he finds out,” she said.
The Gribbons’ attempt was abandoned after their boat had to turn back due to engine failure.
In 1997 Rockall was invaded for the last time when three Greenpeace activists took over the north Atlantic island to protest at the continued exploitation of the world’s oil reserves. The protesters announced that they had changed Rockall’s name to Waveland.
However, governments should be aware that the tiny island may not be all that it appears. In Gaelic folklore, Rocabarraigh, as the island is known, is supposed to appear three times, the last being at the end of the world.
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