A fossilised whale head, thought to date from the Bronze Age, has been unearthed on a beach at Islandmagee, Northern Ireland, after a 10-year-old boy spotted it protruding from the earth while fossil-hunting. Geologists and marine specialists, including experts from the Natural History Museum in London, are now working to establish the story behind the find, which has been described as potentially unique. The site, Portmuck Beach, is notable as the same location where Ireland's only dinosaur bones were previously discovered, in the late 19th century and again in the 1980s.

The skull has been identified as likely belonging to a Cuvier's beaked whale, a deep-water species never before recorded in Irish waters, raising questions about how it came to be buried inshore. Flint tools found alongside the fossil suggest it could be up to 3,000 years old, though carbon dating and further analysis are needed to confirm its age. The heavy fossil has been moved to a warehouse in Belfast, where archaeologists expect around a week of careful cleaning before a marine specialist examines it further, with some hoping evidence of butchery might explain its presence.