A fisherman described how his fishing boat had a close encounter with a submarine off the coast of Donegal – the second in less than a year.

Seán Briain, from Machaire Rabhartaigh, said that they were setting crab pots 14 miles northwest of Tory Island last Thursday when they saw the submarine coming towards them.

The huge vessel then passed less than 200 yards in front of them. He revealed how the submarine refused to slow down and just kept steaming ahead.

Mr Briain said: “Last Thursday about 11 am we were setting crab pots when we saw the submarine coming from the northwest. It went round in front of us, about 200 yards away.

“We were doing a speed of about 7 miles, and the general rule is that when a boat is setting pots or pulling pots, that other vessels are supposed to give us right of way. But not in this case. We needed to slow down to let the submarine pass.”

Yesterday, Britain’s Ministry of Defence admitted that a Royal Navy submarine was responsible for dragging a trawler backwards off the Northern Ireland coast earlier this year.

Mr Briain told Radio na Gaeltachta that they had spotted a submarine around this time last year as well, and that on that occasion they also needed to slow down to avoid it.

He said that they were lucky because they had daylight on both occasions and that they could see the submarine and change course to avoid it.

Mr Briain was speaking this morning on Adhmhaidin on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta.