Canadian couple's message in a bottle found in Ireland 13 years later

Brian Niemietz, New York Daily News on Jul 11, 2025

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A message in a bottle tossed into the Atlantic Ocean by a Canadian couple on a date nearly 13 years ago washed ashore in Ireland this week.

Anita Squires — who’s now married to the man who threw that bottle from a Newfoundland cliff — told NBC News when she wrote the note placed inside the bottle, she figured it’d quickly be lost at sea.

Instead it traveled nearly 2,000 miles and wound up on Scraggane Bay on Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula 4,600 days later. It was discovered there by Maharees Conservation Association workers cleaning up the bay’s eroding beachfront. The organization’s chairperson, Martha Farrell, was amazed by the resilience of the glass bottle as well as that of the couple responsible for setting it afloat.

She described its recovery as a “moment of pure joy.”

The short note inside the bottle summed up the date Anita and her now-husband, Brad, were enjoying about a year into their courtship.

“Today we enjoyed dinner, this bottle of wine and each other on the edge of the island,” she wrote along with a phone number. “If you find this, please call us.”

Farrell said her organization dialed the number, but got no reply. After searching for its author on Facebook, she got in touch with Anita.

“It was phenomenal,” Farrell said.

Anita and Brad Squires, who married in 2016, now have three children.

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