A record 48-ton haul of silver bullion has been recovered from a World War II shipwreck off the Galway coast.

The operation to retrieve the 1,203 bars from the SS Gairsoppa – a cargo ship which sank in February 1941 – was the heaviest and deepest underwater mission to remove precious metal from a sunken vessel.

The haul has been given an initial value of 155 million pounds sterling.