Saturday 30 September 2023 · below the Index · spike
Cocaine cargo ship seized off Cork coast
A cargo ship carrying a record cocaine haul was seized off the Cork coast in late September 2023, linked to drugs seizures in France and Spain. Seven men were arrested in connection with the probe.
Peak 75.8 on Saturday 30 September 2023. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Media-led, both over the window and on the peak day. Social here is X alone — Bluesky only joins the series from July 2024 — so its level isn't directly comparable with today's series, though its share of this incident is real.
Bar = share of the extra attention over the whole window; the tick marks the share on the peak day alone, where the two differ.
How unusual it was
This was above 74% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Monday 18 September 2023.
How far it spread
No vessel type moved — 0 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.
Readers here means readers of the Wikipedia article on each vessel type — the same source as the Research signal, not news coverage — so an incident can dominate the news without moving this panel. Bars start at 1× — normal readership for that vessel type, the weeks before the incident. Grey = no clear lift. "Over time" shows each group's daily readers through the window; "All 12 articles" breaks the six groups back into their members.
How it was framed the frame glossary →
Lead frame: shady industry. Trade press was 0% of in-scope coverage — the story had left the trade press and gone mainstream. (Historical coverage is scored on headlines only.)
Acting, or acted upon
In 47% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor.
How the coverage sounded
Coverage ran 47% negative overall; 47% strongly so.
Each article is scored on a five-step scale from strongly negative to strongly positive; the bar is the share of coverage at each step.
Sample of the headlines
- Cocaine cargo ship seized off Cork coast is linked to drugs hauls in France and Spainirishexaminer.com · 2023-09-29
- Kinahan cartel had 'significant' stake in €500m cocaine haul seized on cargo ship off Cork coastindependent.ie · 2023-09-28
- Irish Authorities Intercept Cargo Ship Carrying 2 Tons Cocaine Worth $165Mvladtv.com · 2023-09-28
- Seventh man arrested after two tonnes of cocaine seized from cargo ship in Corkirishtimes.com · 2023-09-28
- Seventh man arrested by gardai investigating seizure of 2.2 tonnes of cocaine on cargo shipsundayworld.com · 2023-09-28
Gold rule = a national or international outlet, not a trade title.
- social = X only before Bluesky (2024-07-01); not comparable with today's series
- Registered in a single underlying series only — one vessel-type article, news term or social query — and never moved the Index itself.
- The coverage panels count only articles matched to this incident specifically.
Maritime Attention Index, incident: Cocaine cargo ship seized off Cork coast, peak 75.8 on 30 September 2023. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2023-cocaine-cargo-ship-seized-off-cork-coast/