The British Museum bought the Broighter gold boat for £600, and the Crown sued the Museum in 1903 to send it to Dublin

In February 1896 two ploughmen working for the farmer Joseph Gibson turned up gold objects in a field at Broighter, near Lough Foyle. They found a model gold boat with oars, a gold collar, a small bowl, two chain necklaces and two twisted torcs. Gibson sold them the next day to a Derry jeweller. The antiquarian Robert Day bought them, had them restored in Dublin, and sold them to the British Museum for £600. The Royal Irish Academy claimed the hoard was treasure trove: buried to be recovered later, and so the Crown's, which would send it to Dublin. The British Museum argued it was a votive offering to a sea god, left with no intent to recover, and so not treasure trove. The Crown sued the Museum in London, represented by the Solicitor-General, Edward Carson. In 1903 Mr Justice Farwell found the objects had been packed close together, which pointed to burial for safekeeping. He called the Museum's theory "fanciful" and held the gold forfeit to the Crown. The hoard went to Dublin. It is in the treasury gallery of the National Museum of Ireland. The Ulster Museum in Belfast shows replicas, and some people have proposed moving it nearer the find-spot.