Message From Ireland Found Washed Up On North Wildwood, NJ, Beach

It's one of the most romantic and starry-eyed gestures one can do that you only hear about in movies and storybooks. In fact, a whole theatrical phenomenon was unleashed after the book by Nicholas Sparks came to life that featured a story about a man doing exactly that. I'm referring to the act of sending a message in a bottle.

It's something you only hear about in movies, right? Remember that movie from 1999 with that exact title? It starred Kevin Costner and Robin Wright Penn. Of course, we're not talking about a romance novel or movie at the moment. We're talking about a message in a bottle that was found in real life. Believe it or not, it was discovered right here in New Jersey!

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According to published reports, the Bolger family was enjoying a morning stroll along the beaches in North Wildwood when they came across the bottle. After opening it up, they discovered the letter came all the way from a town called Bray in Ireland. After making their discovery known, it went viral. That's how they were able to track down Aiofe Byrne. She sent the letter and hoped that if it happened to be found, that person would do what they could to reach out to her.

Reach out, the Bolger family did, indeed. They were able to virtually meet Aiofe and her father this week via Zoom.

Byrne dropped the bottle containing the letter into the ocean in July of 2019. It took until 2023 to be discovered. How it made its way to the shores along the Jersey coastline, we'll never know. Still, the whole story is quite amazing.