Rockall
Something a little different that I spotted in the media regarding a fishing dispute between Scotland and Ireland over a tiny lump of rock a couple of hundred miles off the coast off Scotland, Ireland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland slowly getting washed away in the Atlantic . The rock itself has an interesting history being the remains of an extinct volcano and only really provides a rest spot for seabirds. However during the cold war Britain made it's last colonial land grab for it fearful that Russia was going to do the same apparently... It would appear after a very ceremonial flag planting and plaque laying exercise by the Royal Navy the real motivation as is often the way was economics rather than strategic.
Under the Global maritime guidelines and UN agreements countries can enjoy exclusive trade zones of around 350 miles surrounding the coastline of land giving the owning country rights to fishing and oil or gas extraction. The ownership is still in dispute between UK, Ireland, Denmark (on behalf of the Faroe Islands and Iceland) therefore it can't really be considered 'owned' by any party.
It is also uninhabitable being just a lump of rock but there have been several short stays (record being 41 days I believe that have perhaps been used to bend the rules on habitation to allow ownership by the UK).
The recent fishing spat is documented here
However I remember always being told as a child Rockall is Irish as legend has it the giant Fionn mac Cumhaill created it by lobbing rocks about. The various legends of Fionn mac Cumhaill can be found here:
Now far from me to be certain but surely if your country has legends and therefore knowledge of the rocks existence for many hundreds of years it might give your country a little more claim to it than others... I'm not bias having spent my childhood in Finn's old stomping ground of Co Antrim honestly!
