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Researchers claim one of the world's largest networks of underground rivers could be hidden under the sea bed off the coast of Ireland.

It is thought the freshwater channels could be up to 30 miles long and measure up to 70ft wide in places.

The discovery was made by researchers in Galway Bay on the west coast, one of Ireland's most treasured beauty spots.

Breakthrough: Scientists believe a network of underground 'rivers' up to 30 miles long are flowing under Galway Bay, creating a well on Inishmore island (pictured) which provides limitless fresh water

The 'rivers' are formed by water seeping through porous limestone and slowly carving out channels over hundreds of years.

Smaller channels are common in Ireland, where much of the country is made of limestone rock.

It is so permeable that it allows the existence of 'disappearing' lakes unique to Ireland called turloughs, where vast bodies of water can vanish underground within a short space of time through cracks in the rock.

In Galway Bay, the researchers said, the water was likely to be flowing for several miles before emerging as 'springs' out of the sea bed and straight into the Atlantic.

They discovered it because locals on Inishmaan, one of the Aran islands, spoke of a well of fresh water which never ran out, the Sunday Times reported.

West coast: The location of Inishmaan island in relation to the rest of Ireland and Galway Bay

Breakthrough: One of the researchers at the University of Ireland described the find as a 'submarine river'

The researchers from the National University of Ireland analysed the well and discovered it was supplying more water than all the rain falling on the island.

That meant the source of the water must have been on the mainland, they said.

Dr Tiernan Henry, a lecturer at the NUI in Galway Bay, told the Sunday Times: 'The islands generally have water problems, they are always short, but this well went deep into the rock and was getting more water than falls on the whole island.

'We found it had tapped into a submarine river flowing from the land some miles away.'

Ireland is already famous for its limestone caves, one of the most well-known of which is Dunmore Cave near the south eastern city of Kilkenny.

Folklore described it as one of the darkest places in Ireland and inside it is still murky and wet, filled with stalactites and stalagmites formed over millions of years.

It contains almost a quarter of a mile of passages, stretching 150ft below ground, and in AD 928 it was the site of the brutal Viking massacre.