What is 1.7 on the Richter Scale

There is news that two 'earthquakes' or 1.5 and 1.7 on the Richter scale have hit the land of my father's County Donegal in the last 24 hours. But what exactly is 1.7 on the scale?

You wouldn't even feel a thing. An express train going past you on a platform has more effect on you. It also is hardly news 8,000 hit the world every day of 2.0 or less, they are described as micro and not recorded. Compared to even the aftershocks that have been hitting Haiti this is nothing to write home about. Apart from in this case by the BBC.

However, Thomas Blake of Dublin's School of Cosmic Physics said that some people felt the event. So either the measurement is wrong or they were having a different type of earth moving experience.