•Large Atlantic bluefin tuna tagged off the coast of Ireland utilize the warm North Atlantic Current to access foraging areas in the North Atlantic Ocean.•Five hotspots of Atlantic bluefin tuna occur in the central and eastern North Atlantic Ocean. Each are in regions with long-lived, quasi-stationary anticyclonic features (i.e., eddies or recirculation).•Daily maximum depth and time at mesopelagic depths (i.e., greater than 200 m) are positively correlated with absolute dynamic topography in the open ocean.•In the Winter, a majority of Atlantic bluefin tuna tagged in Irish waters travel to the Newfoundland Basin, a region with intense mesoscale eddy activity and high mesopelagic fish biomass.•Some Atlantic bluefin tuna migrated in the Spring to the Mediterranean Sea, an important spawning ground for this species. Electronic tagging of Atlantic bluefin tuna (ABT; Thunnus thynnus) has shaped our understanding of their movements and migrations throughout the Atlantic basin. In this study, we used pop-up satellite archival tagging data to examine the movements of 51 large (CFL µ ± σ: 215 ± 15 cm) ABT tagged off the coast of Ireland. When combined with satellite oceanographic data, we found that ABT take advantage of the warm North Atlantic Current to access foraging areas in the North Atlantic Ocean. We identified four potential foraging regions: (1) off the coast of Ireland, (2) the Bay of Biscay, (3) the Newfoundland Basin, and (4) the West European Basin. In addition, 14 ABT migrated to their spawning grounds in the Mediterranean Sea, entering by May 16 and exiting by July 7, on average. In all five regions, anticyclonic ocean features (i.e., eddies or recirculation) were present. In the open ocean, these features often co-occurred with areas where the daily maximum depth of tuna exceeded 400 m and tuna spent extended time at mesopelagic depths (i.e., greater than 200 m). We hypothesize that ABT exploit anticyclonic structures to forage on the abundant mesopelagic fish communities. Additionally, our results suggest that ABT are travelling across the North Atlantic Ocean in a directed migration to the Newfoundland Basin to reach what may be one of the best mesopelagic feeding grounds in the world.