Dundalk remembers 20 lost in U-boat attack
THE torpedo attack on the
Dundalk will be marked with sombre centenary events in her home port next Sunday.
The ship was attacked and sunk just four days after the Leinster fell victim to a submarine attack.
One woman and 19 men died when the ship was torpedoed by a German submarine on the night of October 14, 1918.
Seventeen of the dead were from Dundalk and the sinking had a devastating impact on the County Louth town.
The victims included the captain, Hugh O’Neill, and the ship’s stewardess, Margaret Creegan.
The ship plied a regular route with passengers and freight between Dundalk and Liverpool.
An ecumenical ceremony will be held in St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dundalk on Sunday next at 3pm to commemorate the sinking by the German U-boat U90.
A stained-glass window and plaque in memory of those who died in the disaster is on display in the cathedral.
At 11pm on Sunday, people who wish to commemorate the tragedy will gather at the quayside in Dundalk. At 11.10pm — the precise moment of the sinking exactly a century earlier — a ship’s bell will be rung solemnly in tribute to the dead.
There will also be a brief prayer service during the commemoration.
The SS Dundalk was a twin-screw steamer built for the Dundalk and Newry Steampacket Company in Ardrossan in 1899.
The ship escaped unscathed in an earlier attack by a German submarine on December 16, 1917.
On the night she was sunk, she was sailing home from Liverpool when a torpedo struck.
It exploded in her engine room and almost broke the stricken vessel in two.
Two lifeboats were successfully launched but only around one third of the passengers and crew survived the disaster.
They were plucked from the water after 17 gruelling hours at sea.
Both the Dundalk and the Leinster went down in the Irish Sea in the final month of World War I.