Lusitania.
Today marks the centenary of the sinking of the Lusitania, which was torpedoed by a German U-boat and sunk off the coast of Cork on May 7, 1915. This caused the deaths of 1,198 passengers and crew. There are commemorations of the loss of the Cunard Liner in various locations in County Cork today, including lifeboat stations and at Cobh, where many of the survivors were taken. Cobh, then Queenstown, was an important transatlantic port and recovered bodies were brought ashore and buried in a mass grave here. Lifeboats powered only by oarsmen set out for the site of the sinking eleven miles off the southern coast and within sight of the Old Head of Kinsale. She had left New York for Liverpool on May 1, but sank within eighteen minutes of being torpedoed following a second, internal explosion. Among those who died was Sir Hugh Lane, the art dealer, collector and gallery director. He is best known for establishing Dublin’s Municipal Gallery of Modern Art – now the Hugh Lane – the first known public gallery of modern art in the world.
