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On the 7th of May 1915, the U-boat war reached a new level of horror. German submariners were already targeting merchant vessels in a bid to cut off supplies to Britain. But that afternoon, U20 torpedoed the Cunard liner Lusitania without warning. It was holed amidships and, within 20 minutes, sank just off the Irish coast.

The Lusitania was carrying around 2,000 passengers from New York to Liverpool. Nearly 1,200 men, women and children perished in the U-boat attack, despite the desperate efforts by local lifeboat crews and fishing vessels to save them.
The survivors – and many of those who died – were brought to Queenstown, now Cobh, where local people and Cunard representatives looked after them. They were put up in hotels, boarding houses and private homes.

Three days after the disaster, 150 of the victims were buried in three mass graves in the Old Church Cemetery north of Queenstown. Others were laid to rest in individual plots. However, the majority of those lost at sea were never recovered.

The attack provoked outrage in Britain and the United States. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson said: ‘Whatever be the other facts regarding the Lusitania, the principal fact is that a great steamer, primarily and chiefly a conveyance for passengers, was torpedoed and sunk without so much as a challenge or a warning.’

Local historian Alicia St Leger visits the graves of the Lusitania victims in the Old Church Cemetery.

Location: Cobh, Co. Cork. 51°49'58.0"N 8°19'20.3"W
Image: The Lusitania
Image courtesy of Imperial War Musems

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