A disaster that was written out of history

Days before the end of the first World War a steamer was sunk off Dublin, killing 501 people. At last it is being marked, writes David O'Brien

Today, 85 years after the disaster, the sinking of Royal Mail Steamer Leinster will be officially commemorated for the first time, in Dún Laoghaire. The Leinster, carrying postal workers and troops, was only an hour into its journey to Holyhead, in north Wales, when it was hit by German torpedoes. In the minutes that followed almost two-thirds of the 770 people on board died.

In a gripping description from his nursing-home bed in 1979, the late Bill Sweeney, who had been the ship's assistant purser, related how, 32 days before the end of the first World War, U-boat 123, prowling the Irish Sea, fired two torpedoes into the steamer, one into the bow and the other into the engine room, sinking the ship in eight minutes.

In spite of Sweeney's panic as he clung to a lifeboat in rough seas, the 21-year-old saw a shaft of morning sunlight over Dublin Bay catch the hull's bronze propellers, seconds before the steamer's final list to port.

As incredible as his tale of the death of 501 people is why there has been for so long an official ambivalence about commemorating one of Ireland's worst maritime disasters.

To many the attack came as a surprise, but to seasoned mariners and defence officials it had been inevitable. Although submarine attacks in the Irish Sea were not unheard of, their casualties were generally perceived to be small, so escorts were rarely provided.

The Leinster had narrowly missed torpedoes in April and August. Her sister ships Munster and Ulster also escaped similar attack, but Connaught, the fourth of the quartet of mail ships run by City of Dublin Steampacket company, was sunk in the English Channel in 1917 with the loss of three crew.

Any lingering complacency was shattered on October 10th, 1918. When the bodies started to come ashore at Dún Laoghaire harbour - then a naval base - Ireland was shocked by the scale of the disaster. Eight days later, in a twist of wartime fate, U-123 struck a mine in the North Sea, killing most of the crew.

Today the Leinster's almost intact wreck lies on a sandy seabed 12 miles from shore, in about 100 feet of water, more or less beneath the path of the Stena HSS, the high-speed car ferry. Divers say the 2,646-ton hulk is best visited an hour before high or low tide, in slack water, for the clearest views.

Most passengers that day were soldiers, sailors, airmen and nurses returning to duty. They came from the UK - including Ireland at the time - the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Of the 489 military on board, 326 were killed. Most died in their bunks.

Although occasionally remembered at maritime events, the sinking has failed to receive its due recognition. That there was no official commemoration of the 25th, 50th or 75th anniversary, in a period that spans Home Rule and the War of Independence, speaks for itself, says Breasal Ó Caollai of Friends of the Leinster, the voluntary organisers of today's event.

Only very recently, in 1995, did the owner of the Leinster's remains, Desmond Brannigan, and local divers rectify the lapse of memory when they raised one of the Leinster's anchors - now on Carlisle Pier in Dún Laoghaire in tribute to the Leinster's captain, William Birch, and the 500 others who died.

Philip Lecane, a historian who has written about the sinking, suggests the victims have been forgotten for so long partly because news of the disaster was censored. "It is because very little was known about them in the first place," he says. "And it's very hard to remember 501 faceless people."

For Lecane and colleagues such as William Byrne - great-grandson of the ship's chief stoker, John Donohoe, who survived the sinking - one of the most poignant aspect of today's commemoration is that an eight-and-a-half-decade wait for the State to become fully involved in commemorating the Leinster has finally ended.

Four jets from RAF Valley, near Holyhead, will fly past the site of the sinking at 9.50 a.m. today, marking the moment the first torpedo struck, and wreaths will be laid by LE Aoife and the Dún Laoghaire lifeboat. Then will come an inter-Church ceremony, at St Michael's in Dún Laoghaire at 11.45 a.m.

The day's organisers have asked for two minutes' silence at noon in the south Co Dublin town and in Holyhead, as well as aboard the Stena HSS, as a mark of respect to the crews and passengers of the Leinster and U-123. Among those attending will be representatives of the Allied forces, the German ambassador and postal workers from Belfast, Holyhead and Dún Laoghaire.

Later today a plaque will be unveiled at the town's post office to remember the 21 postal sorters who died - a tribute, along with the day's other events, that should ensure the memory of the 501 lost are no longer written out of our history.