Connemara (ship, 1897)
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The Connemara was a steamship operated by the British railroad company London and North Western Railway , which was used as a ferry in the Irish Sea and carried passengers and cargo between England and Ireland from 1897 to 1916 . The Connemara sank in Carlingford Lough on November 3, 1916 after a collision with the coal freighter Retriever . All 82 people on board the Connemara and eight of the nine crew members of the retriever were killed.
The ship
The 1,106-ton steamer Connemara in 1896 at the shipyard William Denny and Brothers in the Scottish town of Dumbarton given to Kiel . On 7 November 1896, ran Connemara on the Clyde from the stack . The steamer was built for the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), founded in 1846, which, like other comparable British railway companies, also offered travel options by sea in addition to passenger and freight transport via the rail network.
The Connemara operated the extremely lucrative route from Holyhead on Anglesey off the coast of Wales to the small port town of Greenore on the coast of the Irish county of County Louth . Holyhead was one of the hubs of society. This connection was introduced in 1874 and was touted with the slogan "the most direct and convenient route from London to Belfast and Northern Ireland". The ship was 83.05 meters long, 10.69 meters wide and had a maximum draft of 4.33 meters. The two triple expansion steam engines allowed a cruising speed of 16 knots (29.6 km / h). The Connemara was propelled by two screws .
On March 20, 1910, the Connemara collided with the ship Marquis of Bute coming from Liverpool , which sank as a result.
Downfall
On Friday, November 3, 1916, shortly after 8 p.m., the Connemara left Greenore for another crossing to Holyhead. The 50-year-old captain George Herbert Doeg was in command of the ship . Almost the entire 31-man crew came from Holyhead and had many years of experience, even with bad weather. The cargo included a large number of cattle . The 51 passengers were very mixed. Among them were soldiers returning from leave from the front ; young men looking for work in Great Britain ; People who wanted to visit relatives in England; young women on their way to work as auxiliary nurses at the front; as well as the wives and children of military personnel.
Hurricane winds came from the south-southwest, the sea was very rough and there were currents of about eight knots. The coast was in complete darkness. Under these circumstances, the courses of the outgoing Connemara and the incoming retriever approached . The Retriever was a 17-year-old, 483-ton three-masted necklace from the Clanrye Shipping Company, which was traveling with a load of coal from Garston near Liverpool to Newry . On board the retriever , which was commanded by Captain Patrick O'Neill, there were a total of nine crew members. The ship had left Garston at 4 a.m. Joseph O'Neill, son of the captain, was first mate.
The two vessels met about half a mile off the sandbank Carlingford bar, from the lighthouse was dominated by Haulbowline. Behind it was the inlet Carlingford Lough, a connection to the Irish Sea. This was the only way to enter or leave Greenore Harbor. Carlingford Lough is only about 275 meters wide, so that there is not much room to maneuver passing ships . Because of the existing submarine hazard, both ships drove in the dark, but both showed their position lights , both were on the correct course and both captains stood on their respective bridges . The Haulbowline lighthouse guard saw that the two ships were getting too close and fired warning missiles.
The retriever was limited in its maneuverability because the heavy seas caused the cargo to move. The ship struggled against the wind, the waves, and the shifted coal. The retriever noticed the Connemara and sounded her ship's horn three times. Suddenly the bow of the retriever was hit by a gale of wind, pushed into the port side of the passing Connemara and penetrated the ship's hull up to the chimney . The two ships remained wedged together for a brief moment. Captain O'Neill aboard the Retriever ordered full force back so that his ship loosened from the gaping hole and swung wide. The Connemara was torn below the waterline and immediately took in a lot of water. When the boilers were washed by the cold seawater, they exploded. The Connemara sank five minutes after the collision .
The bow of the retriever was deeply indented, so that she too began to sink and, 20 minutes after the accident , went under less than 200 meters from the Connemara . Their kettles also blew up on contact with the water. The two ships are at a depth of six meters. None of the 82 people on board the Connemara survived. Of the retriever's nine men , only 21-year-old stoker James Boyle from the small town of Warrenpoint in Northern Ireland survived. The accident claimed a total of 90 deaths.
Aftermath
Carlingford Lough's coastline was covered in rubble, bodies and dead cattle the next day. 58 bodies were recovered the day after the accident. More washed ashore days later from Cranfield to Kilkeel. Many were badly disfigured and burned from the boiler explosions . Those who could not be identified were buried in a mass grave in Kilkeel. Some of the Connemara crew members found their final resting place in Maeshyfryd Cemetery, Holyhead. One of the bodies that was never found was that of stewardess Margaret Williams. This should have been their last trip before their wedding.
The 20-year-old James Boyle, the only non-swimmer on board the retriever , was below deck at the time of the accident. He clung to a capsized lifeboat to avoid being thrown against the rocks on the bank. Two men found him exhausted in the surf the following morning. He refused to talk about the event for a long time and was only able to be interviewed by a film crew as an old man. Boyle died on April 19, 1967.
On November 6, 1916, the investigation into the accident took place in Kilkeel. The chairman and the jury looked at the scene and the recovered dead together. The only survivor, James Boyle, was questioned about the accident and collapsed several times. The investigative commission came to the conclusion "Death by drowning after ship collision".
Charles Albert McWilliam, a 16-year-old student from Dublin , was inspired by the tragedy to write the poem The Collision of the Connemara and the Retriever . On November 3, 1981, a memorial stone was dedicated to the dead in Kilkeel Cemetery by students from Kilkeel High School. A stained glass window in St. Patrick's Church in Dundalk also reminds of the accident. The names of the Connemara crew are engraved in the North Wales Heroes Memorial Arch in Bangor and the War Memorial in Holyhead .
It was the worst shipping accident in the North Channel up to the sinking of the Princess Victoria ferry in 1953 with 133 deaths.
Web links
- The story of the Connemara
- More details and stories related to the Connemara on the BBC website
- Technical and historical key data in the Clydebuilt Ships Database
- Blog discussion about the Connemara on the Great War Forum
- List of passengers and crew on both ships