Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS ago today, the magnificent Lusitania sank 11 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale in Cork.
On 7 May 1915, six days after leaving New York, the vessel was attacked and struck by a torpedo fired by a German submarine U-20.
In just 18 short minutes, the boat sank and 1,198 people lost their lives. While described as ‘murder by savages’ by the British Press, a German newspaper said it was “with joyful pride we contemplate this latest deed of our navy”.
In a new book, The Unseen Lusitania, historian Eric Sauder uses previously unseen images and information to bring the opulent ship back to life.
The only way to cross the Atlantic, its rooms were filled with people from all walks of life. Sauder says that no author can recount the terrifying experiences of that fateful day as well as the 760 survivors.
He sets the scene of the 7 May:
“The morning of 7 May dawned foggy, but around 11am, the weather cleared into a lovely spring afternoon. What no one on board knew was that, in the six days since Lusitania sailed from New York, 22 ships had been sunk by German submarines.
At 1.20pm, Kapitanleutnant Walther Schwieger, commander of the U-20, sighted the fast-approaching Lusitania about 13 miles away. As the liner drew nearer, Schwieger attempted in vain to get his submerged U-boat into position for a clean shot but soon realised that it was impossible because of the direction Lusitania was sailing.
“At 1.40pm, just as he was about to give up hope, Lusitania made a turn to starboard and would steam almost directly in front of the bow of the U-20. Schwieger couldn’t believe his luck. Just before 2.10pm, Schwieger fired a single torpedo and watched as the deadly missile found its mark.
Mortally wounded, Lusitania had less than 18 minutes to live.
Chrissie Aitken, a survivor, wrote a letter to relatives that was published in the Nicola Valley News and republished in Sauder’s new book.
She wrote:
“We were standing laughing at something when the crash came. Instinct seems to tell us what it was…
“I must say I kept very calm. This girl friend who was with me got very excited, and in trying to calm her I forgot my own excitement. We managed to get on deck and made for the lifeboats. I remembered I had no lifebelt, and turning back I went to the saloon to get one for my girlfriend and one for myself.
On reaching the saloon, a steward turned me back and told me to go to my own cabin if I wanted a life belt. When I returned from the saloon my girl friend had disappeared. I could not see her in any of the boats so I don’t know where she could have gone.
“I was standing wondering, when a little fellow, one of the crew came up to me and took off his own belt and fix it around me. How I wish now I have got his name and address, but thank God I noticed him in the crowd at Queenstown, so I know he was saved. His self-sacrificing bravery, I am sure, saved me from a watery grave.”
Aitken eventually made it into a lifeboat but her father and brothers were not so lucky.
In a second survivor’s account, Phoebe Amory recalls the “agonising screams of the mothers and the children and the scenes of parting between husbands and wives”.
After crashing out of a lifeboat, she says that “on every hand were floating bodies, their upturned faces showing white and ghastly”.
“I was so close to the Lusitania I could have reached out and touched her, but her motions at this time caused waves that carried me some distance away. All this time I was floating on my back, and try as I would I could not turn over. This fact alarmed me greatly, since I believe that my life best was on wrong, and later proved to be correct. At times, the waves would wash over my face and fill my mouth with water, and I called upon God to save me.”
Amory was saved by a passing lifeboat that was already full. The men inside pulled her along with a hook so that her body was inside the boat and her legs were in the sea.
“But we were not yet out of danger,” she continues. “And when someone started the cry of submarine, we all looked in the direction to which he pointed, and there, sure enough, was what we all took to be a submarine, but which proved to be but huge fish sporting in the waves. However, we had been given a scare, and the men rowed like mad.
The Unseen Lusitania: The Ship in Rare Illustrations, £25, ISBN: 9780752497051, available from The History Press.
First published 4 May
Why is it always the disadvantaged schools and not just ‘schools’. I get it they have families who struggle but si do many others who arent claiming si dont fall into a category. We paid €500 for 3 children’s books this year. No help for us and we fall into the category of too rich for any assistance but too poor to live outside of the monthly budget. The squeezed middle are always forgotten. Those Being classed as Disadvantaged are not the only ones struggling!
*so
@ash doyle: 500 quid for 3 books, wow……
@Bernard Sweeney: Perth
@Bernard Sweeney: apologies, perhaps all the books for 3 children?
@ash doyle: because tax payer s are expected to continue to provide for all these areas while parents take zero responsibility. That what happens when you’ve a soft system that keeps giving
@ash doyle: this term disadvantaged is derogatory and takes away from the true problem, under resourcing of education. The notion of free education is bull when people pay for what are called extra curricular activities designed to enhance the child’s education cost an arm and a leg and should be part of the education syllabus. This is more waste and openly discriminates between public and private education which is available to the better of and also funded by the state. Education is not a luxury and should value all children equally as the constitution says
@Dangling Damo: In Germany extra curricular activities like music lessons are provided for all children. In Ireland it costs about 800 euro for a years tuition.
@ash doyle: are you implying the parents of deis schools are all claiming social welfare? That’s not clear in your comments.
Yes the middle is squeezed. But Socio economically disadvantaged areas are squashed. Nobody is saying other people aren’t struggling but they are saying that the people who are struggling most are in these areas and with the funding available (and it is only a pilot project) they are starting there
@ash doyle: cos there are levels to struggling. Gotta draw a line somewhere.
@Alan: so DEIS schools and the supports they provide shouldn’t exist?
@ash doyle: Wait till they go to college, year one cost us 11k. Not including the extras like travel expenses, books and so on.
We also paid over 500 for books for two at secondary school.
@Jude: 800 euro that people should not have to pay. These activities should be funded through peoples taxes and delivered by the department of education or what ever its called now.
@Jude: In our school , every child from senior infants up learns a musical instrument , in school hours . This is in addition to choir / concerts / musicals.
@ash doyle: Why not lobby to reform the whole system, and not just the local schools that you know of? To me, it makes sense to start with the schools where people are struggling most. Everyone knows it’s a sacrifice to support children. It would be great to have extra money to spare, and maybe the Children’s allowance isn’t keeping pace with inflation?
@ash doyle: the school books should be published by the state and supplied by the state, just like the UK. Our system is a money pit for the politically connected publishers who change their books often to increase profits at the expense of hard pushed parents.
I can sense an election looming!! Plenty “good news” stories from the government now in the coming weeks no doubt. A bit of advice to people, try not to suffer from loss of memory between now and election time due to we all overdosing on “good news”
@Mary Cullinane: In the UK books are left in the School and reused by pupils. In Ireland new editions are consistently been released so books can’t even be passed down through families.. It’s another money making scam in this Country
@David Garland: Yes! The root of the problem indeed! So unnecessary.
@Stephanie Fitzgerald: The government keep changing the syllabus. A new syllabus means a new set of books. We are currently on our 3rd Junior Cert Maths syllabus in the last 12 years. That is three sets of books.
Why not invest in reusable e-learning resources instead?
Seems very wasteful to spend the money on books.
@Adam J: the department of education have effectively been subsidising the printers for decades. The use of workbooks is clearly a monely making exercise that should have been restricted.
@Adam J: kids spend enough time in front of screens already and books are, broadly speaking, better for learning.
@gm_cmanning: Spending time Infront of screens would only be a negative thing though if the content was negative right? Or possibly the sendentry nature of it but the same would be true for books. E-learning tech has come on leaps and bounds in the last decade, adaptive learning/intervention techniques alone are worth investing in. It’s been broadly ignored by the dept ed to date.
@Adam J: in my local primary school, parents were asked did they want the children to use tablets or old-style books.
Most parents voted for books because they thought the children spent too much time looking at screens already.
@Chin Feeyin: yes many people are ignorant and make foolish decisions. Printed media is going to seriously decline. There are no inherent problems with using a screen instead of printed pages. There are inherent problems with print media such as requiring an entirely new book to update a section which is often just a minor change. A licensing system makes much more sense.
@Bilbo Baggins: not necessarily. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/books-better-than-screens-for-students-study-finds-1.3772618
@Craic_a_tower: see link above, maybe not so foolish?
@Adam J: have you considered the cost of the equipment that e-learning would be utilized on?? In my sons school that type of equipment cost 700 euro and remember this grant is aimed at DES schools
@Craic_a_tower: my sons school was fully iPad based when it opened. 5 years later they are reverting back to books because the children do not learn as well on a fully tech based style plus its a distraction As a parent I found it very difficult to support him in how to organise his study for the junior cert because everything was online from different sources. I’m studying computer science si it’s not like Im computer illiterate. . A combination of both is best. That being said the primary school workbooks should be abolished because they are just a money racket , now that’s the type of thing that should be moved to online sources as the waste is phenomenal
@Liam Higgins: But if the money was invested into eLearning, it can be applied across most schools, not just disadvantaged, I’m not saying it should replace books altogether, I’m saying that money would be better spent pushing for reusable and scalable eLearning platforms that can be updated on a whim.
“Kids are too much in front of screens” isn’t an excuse, that’s the parents fault, they should be sent outside after school, I was when I was a kid, interactive learning is much better for kids as it challenges them more than a list of questions in a book.
@gm_cmanning: For purely reading text, yes books are the better option, but if the eLearning content is engaging and challenging, the student will learn faster.
@LittleBee: Obviously the content being presented to the kids was not engaging enough, using iPads was the first mistake, they really use desktops in a classroom situation, a full classroom using virtual infrastructure wouldnt cost too much to implement and the software can be updated as often as they want and would be scalable to all schools
@Adam J: primary schools have been using interactive white boards for about 15 years. They are no outdated and beginning to be replaced at about 15k a go. A combination of both is the key. Sometimes you just cant beat a really book.
@Adam J: Most primary schools have very poor broadband and constantly have to fundraise to get even the most basic of devices .
@Adam J: not in my experience.
@LittleBee: apologies is 3k a go
@Bríd Uí Mhaoluala: this is true weve used a large portion of our last fundraising to boost the broadband so the wifi and iPads can be used in all rooms
Why doesn’t the DES publish its own resources ? What about children from disadvantaged homes in main stream schools ?
@Bríd Uí Mhaoluala: this largely is about kids from disadvantaged homes in mainstream schools
@gm_cmanning: no, it’s about disadvantaged schools, DEIS.
@Aoife Mac Cana: disadvantaged schools are mainstream schools. And they’re a DEIS school cos their catchment area is socio-economically disadvantaged therefore a significant number of the homes their students come from are similarly disadvantaged.
@gm_cmanning: as per the article, the pilot fund is for DEIS schools, not mainstream schools.
@Aoife Mac Cana: you are missing the point. Disadvantages schools are mainstream schools. Mainstream refers to the teaching format of the school not the socioeconomic status of the area it is based.
You might actually mean ‘all schools’ or ‘including schools more widely’ but DEIS schools are mainstream schools. They were awarded DEIS status due to specific circumstances that mean they meet the requirement for disadvantaged. But they were set up and continue as mainstream schools. DEIS isn’t a foundational status.
@Aoife Mac Cana: as per previous post. DEIS schools are mainstream schools!
@gm_cmanning: The funding is for DEIS schools .
@Bríd Uí Mhaoluala: I know, where I say it wasn’t? Pointing out that DEIS schools are also mainstream schools
@Jensen Bhroin: It’s the definitions of ‘mainstream’ that is causing ambiguity. DEIS schools meet criteria that sets them apart from other government schools, thereby separating them from the mainstream.
Yes, there are disadvantaged students at mainstream schools and it is unfortunate that they too are not being included in the pilot program. A pilot program, in essence, needs to have a specific sample size in order for results to be studied. If the program is successful and shows benefit to students’ learning, I’d hope that the program would be rolled out nationwide.
@Aoife Mac Cana: your definition is inaccurate. DEIS schools are mainstream schools. There’s not a debate about it. I should know, I work in one.
The best work is done when an election is on the cards.
Oh ho, looks like there’s a few votes for sale.
@Pius Flynn: Doesn’t mean this 1m won’t help though
All school books should be free. To much of a burden on families. And changing editions from year to year should be banned also workbooks should be stopped.
@Councillor Bill Clear: I couldn’t agree more. It’s an archaic racket, insisting on everyone owning the same text, then reissuing it yearly.
have your say