RMS Leinster

1918

Irish Sea, four weeks from armistice Location: Irish Sea, off the Kish Lightship, Dublin Bay · Coordinates: 53.30°N 5.85°W · Casualties: 564 · Survivors: ~260 · Depth: 35 m · Cause: submarine torpedo — Struck by two torpedoes from the German submarine SM UB-123 off the Kish Lightship at 09:50 on 10 October 1918. First torpedo holed the bow; second, fired after she had turned back for Dublin, struck the engine room. Sank in fifteen minutes. · Fate: continental shelf · protected · Type: mail packet · City of Dublin Steam Packet · Tonnage: 2,646 tons · Crew: 77 · Flag: United Kingdom · Ireland · Launched: 1897 City of Dublin Steam Packet Company mail boat, Dublin to Holyhead. Torpedoed twice by UB-123 off the Kish Lightship at 09:50 on 10 October 1918, in the final month of the war. 564 dead of 771 aboard, including mothers and children returning from visiting soldiers in British hospitals. The worst disaster in the history of the Irish Sea; the Armistice came four weeks later. The Vessel The RMS Leinster was a British mail steamer of the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, built by Laird Brothers at Birkenhead in 1896. She was 113 metres long, 2,646 tons, twin-screw triple-expansion steam propulsion, designed for a service speed of 24 knots. She and her three sisters (Ulster, Munster, and Connaught) operated the Kingstown-Holyhead route, the principal Irish-English mail and passenger connection, under a mail contract with the British Post Office. By 1918 the Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire) to Holyhead route was the fastest sea passage between England and Ireland, four and a half hours at full speed, operated under wartime conditions with the four sisters in daily rotation and a strict mail-ship schedule. She carried on every outward sailing the British Army mail for Ireland, civilian mail in both directions, and passenger traffic averaging about 400 on each crossing. Her master at the date of her final voyage was Captain William Birch, 62, a veteran City of Dublin Company officer with 35 years of Irish Sea experience. Her crew of 77 included stewardesses, stokers, a postal sorting staff of 22, and a Royal Navy signal party of six. She also carried, on every voyage, a Royal Naval Reserve gunnery crew manning her two 12-pounder defensive guns installed in 1917. The Disaster The torpedo struck Leinster on her port side, forward of the bridge, at 09:50 on 10 October 1918. Captain Birch ordered the helm hard over and the ship turned through 180 degrees to attempt to return to Kingstown at reduced speed. Ramm followed her and at 10:02 fired a second torpedo that struck her amidships. The second torpedo detonated in her engine room; Leinster lost power immediately and began to list heavily to port. She sank at 10:05 on 10 October 1918, fifteen minutes after the first torpedo strike. Her lifeboats, sixteen in number, mostly could not be launched from the listing deck. Of the eight that did launch, four were damaged by the rapid sinking or by the port-side debris. The water temperature that morning was approximately 9°C; survivors who reached the water alive had perhaps 30 minutes of functional swimming before hypothermia began to disable them. The Royal Navy destroyers HMS Lively, HMS Mallard, and HMS Seal reached the site over the following two hours, responding to distress signals from the sinking. They pulled survivors from the water until mid-afternoon and returned to Kingstown with approximately 260 people alive. Over the following week the confirmed death toll grew as more bodies were recovered from the Irish Sea coast; the final figure settled at 564 dead and 207 survivors out of 771 aboard. This was the worst single-day maritime disaster in the history of the Irish Sea, and the largest wartime loss of Irish civilian life of the First World War