111th Anniversary of the RMS Lusitania Sinking Marked at Old Head of Kinsale

On May 7, 2026 — the 111th anniversary of the sinking of RMS Lusitania by German submarine U-20 off the coast of Cork, Ireland on May 7, 1915 — a commemoration was held at the Lusitania Memorial Garden at Old Head of Kinsale. The ceremony, organised by the Lusitania Museum & Old Head Signal Tower, began at 2:00 p.m. and featured a guest address by Gerald Dunne, whose grandmother Constance Stroud survived the sinking but lost her 6-year-old daughter Helen. The memorial garden features a 20-metre 'Wave' sculpture listing the names of all 1,198 people who perished when the ship sank in just 18 minutes after a single German torpedo struck. The Lusitania sinking killed 1,198 of the 1,962 people aboard, including 128 American citizens, generating widespread international outrage and strengthening pro-Allied sentiment in the United States — a step toward American entry into the war in April 1917. The ship had been sailing from New York to Liverpool. Germany had placed newspaper advertisements warning passengers not to travel, citing British waters as a war zone under its February 1915 declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare. In 2026, Cork County Council granted planning permission for a new dedicated Lusitania museum to be built at the Old Head of Kinsale site, recognising the significance of the location where the vessel went down.