Memorial to be unveiled to lake drowning victims

THE names of the 17 victims of Ireland’s worst inland drowning have been engraved in stone for the first time in the 126 years since they lost their lives.

A memorial will be unveiled next to Lough Sillan near Shercock, Co Cavan, tomorrow to mark the anniversary of the tragedy in which a school principal, his wife, two school staff and 13 pupils died within minutes of going out on the 460-acre lake.

On Thursday morning, July 25, 1878, schoolmaster Michael McCabe decided to bring his female pupils on a boat trip but after travelling just 100 yards, the flat-bottomed Tarus began taking in water.

Historian Eugene Markey, chairman of the Knockbride Heritage Society, is compiling a book on the tragedy, a subject of tension in the rural east Cavan community to this very day.

“The only way people dealt with it was not to talk about it, and there was a lot of bitterness about the whole thing, particularly towards the schoolmaster.”

The victims were laid to rest in six local cemeteries, but their names were never put on headstones. This will be rectified when the memorial is unveiled tomorrow.