Going back in time to remember Lusitania

Rail commuters standing on platforms at Kent Station, Cork, could have been forgiven for thinking they’d gone back in time yesterday as several people milled around in period dress.

They included members of the Cobh Animation Team, a group which specialises in giving visitors to their town a sense of what it was like to be present when the ill-fated Titanic’s made its last port of call in 1912. Their dress had been slightly modernised, up to 1915, as they were off to Belfast to launch year-long commemorations to mark the centenary of the sinking of the Cunard liner Lusitania by a German U-boat.

The journey was paid for by Iarnród Éireann with their ‘Journey’s on us’ initiative. They were accompanied by troubadour Jimmy Crowley, the Coal Quay Shawlies, and Cork County mayor Alan Coleman.