Lusitania survivors gave Cobh an eerie unreality

Even the saved appeared lost as, like zombies, they meandered around the streets and narrow lanes of Queenstown, as it was known then, many dressed in borrowed clothes.

Many survivors of the sinking of the Lusitania hardly had time to come to terms with how lucky they were, although some exhibited a giddy excitement at their escape.

More than 1,000 were not so lucky and, in the hours, days, and weeks following the sinking, hundreds of bodies were brought ashore to be interred in mass graves in the town. The Cork Examiner was there to capture those poignant scenes. So, too, were photographers from the Waterford firm of A.H. Poole.