Lusitania Centenary: Linking poignant moments one hundred years apart

There were many poignant moments on a day of the Lusitania commemoration, but two audibly struck a chord with the thousands who attended it.

At 2.10pm yesterday, the cruise ship Queen Victoria sounded her horn to mark the exact moment 100 years ago that her Cunard-line forebear was struck by a U-boat torpedo 18km off the Old Head of Kinsale.

A minute’s silence followed as those gathered in Cobh — called Queenstown in 1915 — looked out into the harbour trying to imagine what it must have been like for the panic-stricken passengers and crew. 1,198 people drowned after the liner sank.