VIDEO: School friends share family links with ill-fated Lusitania

Two best friends who share a unique connection to two survivors of the Lusitania disaster are set to play a key role in the centenary commemorations.

Éabha Nic Dhomhnaill, aged 10, from Farran in Co Cork, and Aoibhín Ní Fhloinn, aged 11, from Ballincollig, in Co Cork, have known for some time that they each have an ancestor who survived the sinking of the Cunard liner on May 7, 1915.

But a century after the disaster, they have now discovered that Éabha’s great-grand-aunt, Kitty McDonnell, and Aoibhín’s great-grandfather’s first cousin, May Barrett, who emigrated to the US together and who were plucked from the seas as Lusitania sank, were also close friends.