RMS Empress of Ireland 1914
Marker: recorded wreck position (First World War).
Key facts
| Name | RMS Empress of Ireland | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1914 | Wikidata P793 significant event, point-in-time qualifier |
| Era | First World War | derived from year |
| Ship type | steamship, sunken vessel | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | Collision | Wikidata P828 has cause (on P793 event): ship collision |
| Nationality / flag | Canada | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Sea / ocean | Saint Lawrence River | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | Canada | Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 13 km from land |
| Position | 48.6250, -68.4083 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
RMS Empress of Ireland was a British-built ocean liner that sank near the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River in Canada following a collision in thick fog with the Norwegian collier Storstad in the early hours of 29 May 1914, en route to Liverpool. Although the ship was equipped with watertight compartments and, in the aftermath of the Titanic disaster two years earlier, carried more than enough lifeboats for all aboard, she foundered in only 14 minutes. Of the 1,477 people on board, 1,012 died, making it the worst peacetime maritime disaster in Canadian history.
Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering built Empress of Ireland and her sister ship, Empress of Britain, at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland. The liners were commissioned by Canadian Pacific Steamships or CPR for the North Atlantic route between Liverpool and Quebec City. The transcontinental CPR and its fleet of ocean liners constituted the company's self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Transportation System". Empress of Ireland had just begun her 96th voyage when she was lost.
The wreck of Empress of Ireland lies in 22 fathoms (40 m; 132 ft) of water, making it accessible to advanced divers.
Diving & visiting
Shortly after the disaster, a salvage operation began on Empress of Ireland to recover the purser's safe and the mail. This was deemed a plausible effort due to the wreck's relatively shallow depth at 22 fathoms (132 ft; 40 m), shallow enough so that in the aftermath of the sinking, the mainmast and funnels of the Empress were still visible just beneath the surface.
As they recovered bodies and valuables from the ship, the salvors were faced with limited visibility and strong currents from the Saint Lawrence River.
A number of monuments were erected, particularly by the CPR, to mark the burial places of those passengers and crew whose bodies were recovered in the days that followed the tragic sinking. For example, there are two monuments at Rimouski. One monument is located on the coastal road between Rimouski and Pointe-au-Père and is dedicated to the memory of eighty-eight persons; it is inscribed with twenty names, but the sixty-eight other persons are unidentified. A second monument is located at the cemetery in Rimouski (Les Jardins commémoratifs Saint-Germain) and is dedicated to the memory of a further seven persons, four of whom are named.
Location
- Recorded position: 48.6250, -68.4083 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: Saint Lawrence River
- Nearest coast: Canada
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article RMS Empress of Ireland (revision 1380052514), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Salvage operation”, “Memorials”; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Nearby wrecks
- HMCS Charlottetown 130 km
Browse more: North America wrecks · wrecks off Canada · First World War