Publications | Down Survey | 2002 Issue Contents

The Carlingford Lough Disaster: Fact, folklore and fiction
Sean Patterson

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the loss of the Princess Uictoria, with the loss of 135 lives. However, another maritime tragedy, also involving a cross channel passenger steamer, the SS Connemara of the London and North Western Railway Company and a Newry collier, the SS Retriever, in November 1916, appears to have been largely ignored over the years, despite the fact that 94 people perished within sight of land.

It could be argued that this is an event which deserves a much higher profile, even though the loss of life was not as great as that on the Princess Uictoria. Ironically, had the Carlingford Lough Disaster occurred during peace-time, not wartime, the results may have been much more horrendous. Had the London and North Western Railway steamer Connemara been carrying even half of her complement of 800 passengers, the loss might have been catastrophic when one considers the steamer sank within minutes of a collision with the collier the SS Retriever.

The actual cause of the tragedy was thoroughly researched and recounted by Bangor historian Ian Wilson in Sea Breezes in 1978. The Connemara, outward-bound from Greenore to Holyhead, was struck amidships by the SS Retriever of The Clanrye Steamship Company of Newry at the seaward end of the Carlingford cut at the entrance to Carlingford Lough, in gale force conditions. From eyewitness accounts it appears that as the two vessels approached each other in the narrow sea-lane, the Newry collier, homeward bound from Garston, swung to port, striking the passenger vessel amidships. The collier then went astern and grounded. Within minutes both vessels had sunk. 86 crewmen, passengers and cattlemen perished on the passenger vessel. Because of war-time restrictions she was carrying only 3rd class passengers. Eight members of the 460 ton Retriever drowned. The only survivor was James Boyle, a young ordinary seaman who reached shore clinging to a capsized lifeboat. Like any shipping tragedy, behind the bare facts of the
collision and the sinking lies a human tragedy. Many very poignant accounts have emerged from the disaster. Some are documented while others have been passed by word-of-mouth from generation to generation, possibly becoming distorted with the passage of time.

As always, chance played its part in determining who sailed on the fateful night of November 3rd 1916 and perished, whilst others decided not to travel. This became very apparent in my role as a primary school teacher. Two children in the same primary seven class were linked by this tragedy. One boy's great grandfather John Henry Tomelty was a fireman on the Retriever, a coal fired steamer. He missed her departure from the Albert Basin in Newry on her final journey to the coal port of Garston. Rather than lose steady employment, he procured a bicycle, cycled 3% miles to the Victoria sea lock, at the seaward end of the Newry ship canal, and boarded the 10-year-old vessel as she lay in the chamber of the sea lock.

Scale model of the SS Connemara, made by Frank Maginnis, Kilkeel (Courtesy of Newry and Mourne Museum)

Scale model of the SS Retriever, made by Frank Maginnis, Kilkeel (Courtesy of Newry and Mourne Museum)

John Carroll, whose great granddaughter was in that same class made a decision that saved practically his whole family. During the previous summer his eldest son had gone to South Wales and had written home that work there was plentiful. John decided to bring his whole family across and was due to sail on the Connemara on Friday 3rd November. He then decided to bring his departure forward by two days, sailing on Wednesday. His grandson remarked to me, "the fact that they did not sail speaks for itself. One Carroll generation would have been almost wiped out."

Whatever made John Carroll change his mind is uncertain. The fate, however, of brother and sister Patrick and Catherine Kearney was decided by the toss of a coin. They were travelling from Newry to meet a relative in Liverpool. Whilst awaiting the boat train to Greenore at Edward Street Station in Newry they discussed with Sergeant Fitzpatrick, the RIC officer on duty that night the possibility of the Connemara sailing in such stormy weather. The latter was of the opinion that the sailing would be cancelled and believed taking the Dublin steamer would be a better option. According to the Frontier Sentinel of November l6th 1916, Mr Kearney hesitated and then said he would "abide by the spin of a coin." He spun the coin in the air and decided to go. The police sergeant, remarking that the chance of a coin might be unlucky still advised him to alter his route but Mr Kearney persisted, adding that an acquaintance was to meet him on the arrival of the Greenore boat. Both sailed.

Mrs A Small of Cleveland Street, it appears, had a premonition of disaster and heeded the warning. She told the Armagh correspondent of the Press Agency she had "a vivid and terrible dream" in the early hours of Thursday morning of sailing on the Greenore steamer on a stormy night. She clearly saw an explosion and steam rushing from a broken pipe. She found herself and her daughter in the water with bodies floating around her. Believing the dream to be a premonition she
told her friends and relatives. Despite their scorn she was adamant she would not travel on the Greenore steamer "for love nor money."

According to the family members of 19-yearold Mary Angela McArdle from Mulladuff in County Monaghan, her sister-in-law in Chicago awoke after a nightmare in which she saw Mary Angela drowning. Mary Angela was sailing to join her brother and sister-in-law in Chicago. It was also claimed by family members that on the night of the sailing, rats were seen leaving the Connemara - an ill omen. This apparently was also remarked upon by Peter Killen, a cattleman who believed it was time he found another ship. He did not.

It appears that others involved in the sinking and indeed their relatives may have had supernatural experiences warning of disaster. According to an article in the Donaghmoyne Parish magazine of 1986, a young man named Simon McGarrell was on holiday in the area from England with his mother. Simon, with his mother's permission decided to remain for another week after she had returned to England. The night before he sailed his friends held a small party for him. After the party, Simon followed his friends to the Lara Cross. He told them that a lady in white passed through the wheel of his bicycle. They laughed at him and then left him home. But according to the article, whilst they were returning home, the white lady passed in front of them before disappearing behind a pile of stones. They searched for her but could not find her. Later as the three of them stood near the Lara Cross, the white woman walked through them. Simon sailed on the following day on the Connemara.

Perhaps the most interesting supernatural phenomenon relating to the Carlingford Lough Disaster is that of the appearance of the Lord Blayney, 'the ghost ship of Carlingford Lough'. On December l8th 1833, the 200-ton wooden paddle steamer foundered on rocks near Prestatyn in Wales, whilst en route from Warrenpoint to Liverpool. All on board perished. A possible cause of the loss of the paddle steamer may have been that the North West Lightship broke adrift of its moorings, the captain of the steamer mistaking the light on the point of Ayr light for that of the North West Lightship location.

In his book Legendary Stories of the Carlingford Lough, MG Crawford describes a sighting of the Lord Blayney: "we could see... the tall masts and funnel of a steamer appear as if she were rising from the grey breast of the sea; then the mast head light shining like a star burst full upon us. The ship was tossed as if knocked about in a storm, although where she lay was dead calm. We could hear the sound of the swishing water against her side, and the wind blowing through her rigging, as she rolled onward on her course. When she came opposite the quays at Warrenpoint we saw a cloud of steam go up as if the whistle was shrieking a warning; then slowly she sank; her stern lights vanished beneath the waves".

The appearance of the ghost ship is ingrained in local folklore and is said to herald a tragedy in the Lough. It was reported to have been seen before an earlier sinking in the Lough, that of the sailing vessel Robert Burns. On the afternoon of November 3rd 1916, relatives of James Boyle,
the only survivor, claimed to have seen the Lord Blayney. It is interesting to note that since the loss of the Connemara and Retriever, the ghost ship has been reported several times. After delivering a talk on the tragedy I met a lady, very much in possession of her faculties I may add, who was quite adamant she had seen this particular vessel.

Memorial stone to the tradegy erected by pupils of Kilkeel High School, at the Old Church of St Colman's Kilkeel (Courtesy of Newry and Mourne Museum)

There are other incidents of people who for one reason or another should or should not have been on the Connemara that fateful night. According to contemporary newspaper reports, Lizzie Collins had intended taking the Dublin steamer but ended up on the Connemara. Robert Conlon, a railway man from Dundalk, was on his way to a wedding with his two aunts, Maggie Glassbrook and Lillie Fillingham, in Wigan. Mrs Fillingham was accompanied by her son Robert, aged 2, and daughter Jane, aged 4. Robert's brother Patrick was to accompany him but at the last moment had been asked to drive his employer to Dublin. Marriage was also on the mind of Miss Williams, a stewardess on the Connemara. She was soon to be married and had given in her notice. This was to be her last trip on the Connemara. It is also worth mentioning that John Burns, a cattleman from Greenore, had taken the place of his brother. Also among the list of passengers, painstakingly drawn up by CJ McCarthy of Dundalk and J Lane of London, is an un-named seaman from Wales who had just signed off the SS Bessbrook of Newry, a rival steampacket of the Dundalk and Newry Steampacket Company. Ironically, because of the weather conditions, the Bessbrook did not sail that night.

Whilst many of those travelling that night were visiting relations or starting new lives, a group of soldiers were heading for the Western Front. Private RA Kenna had already been wounded twice, whilst Private Phillip Goodfellow had been attending the funeral of his sister. One recruit, however, from outside Newry, may have been under arrest for desertion and, according to the local press, his body was found after the collision, handcuffed to that of a sergeant. This, however, is disputed by some of his relatives who claim he was not handcuffed when his body was discovered.

There are probably many more personal stories relating to this tragedy when on a stormy November night two fine steamers and 95 people happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was the worst incident involving the loss of a Newry steamer. However, it is worth noting that in total seventeen Newry registered colliers were lost between 1900 and 1942. Four disappeared without trace. Several others, including the Retriever, foundered with heavy loss of life.

The Clanrye Steamship Company lost three out of six vessels in its ownership between 1900 and 1916. Its owner, Fred Ferris, ordered another vessel of similar dimensions to replace the Retriever, registering her under the ownership of the Newry and Provincial Coal Company. Following the liquidation of that concern in 1924, she passed to Ferris's main rival, Fishers of Newry, and was renamed Agba in 1938. She subsequently sank following a collision with a Danish steamer near Sanda Isle in December 1940. No lives were lost.

Painting of the SS Connemara, 1897 (Courtesy of Sean Patterson)

Sean Patterson is a primary school teacher and canal enthusiast and has a special interest in Newry maritime history.

Ian Wilson, Ship Wrecks of the Ulster Coast, ( 1979). Ian Wilson, The Carlingford Lough Disaster, Sea Breezes, ( 1978). Sean Patterson, Newry Shipping 1900-1983, Cuisle na Ngael ( 1994). Sean Patterson, Newry Shipping Losses, Proud People, a Newry Anthology ( 1994). Frontier Sentinel, November 1916. Newry Reporter, November 1916.