Remembering the RMS Leinster

RMS Leinster - click for larger view

On 10 October 1918, in the final weeks of the First World War, the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company steamship RMS Leinster was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine UB-123.

The City of Dublin Steam Packet Company did not have a passenger list. In the aftermath of the sinking the company estimated the loss of life as being 501. With the documentation to support our research, the RMS Leinster website team has established that 571 people were lost in the sinking. 

The sinking resulted in the greatest ever loss of life in the Irish Sea and highest ever death toll on an Irish-owned ship. Attempting to return to Germany, UB-123 was lost in a minefield in the North Sea with all of its 36 crew.

Those who were lost in the sinking of the RMS Leinster came from Ireland, Wales, England, Scotland, the Channel Island of Guernsey, Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. The crew of UB-123 all came from Germany.

This website was created to commemorate all those who were aboard the RMS Leinster and UB-123. For information on the team who are involved in running the site, please see the Contact page

For information on all those who were known to have been aboard the RMS Leinster, please see the People on Board section.

Clipping on the Leinster sinking; The Irish Times, October 11, 1918.

This site tells:

• Why the ship was sunk just a month from the end of World War 1.

• How the sinking jeopardized peace talks.

• Why, until recently, the sinking has been forgotten.

• How in October 2003 and subsequently, the sinking was finally remembered on both sides of the Irish Sea.

To continue reading about the sinking, please click here.