A 90-year-old English woman who was three months old when she was plucked to safety from the sinking Lusitania had an emotional phone conversation with members of the Cork coastguard last Saturday as they laid a wreath to mark the 90th anniversary of the disaster.
Audrey Lawson Johnston's two sisters died after the liner was torpedoed off the Cork coast by a German U-boat on May 7th, 1915. Her brother and parents were saved.
The number of people drowned in the sinking of the Lusitania totalled 1,198, including 128 Americans and 39 children under the age of two. The liner was en route from New York to Liverpool when a single torpedo penetrated its hull just below the waterline.
Mrs Johnston, who lives in Northamptonshire but was born in the US, has never forgotten the bravery of those who helped save her life. She has raised thousands of pounds over the years for lifeboat organisations in the UK.
She was unable to attend the commemoration ceremonies in west Cork last Saturday because of poor health. However, one of the organisers, Eddie Butler, area officer with the coastguard, said the pensioner was "very moved" when she received a phone call from the wreck site.
"It was a touching moment. She was nostalgic about it. We made contact with her by telephone ship to shore. It was quite a moving moment. I think it is important the Lusitania is never forgotten. It marked a turning point in warfare where civilians became targets."
The anniversary of the tragedy was commemorated on Saturday when the Courtmacsherry lifeboat sailed from Barry's Point in Co Cork at noon. It then made the 17.9km voyage south to the wreck site.
Members of the clergy, Bandon War Memorial Committee and Courceys Integrated Rural Development were on board the lifeboat, which anchored over the wreck site for a wreath-laying ceremony at 1.20pm - the exact time the first torpedo struck.
Further ceremonies involving the coastguard, Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the FCA followed at a monument to the Lusitania, which was erected 10 years ago at the Old Head of Kinsale to mark the 80th anniversary of the tragedy.
Meanwhile, the Lusitania's US owner has denied that he intends to turn it into an "underwater Disneyland".
US businessman Gregg Bemis (76) was responding to recent remarks by former arts minister Michael D Higgins, who has defended his decision to place an underwater heritage order on the wreck 10 years ago. Mr Bemis said he simply wanted to establish the cause of the liner's sinking, which is still the subject of controversy.
Over two years ago, Mr Bemis initiated a High Court action to overturn the State's refusal to license a $2 million research expedition at the deepwater site in some 100 metres of water about 11 to 12 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale. Mr Bemis, who initially took title of the wreck as part of a consortium, was declared sole owner in a High Court ruling in May 1996.
He sponsored an expedition by international diver Robert Ballard, which claimed that the second blast may have been caused by coal dust from a boiler. The owner doesn't support this theory, following examination of the boilers.