The SS Connemara was a twin screw steamer, 272 feet long, 35 broad and 14 deep with a gross register tonnage of 1106. She sank on the night of 3 November 1916 at the entrance to Carlingford Lough, Louth, Ireland after being hit amidships by the coalship Retriever. 97 people died that night and the only survivor was James Boyle – a fireman on the Retriever and former caretaker of Warrenpoint Town Hall and a non-swimmer.
The captain on the Connemara was Captain G. H. Doeg. The captain on the Retriever was Patrick O'Neill. Both men were experienced seamen and the accident was attributed to the atrocious weather conditions on the night.
Crew: 9 (all from Newry except the sole survivor James Boyle who was from Summerhill in Warrenpoint)
Cargo: Coal
Previous accidents
Both the Connemara and the Retriever had been in separate collisions with other ships before the fatal accident:
The Connemara sank the Liverpool vessel Marquis of Bute on 20 March 1910.
Similarly the Retriever sank the Spanish ship the Lista at Garston dock, Liverpool, on 31 August 1912.
Accident of 3 November 1916
The accident occurred on 3 November 1916. The sea conditions at the time were "mountainous seas & dark conditions". There were gale-force winds from southwest against a strong ebb tide of approximately 8 knots.[citation needed]
The outbound Connemara met the inbound Retriever approximately a half-mile beyond the Carlingford bar. The bar in Carlingford is marked by Haulbowline lighthouse. Beyond the bar is the "cut" or channel, which in Carlingford's case is very narrow, being only about 300 yards wide. This lack of space allows for very little manoeuvrability for passing vessels.
Both vessels were showing dimmed lights, for fear of U-boats.[1] Their masters were on their respective bridges, and there was no evidence to indicate they were not alert.
The watch at the Haulbowline lighthouse, seeing the ships too close for comfort, fired off rockets in warning.
However, the atrocious conditions had caused the Retriever's cargo to list. She was fighting both wind, tide and cargo inertia. She hit the Connemara on the port side, penetrating her hull to the funnel. Immediately Master O' Neill reversed engines and the Retriever swung wide. The Connemara however was terribly ripped below the waterline on the port side, from bow to amidships. She sank within minutes, her boilers exploding on contact with the cold water.
The Retriever, with her bow stove in, took about 20 minutes to sink about 200 yards from the Connemara. Her boilers also exploded on contact with the water.
Aftermath
Memorial plaque in Carlingford, County Louth
There were 97 fatalities from the accident, with just one survivor. The nearby shorelines were "littered with corpses, dead animals and flotsam and jetsam".[citation needed] 58 bodies were found the next morning, with other bodies washing up over the following weeks from Cranfield to Kilkeel. Many of the corpses were badly mutilated and burned (due to the boilers exploding). The unidentified bodies were buried in a mass grave in Kilkeel.[citation needed]
An inquest was held on 6 November in Kilkeel. The coroner and members of the jury journeyed to the scene of the tragedy to view the wreckage and the bodies that had been collected. The sole survivor of the accident, James Boyle, gave his evidence breaking down several times. The verdict of the inquest was death by drowning caused by the collision of the ships.
The sole survivor was James Boyle, a 21-year old from Summerhill in Warrenpoint, was a fireman on board the Retriever and was also a caretaker at Warrenpoint Town Hall.[citation needed] He was below deck of the Retriever at the time of the accident. A non-swimmer, he clung to an upturned boat until he was rescued.[citation needed] He lived for another 50 years in Warrenpoint until his death in April 1967.[citation needed]
