Funeral of the Lusitania Victims

Queenstown (Cobh), County Cork, mourns the dead of one of WWI's greatest maritime tragedies.

After RMS Lusitania's tragic sinking off Kinsale in Ireland, Queenstown (Cobh) became host to the official ceremonies to bury the dead. We might expect the lines of dignitaries, units of Irish troops, Royal Navy and Army, and the vast crowds who turned out to watch. But this newsreel's final shot of priests reading the burial service over dozens of coffins in a mass grave comes as a shock.

The Lusitania, at one point the world's largest passenger ship, was hit by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland on 7 May 1915. She sank in just 18 minutes, with the loss of 1198 lives.