The British transatlantic liner, Lusitania, was sunk by a German U-boat on May 7th 1915.
Twelve hundred people died when the ship was torpedoed off the Irish coast while on a crossing from New York to Liverpool.
More than 100 of the victims were Americans, provoking a diplomatic row between the neutral United States and Germany.
‘Remember the Lusitania’ became a battle cry when the US entered the First World War two years later, in April 1917.
The Germans had given a warning that all merchant ships in the seas around Britain and Ireland (then part of the United Kingdom) risked attack without warning.
The move was in retaliation for the Allied naval blockade imposed at the start of the war, and the British declaration of the North Sea as a war zone in November 1914.
Four coastal communities in County Cork are holding commemorations today to mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania.
Sources: Wikipedia/various
Images: Centenary News
Posted by: Peter Alhadeff, Centenary News