The Titanic struck an iceberg at about 11.40 pm on Sunday 14 April 1912. Her sinking only took 2 hours and 40 mins. By 2.20 am on Monday 15 April, she had "slipped beneath the ocean waves".
With 2,224 people on board, only 706 survived the trip. In the freezing conditions, those who were in the water died of cardiac arrest within 15-30 minutes. Only 13 were picked up by the lifeboats that had room for 500 more. International outrage at the mismanagement of lifeboats (accessible only to first-class passengers) led to the establishment of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea [SOLAS] which governs maritime safety to this day.
It would be 73 more years before the final resting place of the Titanic could be identified. On 1 September 1985, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Robert Ballard and French scientist Jean-Louis Michel located the shipwreck just 612km south of Newfoundland in international waters.
Got an Irish ancestor connected to the Titanic?
We'd love if you added them to our Ancestors roll-call to #BringTheirMemoryHome: