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Cobh, Ireland
Weather: Overcast initially, but brightening up later
Sea: Calm
Final port of call for this cruise and a new port for Jon, Callum and I. Breakfast as usual and then Mum decided to stay on board as she’d been here before.
Cobh (or Queenstown as it was known in 1912) was the final stop for Titanic before she headed across the Atlantic. The main thing we wanted to see was the Titanic Museum.
Cobh itself is at the bottom of a hill – there’s only a road or two following the road along the coast and the houses and streets climb dramatically just back from these. Houses are painted a multitude of colours and it’s a really pretty town.
First stop was at the Titanic Experience to buy our tickets and to get our time slot for the guided tour. The experience and shop was in the White Star Line Building, where Titanic’s last passengers boarded for that fateful voyage. The tour would retrace the footsteps of the Queenstown passengers, retelling the passenger stories and eyewitness accounts of the tragedy.
Our tickets were replica boarding cards for one of the 143 passengers that boarded Titanic in Cobh. At the end of the tour, we would find out whether they survived or perished that fateful day.
We had an hour to wait until our tour started so wandered a little further along the road. The Cunard Line ticket office was still standing.
We then decided to head into the Titanic Pub and treat Callum to a glass of Guinness. Just a half – if he didn’t like it, Karen would swap her diet coke for the Guinness!!
I don’t think Callum got as far as sipping the Guinness – a Guinness froth moustache was all he got … and decided he didn’t like it!
The tour and talk was really well done. We didn’t realise that when the passengers arrived to board Titanic, they couldn’t actually see the ship in Cobh unless stood up the hill. The passengers boarding in Cobh needed to get a tender out to the ship as she was moored on the other side of Spike Island (Cobh’s answer to Alcatraz).
The landing stage they left from was still standing (just) but completely unusable. You wondered just how many more storms it would last for.
The exhibition was really well done – the guides all really knowledgeable about the passengers and the crew.
Our passengers – follow the links for more information on the passengers:
Bernard McCoy aged 23
Third Class Passenger
Mary Lennon (Mary Mullin) aged 18
Third Class Passenger
Thomas Henry Conlon aged 31
Third Class Passenger
Out of the 123 men, women and children that boarded Titanic in Cobh on 11th April 1912, only 44 survived.
Image from The Titanic Experience
A couple of years after Titanic sank, Cobh was at the centre of the rescue of survivors of the Lusitania. Many of the survivors and the dead were brought ashore; 170 victims were buried in the town. Until her sister ship, the Mauretania was launched, Lusitania was the world’s largest passenger ship was awarded the Blue Riband appellation for the fastest Atlantic crossing in 1908. The Lusitania was sunk on 7th May 1915 by a German 11 miles off the coast 1,198 passengers, crew and stowaways.
We started to head back to the ship and had a quick look in the Heritage Centre right next to where the ship was docked. Outside is the statue of Annie Moore, the first person to be processed through new Immigration Center, Ellis Island, when she arrived in the USA on 1st January 1892. One interesting fact is that she and her two brothers left for the US onboard the SS Nevada – this was the ship my great great-grandmother left England in 1870 on for a new life in Allegheny County, PA along with her mother and brother and sisters. Their father had left a year or so previously.
For anyone wanting to visit Cork, the station is right next to where Aurora docked. Trains run on the hour and half hour and takes just 25 mins to get there.
Back onboard at 5.30pm – and everyone was on time. As Aurora sailed away from Cobh, you could really appreciate just how pretty a place this was.
We sailed around Spike Island, passed where Titanic would have moored and headed back towards Southampton.
Dinner down in Medina as usual – we were given a table in the window this evening – not that there was much to see! Seas, to Jon’s disappointment, looked to be flat with barely a ripple.
Post dinner drinks in Anderson’s again – Jon was a little shocked when the barman informed him there was no Fever Tree Mediterranean Tonic Water left (or indeed any Fever Tree) – just cans of Britvic!
Mum remembered that we had drinks vouchers in lieu of sailaway so we used some of these to get some bubbles!
Callum surprised us and was quite enjoying a taste of Champers!
Final stop for us was the Syndicate Quiz – Ned’s last night and he promised he wouldn’t be as evil at Estelle. We ended the night on 12/20. Another tie at the top (not us!!) and this tie-breaker was how high was Mount Everest in feet. Nearly 9000ft.
Hot chocolate and Horlicks and time for bed.
