Seatrade Cruise News is part of the Informa Markets Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Marina passes site where Empress of Ireland sank exactly 100 years earlier

Marina passes site where Empress of Ireland sank exactly 100 years earlier
One hundred years ago the night of May 29, the trans-Atlantic liner Empress of Ireland went down in the St. Lawrence River near the Point-au-Père Lighthouse after colliding with another ship in the fog. Some 1,012 men, women and children died in the tragedy two years after the Titanic sank.

It was Canada's worst maritime disaster.

This week descendants of those lost in the Empress of Ireland took part in late-night vigils including the ringing of church bells in Rimouski and Sainte-Luce-sur-Mera. A group gathered at the Pointe-au-Père Marine Historic Site was astonished as a cruise ship passed at exactly the same time and location as the Empress of Ireland had, a century before.

Cruise the Saint Lawrence identified the ship as Oceania Cruises' Marina, which sailed from the Port of Québec on the evening of May 28, just as the Empress of Ireland had done in 1914.

One hundred years on, the water was calm and the night was clear for Marina's passage.

The bell-ringing and Marina are captured on a YouTube video.