, __________________________________________________________. In Canada, legislation was quickly passed to allow a public inquiry. The treatment of this important matter by the chief officer and the assistant chief engineer appeared to have been casual in the extreme. The DE GRASSE had been built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead in 1924. World History Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in Canada. There were 170 members of the Salvation Army in second class, as well as an orchestra of around 40 musicians who were on their way to a convention in London. The Court of Inquiry considered that clandestine smoking was the most likely cause of the fire. There now remained the patching of her port side and the actual refloating; an operation which would take about ten weeks. Wreck of RMS Empress of Ireland National Historic Site of Canada. REINA DEL PACIFICO PACIFIC STEAM NAVIGATION. The EMPRESS OF CANADA as she appeared after the Second World War. She undertook her maiden voyage on 5 May 1922. It took just 14 minutes to sink, resulting in the death of 1,012 of the 1,477 passengers. The event came two years after the RMS Titanic sank after striking an iceberg on 15 April 1912 taking over 1,500 lives. This is a sad episode since along with 3000 British soldiers there were 500 Italian prisoners of war on board. It was clear that no liaison had been established between the ship owners and the fire brigade in relation to the ship, and there was no direct telephone between the ship and the fire brigade. However, more passengers (840) died on the Empress than on either Lusitania (786), or Titanic (817). THE CANADIAN PACIFIC LINER 'EMPRESS OF CANADA', WAS DESTROYED BY FIRE IN THE GLADSTONE DOCK, The EMPRESS OF CANADA (ex DUCHESS OF RICHMOND) at full speed. It took just 14. The last time Toftenes had seen the Empress, however, she was port side, and the fog distorted the direction the blasts had come from. The two vessels continued to steam toward one another, and just nine minutes later at 1:47 the fog became too thick, hiding the ships from one another. The Society is committed to sharing and amplifying Indigenous histories, perspectives, and voices and walking together with Indigenous peoples on the path to truth and reconciliation. First Class Entrance on RMS Empress of Ireland, First-Class Dining Saloon, Empress of Ireland, The icy waters of the St. Lawrence rushed through the gash in the, SS Storstad Damaged from Collision with Empress of Ireland, Victims of the Empress of Ireland Sinking, Bain collection, Library of Congress (Public Domain). In peacetime she had operated on the trans-Pacific route for Canadian Pacific, based at Vancouver, as well as running a number of very successful and popular Round-the-World cruises. He writes of his Irish grandfather Thomas Corrigan, who was a seaman aboard the Empress, Legend has it, Thomas, a first-class swimmer, died after saving a young lad who was a neighbor of his from Liverpool on board the Empress of Ireland. The ship measured 440 feet (134 m) long and 58 feet (17 m) wide and was built for long hauls carrying great weight. 0 The EMPRESS OF CANADA had been fully booked in May and June 1953 with passengers wishing to visit Engand to see the Coronation of Queen Eliuzabeth II on 2nd June. At 5:30 pm on the 28th, the Third-Class passengers were served high tea, a full meal of meats and herring with dessert, and at 7:00 pm formal dinner was served for the First and Second-Class passengers. I did not have (neither could I afford it!) After rounding the Skerries to the north-west of Anglesey, the ZWARTE ZEE encountered a full gale and off Tuskar Rock the tow rope parted, leaving the EMPRESS OF CANADA adrift. She sank in about 20 minutes after a second torpedo was launched. Her sharp vertical stem and massive frames made her in effect an immense cold chisel. 23 May 1843 at Bardu) Simensen Bangen, who had married 3 July 1864 at Bardu. The lifeboats were equally useless as the Empress was listing at such an angle that the boats on the port side swung over the deck and could not be lowered while many of those on the starboard side were already immersed or slid down the deck into the river. The World History Encyclopedia logo is a registered trademark. It seems Captain Kendall saw the lights of the Storstad some miles ahead and changed course because he was then toward shore and preferred to pass the other ship mid-river starboard-to-starboard instead of port-to-port. The Empress of Ireland's service within the Canadian Pacific Railway Co. went on with neither mishaps nor miracles. G!Bqwv Wreck of RMS Empress of Ireland National Historic Site of Canada is located on the floor of the St. Lawrence River near Rimouski, Quebec. As noted, however, the most probable reason why the Empress was so quickly forgotten is because its sinking challenged any concept of safety, security, or precaution one could take not just in transatlantic travel but in anything since every measure which could have been taken had been and yet none were able to save the 1,012 people who died in the early morning hours of 29 May 1914. Amongst her passengers were the Chief Scout, Lt. General Sir Robert Baden-Powell, and Lady Baden-Powell. In addition, the Royal Canadian Mint released two commemorative coins. Eleven other pontoons, filled during the night with compressed air, pushed upwards on the submerged starboard side. Neither of their bodies was found. Le 29 mai 2014, il y aura 100 ans que l'Empress of Ireland a fait naufrage au large de Sainte-Luce-sur-mer. The Mersey Docks & Harbour Board, responsible for the cost of the salvage, pledged an expenditure of 380,000 to tackle the problem. According to the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG . Based at the port of Vancouver, British Columbia, the first Empress of Canada was intended to provided service to Japan, Hong Kong, and China. Robert W. Crellin holds Forence L. Barbour, who he rescued from the sinking. Empress of Canada (1) 1920 : Fairfield Shipbuilding & Eng. Eight months later the DUCHESS OF RICHMOND arrived at Liverpool from Rangoon with the last of the prisoners-of-war from Sumatra and Singapore. Almost immediately, the lights on the Empress went out and anyone below decks had to find their way up in total darkness as the ship filled with water and listed sharply to starboard. Discover a wealth of interesting, entertaining and informative stories in each issue, delivered to you six times per year. She left Durban on 1st March for Cape Town, carrying 1,346 passengers, mainly 500 Italian POWs and a number of Greek, Norwegian and Polish refugees. The evening aboard the Empress had been uneventful. He was one of the Empress of Canada's official photographers, documenting shore. One Irish passenger, William Clarke of Co. Louth, was especially lucky. Among the 87 passengers in first class was well-known actor Laurence Irving, who drowned when he dove back into the river to find his wife Mabel after already having found safety. Some of our Form 30A records and passenger lists have been indexed by name on other websites. Love Irish history? physician Vittorio Del Vecchio. The Board sold the Empress's propellers separately for about 8,000. Croall comments: Her main frames ran horizontally from stem to stern. Saint-Pierre, who grew up in Rimouski, said identifying the photos was easy because the Empress sinking was the only time British soldiers are known to have visited the area. Such ships were immensely strong, particularly in the event of a head-on impact of the kind that would often crumple the bows of a conventionally designed vessel. 14th October 1942 Canadian ferry Caribou sunk, 137 lost, 14th September 1940 CGTs Flandre lost to a mine, 15th September 1899 Oceanic maiden arrival at New York, 24th July 1940 Meknes sunk with around 400 lost. We recognize the resilience of Indigenous storytellers and Knowledge Keepers who have kept their stories alive despite attempts to silence them. She passed away in 1995 but spent the rest of her life spreading her story and keeping in contact with other survivors. The hotel sits on what was formerly known as James Bay - a watery, muddy beginning. The Storstad hit The Empress of Ireland broadside, tearing a 350 square foot hole in her hull. The Canadian Museum of History unveiled a powerful, inclusive, detailed exhibition titled Canadas Titanic The Empress of Ireland for the 100th anniversary on May 29, 2014, which ran through April 6, 2015. Illustration. She also sank after being torpedoed by a U-boat on 28 October 1940. Though less storied than the Titanic, the sinking of the Empress of Ireland in 1914 remains the largest peacetime maritime disaster in Canadas history. Web. By this time, however, most of the passengers were drowned and, 14 minutes after the collision, the Empress sank beneath the St. Lawrence. Survivors were treated at Rimouski where bodies were also brought for identification. An orchestral stringed quintet played regularly at set times throughout the day for both classes. Gladstone River Entrance Lock on 1st September 1954. Work to right the EMPRESS OF CANADA commenced immediately as she was completely blocking a much-needed deep water berth at Liverpool. All framed prints are professionally printed, framed, assembled, and shipped within 3 - 4 business days and delivered ready-to-hang on your wall. On May 29, 1914, The Empress of Ireland sank, but its story has been largely forgotten. 400 LOST A YEAR AGO IN TRANSPORT SINKING; Loss of Empress of Canada by Torpedoing Is Confirmed Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. The DUCHESS OF RICHMOND settled into her regular service runs on the Canadian route when she left Liverpool on 15th March 1929 for St John, New Brunswick. He was forty-two years old.. Of the 1,477 people on board, 1,012 would die. Portholes, open for the evening air, hastened the sinking of the ship as water poured into them. Divers have encountered all sorts of decaying debris like shattered suitcases, china, chairs and tables, light fixtures, and the likePhilippe Beaudry was dedicated enough to create an extensive collection of his findings with over 500 objects, and he also contacted and traded with other divers in order to further build it. Shergold. RMS Empress of Ireland: Remembering Canada's worst maritime disaster. World History Encyclopedia. After the EMPRESS OF CANADA had been righted, she was left, sitting on the mud in the middle of Gladstone No.1 Branch Dock. In May 1946 the DUCHESS OF RICHMOND was sent to the Fairfield Yard at Govan for complete refurbishing. This Empress was a 21,517 ton, 653-foot ocean liner. A third-class passengers ticket cost 6.50 pounds, second-class 10.00 pounds, and first-class 14.00 pounds. You can search the Passenger Lists and Border Entries, 1925-1935 - Nominal Indexes database. The EMPRESS OF CANADA was launched as the DUCHESS OF RICHMOND on 18th June 1928, and sailed on her maiden voyage from Liverpool on 26th January 1929; this taking the form of a six-week cruise to the Atlantic Islands and the West Coast of Africa. (60). Empress of Ireland. A photograph showing the coffins of children being removed from the Lady Grey at Quebec, victims of the sinking of RMS Empress of Ireland in May 1914. The Mersey Docks & Harbour Board, responsible for the cost of the salvage, pledged an expenditure of 380,000 to tackle the problem. The list of crewmembers (stewards, seamen, firemen, trimmers, and other workers of the like) is made up of almost all Irish surnames. A Norwegian Commission of Inquiry absolved Andersen and Toftenes of any responsibility and blamed Kendall for changing course and then stopping his ship dead in the water. Hundreds of sleeping passengers were trapped, and the second and third-class passengers had much less of a chance at survival than the first-class passengers, as first-class was higher up on the boat. Gladstone River Entrance prior to the commencement of the tow to La Spezia. In the dark early hours of May 29, 1914, an impenetrable fog and misunderstood ship signals spelled disaster for the passengers and crew of the RMS Empress of Ireland. Red dot indicates. The EMPRESS OF CANADA (ex DUCHESS OF RICHMOND) at Liverpool. A Commission of Inquiry began on 16 June 1914, presided over by Lord Mersey, who had also been the magistrate at the Titanic hearings. Dominique Savard describes the exhibit in this podcast: Other commemoration events took place during the anniversary at Rimouski, Quebec. DisasterSongs.ca is a research project that looks at the role music plays in the way we cope with and remember disasters in Canada. Yard No: 523, Official Number: 160631 Signal Letters: G S V R, Gross Tonnage: 20,022, Nett: 11,238 Length: 600ft Breadth: 75.1ft, Owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. It was a very sensible arrangement in a ship which spent much of her working life plying in icebound waters. In this horrific maritime disaster, over a thousand passengers en route from Quebec to Liverpool were lost in just fifteen minutesthe length of time it took for the ocean liner to sink into Canadas Saint Lawrence River after being hit by a ship called The Storstad. Copyright 2023 Irish Studio LLC All rights reserved. On her return from Bombay in March 1946, the Duchess was held in quarantine until four smallpox cases among the service personnel on board were removed into isolation. The RMS Empress of Ireland was a transatlantic passenger ship that sank early in the morning of 29 May 1914 on the St. Lawrence River killing 1,012 of the 1,477 people on board. The morning after the fire: the EMPRESS OF CANADA capsized on her. On May 29, 1914 The Canadian Pacific steamship, the Empress of Ireland, collided with a Norwegian freighter near Rimouski, Quebec and sank in about 15 minutes. Crew members of the Empress of Titanic, pictured the same month of its sinking (Getty Images). We contribute a share of our revenue to remove carbon from the atmosphere and we offset our team's carbon footprint. The EMPRESS OF CANADA was taken into the Gladstone Graving Dock on 30th June 1954 to be made seaworthy for her last voyage to the breakers' yard. The Empress of Ireland tragically sank on May 29, 1914. Passengers relaxing on deck of the Empress of Ireland before the sinking. ka![^T'S{4E4u%wH<7WS*xc-I}H8] a:RB4 Author and historian, Les Streater has written and published over thirty books on various aspects of shipping, as well as editing and producing a number of magazines on shipping and aviation. On This Day: Arthur Guinness, founder of the Dublin brewery, died in 1803. When the sixteen hawsers took the pull, the, uprighting of the hulk on Saturday, 6th March, 1954, Then, however, a snag was encountered which the experts had allowed for in their plans. Learn more about the forgotten tragedy of the Empress of Ireland. The hulk of the EMPRESS OF CANADA eventually arrived at La Spezia for demolition on 10th October 1954, forty days after leaving the Mersey. There was a separate dining room for children who were served by their own stewards. The Halifax Explosion of 1917 resulted in a medical emergency the likes of which Canada had never seen. The hulk of the EMPRESS OF CANADA would be completely broken up in between nine and ten months and would be 'fed' to the large Italian steel plants. These included: The ringing of church bells at the time of the early morning sinking, boat tours of the wreck site, the inauguration of a new monument, and the presentation of a new documentary about the disaster. Empress of Canada. HdSK0+|K?n+v[n](xf|(lfJ(=kgB*mX7^[aR`GyiS] 840 passengers were lost. The hulk of the EMPRESS OF CANADA being manoeuvred into the. Passengers onboard the Empress as she sets sail. A month later she grounded in fog at St John on 28th April, and her passengers were transferred to the MONTCALM. We care about our planet! Captain Vet of the ZWARTE ZEE estimated that the tow would take between 21 and 40 days, dependent on the state of the weather. The portside lifeboats released from their davits, sweeping some people into the water, possibly including First Officer Steede who remained at his post on the port side directing passengers to safety until the last. Amazing new images of the shipwreck were revealed at the ceremonies to mark the 100 th anniversary of Canada's worst, and one of the world's worst, civilian maritime disasters. The monument and mass grave were dedicated by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company to the memory of the 88 people who perished in the disaster, listing 20 names along with a recognition of 68 other. The first discovery of the fire was not made inside the ship until 4.10pm. It was difficult to explain non-detection over a period of time which resulted in a build-up of heat and gases sufficient to create this dbacle. She had enough lifeboats for all her passengers and crew but could not launch them in time. SS Storstad Damaged from Collision with Empress of IrelandJenniferjcsmith (Public Domain). It contained a number of valuable recommendations which, although there was no statutory sanction behind them, deserved the closest study by all parties concerned. There were, in all, 1,057 passengers on board when the ship left its moorings at 4:27 on the afternoon of 28 May 1914. When the sixteen hawsers took the pull, the Empress began moving without the slightest protest. Contact. There were plenty of people of close Irish descent sprinkled about the first, second, and third-class cabins. The Court stated that the Working Party on Fire Prevention and Fire Fighting in Ships in Port, 1950, was a comprehensive study of the problem of fire risks aboard ships in port. The wreck moved silently and quickly towards her point of balance. On 14th February 1940 the DUCHESS OF RICHMOND was requisitioned as a troopship and left Liverpool for Suez. Her masts, funnels and much of the superstructure had to be cut away, and it was not until over a year later, on Saturday 6th March 1954, that the salvage operation was successfully completed. hbbd``b`$ R $3 XXb] r Q HE0012c``$x+@ ' The hulk of the EMPRESS OF CANADA, back on an even keel, in her, old berth in Gladstone No.1 Branch Dock, before entering. It was clear from the evidence that smoking went on to a considerable extent on board the EMPRESS OF CANADA, and the Court appreciated just how difficult a problem this was, especially when driving the practice underground might in itself increased the fire risk. On her return from Bombay in March 1946, the, The hulk of the EMPRESS OF CANADA was uprighted by a combined system of parbuckling and buoyancy. At the time I was living in Wallasey in one of the roads which run down to the Mersey. There was a full scale alert with passengers being mustered at their . Victims of the Empress of Ireland SinkingBain collection, Library of Congress (Public Domain). The Empress of Ireland is the world's second worst sinking, in peacetime, after the Titanic until 1987 when over 3000 persons lost their lives when a ferry sank in the Philippines. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/RMS_Empress_of_Ireland/. Watching her leave the Mersey was Commandante Enrico Accame, who had paid 130,000 for the hulk, and was said to have paid another 12,000 for the 2,200 mile tow to La Spezia. h5ZC It was the greatest salvage operation of its kind ever tackled in Europe and was a feat of skill rivalled only by the salvage of the NORMANDIE in New York and the battleship OKLAHAMA at Pearl Harbour. Marit Marie Olsdatter Bangen was born 1 April 1871 in Bardu, Troms, Norway, to Ole, b. A coal galley stove, toilet facilities and a motor-driven dynamo for lighting had been installed. endstream endobj 38 0 obj <>stream The last survivor of the sinking was Grace Hanagan (1907-1995 . REINA DEL MAR PACIFIC STEAM NAVIGATION CO. Website designed and developed by ecentricarts.com, Historical Thinking Community of Practice, Surviving Canadas Biggest Maritime Disaster. Canadas National History Society acknowledges that we meet and work across the ancestral lands of many Indigenous peoples: First Nations, Inuit, and Mtis. 34 0 obj <> endobj These are the stories and photos about the Empress of Canada as it sailed the seas from May 5 1922 on and. A special ceremony was held at the Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Pre. This website uses cookies to improve functionality. Of the 1,477 people aboard, 1,012 perished. HtSn0+W"T.BQD}H uN4m"}s^t}A);%EIuY)Iv )cyK]#I8"-4ozax!S eM G>b4:TsM?}&/'Kr8`m It drifted towards Balingawan Point due to rough sea conditions resulting in its partial sinking. The two sisters consistently made the 2,800-mile crossing between Liverpool and Quebec in about six daysThe Empresses were handsome ships after the classic pattern of their age: straight stem, sweeping counter stern, two high, raking buff funnels with black tops, and tall, raking masts to match. The loss of the 'Forgotten Empress' has always been overshadowed by the Titanic and Lusitania disasters. Two years after the Titanic sinking made headlines, Liverpool suffered another shipping tragedy, when the state-of-the-art passenger ship "Empress of Ireland" sank in St. Lawrence River, Canada, killing over 1,000 people. After eleven days, the Commission returned a report holding First Officer Toftenes of the Storstad to blame for changing course and for not calling Captain Andersen to the bridge when the fog obscured visual confirmation of the Empress location. The passengers included 167 members of the Salvation Army band heading for London to a conference as well as the famous actor Laurence Irving and his equally famous wife, Mabel Hackney who had just completed a successful North American tour. Coincidentally, the GEORGIC also arrived at Liverpool with a smallpox case at this time, and these incidents resulted in nearly 10,000 people taking part in the largest mass vaccination of passengers ever undertaken at Liverpool. Sea News - Empress Of Canada Salvaged (1954) - YouTube 0:00 / 1:28 Sea News - Empress Of Canada Salvaged (1954) British Path 2.78M subscribers 84 Dislike 11,126 views Apr 13, 2014 Liverpool.. (The Canadian Press) An exhibit. port side, with her funnels smashed against the quay. In November 1932 the DUCHESS OF RICHMOND was in collision in fog with the Cunard liner ALAUNIA off Sorel, Quebec; and three years later she carried the Duke and Duchess of Kent on their honeymoon cruise. Related Content Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms. 02 Mar 2023. We would much rather spend this money on producing more free history content for the world. In the early morning hours of the 29th, the Empress of Ireland was steaming of 0 1 MORE: empress, of, ireland, ocean, liner This is part of the oil spill caused by the sinking of MT Princess Empress in waters off Naujan town in Oriental Mindoro province early Tuesday morning, Feb. 28, 2023. On Sunday 25th January, whilst lying in Gladstone No.1 Branch Dock, the 'Empress' caught fire and, despite the tremendous efforts of firemen from all over the north-west of England, she eventually slide on her side along the dock bottom and became a burnt-out hulk. The Storstad was repaired, refitted, and sold to pay costs from lawsuits. Today, The Empress of Ireland is accessible to divers, at only 130 feet below the surface. She was 653 feet long, 21,517grt. After dinner, people walked the promenade decks and went to the smoking rooms, writing rooms, cafes, and bars. The EMPRESS OF CANADA had slid twenty feet along the mud of the dock bottom, rather more than they had anticipated, and the blocks on the winch purchases had come together. The Empress was a twin-screw steamer of 14,000 tonsher quadruple expansion coal burning engines gave her a designed speed of 20 knots, and this she achieved in her voyages. Accommodation had been built on to the wreck, close to where the old luxurious 'Empress Room' had been situated. (2021, August 23). Measures were implemented afterwards to correct this design which investigators concluded had been a serious flaw, seemingly ignoring the particular circumstances of the Empress sinking. Second class had its own smoking room for the men and access to the first-class caf. Four Alexandra Towing Company tugs carried out the delicate manoeuvre. The politician and sports-writer Sir Henry Seton-Karr was also aboard, returning home from a hunting trip, as well as other luminaries of the time such as the financial journalist Leonard Palmer and his wife. At 8.15pm on 22nd August 1971, when the EMPRESS OF CANADA was one day out of Liverpool, she suffered a blowback in one of her boilers with a resulting fire in the boiler room. The Board sold the, Twelve Dutch seamen, supplied by the towing company, would sail on board the, Working Party on Fire Prevention and Fire Fighting in Ships in Port, 1950, The Court was satisfied with the evidence of a witness, a worker on a grain elevator berthed across the dock from the EMPRESS OF SCOTLAND, in which he said he saw smoke issuing from the starboard shell door between 3.25pm and 3.30pm on Sunday 25th January 1953. The ship was traveling upriver toward Quebec as the Empress was coming downstream. An illustration of the Empress as it sinks. It was therefore regrettable to have to record that no attempt was made to consider the recommendations in details or to carry any of them into effect with regard to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company's ships sailing into Liverpool. Whats now known as the 1914 Sealing Disaster refers to two separate, simultaneous tragedies on the sea that spring. A total of 392 people were lost due to exposure, drowning and sharks, including, 90 women and 44 crew. X7"Z% Nadu%*!VkCp'F_vR,"y~EK#^ However, for over 113 years, locals have been speculating and spinning tales about how the Empress is sinking. Our latest articles delivered to your inbox, once a week: Our mission is to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. Kendall ordered the wireless operators to send out the SOS and, according to his report, ordered the watertight bulkheads closed. The Princess Empress was carrying 800,000 litres (211,340 gallons) of industrial fuel oil from Bataan province, near the capital Manila . There was a misunderstanding between the two captains about their respective boats positioning and direction, leading to the fatal collision. Croall notes: The Empress never aspired to the standards of ostentatious luxury that were the mark of the gigantic superships competing for the rich New York market, but they did establish an unchallenged reputation for something that early twentieth-century travelers understood and appreciated, namely solid comfort. Kendall maintained command and organized abandoning the ship as best he could, but it was going down too quickly for any effective response. They swiftly established a reputation not only for speed, but for their steady behavior in the worst Atlantic weather. This proved to be too difficult and so the wreck was diverted to the Clyde for necessary repairs. during the salvage of the EMPRESS OF CANADA. On 18th December 1935 she was at Gibraltar and involved in a collision which necessitated temporary repairs being carried out and her 748 passengers missed their Christmas at home in the U.K. due to the delays. The DUCHESS OF RICHMOND had more than her fair share of relatively minor incidents. Most of the third-class passengers would have drowned almost before they knew what was happening and even many of those on the upper decks must have drowned quickly, disoriented in their dark staterooms. Shelly Glover, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, similarly expressed that as they approach their 150th anniversary of Confederation in 2017, she wants Canadians to have more opportunities to learn about and experience their history.. %%EOF 7(n5c$MvrU_u\U0(2'@(r1%%FA,bH"(j`xx1pQ n~\&DsZi 32~i4q 6zF9j')Vj^5Uy d/dSJ.u8cd One correspondent of The Empress of Irelands website is Sean OHagan of Dundalk, Co Louth. Unlike the Titanic, or the sinking of the Lusitania on 7 May 1915, the Empress of Ireland was largely forgotten soon after the disaster for reasons that are still debated. This happened just two years after the Titanic sank, but unlike the Titanic, the Empress of Ireland had more than enough lifeboats for everyone.