The RMS Leinster left Kingstown, now Dun Laoghaire, shortly before nine in the morning on 10 October 1918. She was bound for Holyhead with 771 passengers and crew on board. An hour later, she was targeted by a patrolling U-boat. It fired two torpedoes and the Leinster was sunk. More than 500 of those on board lost their lives. It was an atrocity, and it’s thought that reaction to it influenced the politicians involved in talks to end the first world war. Armistice was signed a month later.

Families and communities in Wales and Ireland were devastated, and today we remember them and all those who died: people like fireman John Williams of Gwalchmai, who had saved a woman passenger and had gone down below again to save another when he was lost; people like Louisa Parry from Holyhead, a stewardess, who sailed that day instead of one of her sisters who was ill. She went to a lower deck to help passengers but became trapped in a cabin with a mother and her child. We also remember the crew of U-boat 123, who themselves were killed a week later.

The RMS Leinster centenary commemoration group in Holyhead includes a number who lost their grandparents in the sinking. I’d like to pay tribute to them for their hard work in reminding us of the history of the Leinster and for arranging the commemorative events in Anglesey this week. I look forward to attending one at St Mary’s Hall in Holyhead this Friday. Today two communities and two nations are bound together in memory.