SHIP'S FITTINGS recovered this week from the wreck of the Lusitaniaare to be assessed for conservation by a team hired by US businessman Gregg Bemis.
The bronze telemotor, part of its steering mechanism, and its telegraph and four portholes were recovered from the hull lying in water almost 100m (330ft) deep by a diving team led by Eoin McGarry.
Mr McGarry, who is best known for the items he salvaged from the Asgard II sail training ship last year, worked in co-operation with Mr Bemis.
Mystery still surrounds the circumstances in which the Lusitaniasank in 1915, some 18km off the Old Head of Kinsale, Co Cork, after it was torpedoed by a German U-boat.
Some 1,198 of the 1,959 passengers aboard perished and a minute’s silence was held during the dive.
“There may actually have been 1,200 deaths, as there were three German stowaways,” said archaeologist Laurence Dunne, who also worked on the project. He said the ship had sank in 18 minutes.
Mr Dunne was given approval to store the items until title is confirmed. He has been hired as part of a team led by York conservationist Ian Panter and involving archaeologist Julianna O’Donoghue.
Mr Dunne believes that the telemotor and telegraph would help establish some of the facts surrounding the ship’s loss, as the telegraph’s needle would show the direction in which the ship was heading after the last command was issued.
Mr McGarry said his diving team had just half an hour to recover the items and spent another two and a half hours descending and resurfacing.
The telemotor was lifted by the vessel Rón Carraig. Diving with Mr McGarry were Philip Murphy, Frank McKenna, John Corbett, Stuart Andrews and Barry McGill.
The salvage operation was filmed for a National Geographic documentary, due to be broadcast next year, which attempts to establish what caused the second explosion aboard the ship.
Mr Dunne said he wished to credit Fionnbarr Moore, senior achaeologist with the State’s underwater archeology unit, for supporting the project.
