Photo: Iolaire disaster marker on the Beats of Holm, Isle of Lewis
IT was at 2.30am on New Year’s Day 1919 that HMY Iolaire approached the port of Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis. On board were over 280 sailors, who had survived World War One and were returning home to the Hebrides. They were within sight of the lights of home, less than a mile from where a welcoming party was waiting at the quayside. But instead of welcoming their loved ones home that night, many of those wives and parents were to recover their bodies from the shore the next day.
Overloaded, struggling in high winds and with a crew that was unfamiliar with the area, the ship missed the harbour entrance and instead struck the rocky outcrop Biastan Thuilm (Beasts of Holm), and quickly sank. Pre-war, the Iolaire (Gaelic for ‘eagle’) had been a luxury yacht, and the lifesaving equipment she carried was woefully inadequate for the number of people on board that night. Many of the men couldn’t swim, and those that could were hampered by their heavy navy boots.
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