The Empress of Ireland was a majestic black ocean liner, fast and reliable, on her way to Liverpool.
On the 29th of May, the fog was thick and smoke grey. The darkest of mornings, long before the dawn begins
Out from that deep abyss came a coal-carrying collier. As smoothly as an assassin’s knife, she slit the Empress open wide. She shuddered and shook, steel moaned, as water gushed in through the gash in her hull. In minutes she listed so heavily, on her side she was thrown.
Captain Kendall was knocked from the bridge into that frigid St. Lawrence He swam to the surface and clung to a wooden grate. He floated there helplessly as the Empress lurched up violently
and with one last gasp plunged into the deep.
Off the coast of Rimouski lies a little known cemetery where a Salvation Army band’s brass bell rings
for the thousand and twelve that lost their lives, women and children, soldiers and wives.
For the Empress of Ireland, that once majestic ocean liner.
Copyright 2012 Finley Martin Music
