The Dingle Peninsula is the northernmost of the major peninsulas in County Kerry. It ends beyond the town of Dingle at Dunmore Head, the westernmost point of Ireland and arguably Europe.
SS America was an ocean liner and cruise ship built in the United States in 1940, for the United States Lines and designed by the noted American naval architect William Francis Gibbs. It carried many names in the 54 years between its construction and its 1994 wreck: SS America ; troop transport USS West Point; and SS Australis, Italis, Noga, Alferdoss, and American Star. It served most notably in passenger service as America and the Greek-flagged Australis.
Forfarshire was a paddle steamer with brigantine rigging, built in Dundee in 1834, and which struck and later foundered on one of the Farne Islands on 7 September 1838, giving rise to the rescue for which Grace Darling is famed.
MV Sygna was a Norwegian bulk carrier built by Austin & Pickersgill for J. Ludwig Mowinckels Rederi in 1967. It ran aground on Stockton Beach in Australia during a major storm in 1974. After its bow section was refloated, its stern remained beached and became an icon and landmark for the local area, until the visible remains of the wreck collapsed into the sea in 2016.
MV Vikartindur was a German registered 8,633 ton container ship that became stranded on a beach on the south coast of Iceland on March 5, 1997, while en route from Tórshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands, to Reykjavík.
SS Georgia was an oil tanker lost at Haisborough Sands off the coast of Norfolk, England in November 1927.
SS Suevic was a steamship built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast for the White Star Line. Suevic was the fifth and last of the Jubilee-class ocean liners, built specifically to service the Liverpool-Cape Town-Sydney route, along with her sister ship Runic. In 1907 she was wrecked off the south coast of England, but in the largest rescue of its kind, all passengers and crew were saved. The ship herself was deliberately broken in two, and a new bow was attached to the salvaged stern portion. Later serving as a Norwegian whaling factory ship carrying the name Skytteren, she was scuttled off the Swedish coast in 1942 to prevent her capture by ships of Nazi Germany.
Prinzessin Victoria Luise was a German passenger ship of the Hamburg-America Line (HAPAG) of some 4,409 gross register tons (GRT). She is credited with having been the first purpose-built cruise ship. Launched on 29 June 1900, she served with HAPAG until 16 December 1906 after being accidentally grounded off Jamaica.
MV Astoria is a ship that was constructed as the transatlantic ocean liner MS Stockholm for Swedish American Line, and rebuilt as a cruise ship in 1993. Ordered in 1944, and commenced service in 1948, at 73 years old, she is the oldest passenger liner still sailing in deep water routes. As Stockholm, she was best known for an accidental collision with Andrea Doria in July 1956, resulting in the sinking of the latter ship and 46 fatalities off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, United States.
SS James Eagan Layne was a liberty ship. She was beached and sunk during the Second World War off Whitsand Bay, Cornwall, United Kingdom.
SS Benwood was a steam cargo ship of the early twentieth century. Built by Craig, Taylor & Co Ltd., Stockton on Tees, she entered service with Joseph Hoult & Co. Ltd, Liverpool. She passed through several owners, before being lost in a collision off the coast of Key Largo, Florida in 1942. Her wreck is now a popular dive site.
Persier was a 5,382 GRT cargo ship which was built in 1918 as War Buffalo for the British Shipping Controller. In 1919, she was sold to Belgium and renamed Persier. Between 1934 and 1941 she also held a passenger certificate. She was driven ashore on the Icelandic coast in a storm in February 1941 which put her out of action for two years. Returned to service in February 1943, she served until 11 February 1945, when she was torpedoed and sunk by U-1017 with the loss of 20 crew.
Narva was a 2,044 GRT cargo ship that was built in 1943 as Aletta Noot by Gävle Varvs & Verkstads Nya AB, Gävle, Sweden for German owners. She was seized by the Allies at Flensburg, Germany in May 1945, passed to the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT) and renamed Empire Confederation. In 1946, she was sold into merchant service and renamed Narva. On 22 December 1957, she foundered whilst going to the aid of another ship in distress.
Slea Head is a promontory in the westernmost part of the Dingle Peninsula, located in the barony of Corca Dhuibhne in southwest County Kerry, Ireland. It belongs to the province of Munster and the county of Kerry and is served by the R559 road; the nearest villages are Ballyickeen and Coumeenoole. The headland itself, together with the larger part of Mount Eagle's southern slopes is formed from steeply dipping beds of the pebbly sandstones and conglomerates of the Slea Head Formation, dating from the Devonian period and traditionally referred to as the Old Red Sandstone.
MV Lyubov Orlova was a 1976 Yugoslavia-built ice-strengthened Maria Yermolova-class cruise ship, which was primarily used for Antarctic cruises. After being taken out of service in 2010, she sat in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada for two years. Decommissioning was fraught with problems and the ship eventually became a floating derelict in the North Atlantic Ocean in 2013. She is believed to have sunk.
Magdalena was a 17,547 GRT passenger and refrigerated cargo ocean liner that Harland and Wolff built in Belfast in 1948 for Royal Mail Lines (RML). Launched on 11 May 1948, she was the third-largest ship being built in a UK shipyard at that time.
MV Baltic Ace was a Bahamian-flagged car carrier, that sank in the North Sea on 5 December 2012 after a collision with the Cyprus-registered container ship Corvus J. Built by Stocznia Gdynia in Poland, the ship had been in service since 2007.
SS Oceana was a P&O passenger liner and cargo vessel, launched in 1887 by Harland and Wolff of Belfast and completed in 1888. Originally assigned to carry passengers and mail between London and Australia, she was later assigned to routes between London and British India. On 16 March 1912 the ship collided in the Strait of Dover with the Pisagua, a 2,850 GRT German-registered four-masted steel-hulled barque. As a result Oceana sank off Beachy Head on the East Sussex coast, with the loss of 17 lives.
SS Pendleton was a Type T2-SE-A1 tanker built in 1944 in Portland, Oregon, United States, for the War Shipping Administration. She was sold in 1948 to National Bulk Carriers, serving until February 1952 when she broke in two in a storm. The T2 tanker ships were prone to splitting in two in cold weather. The ship's sinking and crew rescue is the topic of the 2009 book The Finest Hours: The True Story Behind the US Coast Guard's Most Daring Rescue, by Michael J. Tougias. Tougias' book inspired the 2016 Disney-produced film The Finest Hours with Chris Pine, which focuses on the Pendleton rescue.
SS Pere Marquette 18 was a steel-hulled Great Lakes train ferry that served on Lake Michigan from her construction in 1902 to her sinking in 1910.
