Dublin Wreck Map
10 wrecks in Dublin, Ireland. Recorded depths: 10–55 m. View on map
Guide Me II
The Guide Me II started out in 1907 as an Aberdeen fishing boat. In 1915 the Admiralty hired her, mounted the gun and put her on anti-submarine patrol, until a collision on 29 August 1918 sank her with the loss of one crewman. She sits upright and very intact on coarse sand at 32-38 metres, 1.5 kilometres southeast of the Muglins, east of Dalkey Island, and the hole torn by the collision shows plainly in her port side. She measures 26 metres from end to end, and lobsters and conger eels live all through her.
HMS Vanguard
Her own sister ship rammed her in fog. On 1 September 1875 HMS Vanguard, a 6,010-ton ironclad battleship, was making for Queenstown from Dublin when the underwater ram of HMS Iron Duke ripped into her hull close to the boilers. About 70 minutes later she was gone, yet not a single life was lost; her captain was never given command of a ship again. She lies fifteen miles southeast of Dun Laoghaire and was found once more in 1985. The hull remains remarkably intact at 45-50 metres, heeled over to starboard and standing approximately 16 metres off the seabed, with the gun battery at its highest point and a spare iron propeller resting on deck. The National Monuments Act protects the wreck, and nobody may dive on her without a licence, which the National Monuments Service issues.
MV Bolivar
In 1947 Dublin badly needed food. That winter was the worst anyone could remember, with weeks of freezing weather, snowstorms and drifts. On 4 March the Norwegian motor vessel Bolivar was crossing the Irish Sea, carrying grain and supplies from Uruguay that the city sorely lacked, when a blinding snowstorm came down and she ran onto the Kish Bank sandbank. Efforts to get her off failed, she broke in two, and all of her crew were rescued. Her engine room was salvaged, and in 1948 explosives were used to disperse part of the wreck because she endangered shipping. What remains lies in 4-10 metres of water in two sections about 150 metres apart, and as the sands of the Kish Bank move they cover some parts and uncover others.
PS Queen Victoria
She struck Howth Head once. Backed off. Then struck again beneath the Baily Lighthouse and sank in fifteen minutes. On the night of 14 February 1853, the paddle steamer PS Queen Victoria -- built in 1838 for the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company's Dublin-Liverpool mail route -- departed Liverpool with approximately 100 passengers into a snowstorm. Around 02:00 on the 15th she hit the headland. Captain Jones tried to make harbour, but the damage was catastrophic. Dead in the water and filling fast, the ship drifted and struck a second time. Around 83 people perished including the captain. One lifeboat, carrying 17 survivors, reached shore. The Board of Trade blamed the captain, first officer, and lighthouse crew. The wreck lies at approximately 18-20 metres south of the Baily Lighthouse. Permit required to dive.
RMS Leinster
More than 564 people died when the RMS Leinster went down, a toll no other single sinking in the Irish Sea has matched, and one of the most devastating maritime disasters of World War I. Near the Kish Bank on 10 October 1918, UB-123 fired three torpedoes at her. The first went wide and the second hit her port side. Captain Birch was trying to bring her round toward Kingstown when the third almost cut her in two. Of the 22 postal sorters on board, 21 were killed. Built at Birkenhead in 1896 as a mail steamer for the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, she lies at 28 metres, around 4 nautical miles east of the Kish Light. Her bow stands proud of the seabed, while the rest has largely collapsed into the sand. Her anchor was raised in 1991 and is on display at Carlisle Pier, Dun Laoghaire. She is a war grave.
RMS Tayleur
On her maiden voyage, the RMS Tayleur was betrayed by her own construction: the iron of her hull threw her compasses out. Built in 1853, she was the largest iron clipper of her kind, and she sailed from Liverpool for Melbourne with over 650 people on board. Fog and a storm closed around her inside 48 hours. Her crew thought their course lay south down the Irish Sea, when in truth she was running west, directly at Lambay Island. A rudder too small for the ship and rigging that had never been stretched properly left her no escape, and on 21 January 1854 she hit the rocks; over 370 people died. Her remains lie at 9-17 metres in Tayleur Bay: hull plates, a donkey engine, the lower mast, crockery, roof tiles and even tombstones carried as cargo. She is a protected wreck: it is against the law to dive on her unless the Office of Public Works has first given its permission.
SS Marlay
Beneath the boilers, conger eels the size of your arm wait in the darkness. This 800-ton steel collier, built in Belfast in 1890, sank in a December 1902 storm when heavy seas breached the hatches on her coal holds. Fifteen of 16 crew perished. She lies on her side at 25-35 metres, hull fairly intact, approximately 5.8 kilometres northwest of the Baily Lighthouse on Howth Head. Three boilers show at low tide. Lobsters, crabs, whiting, and bib populate the wreck alongside the resident congers. Care is needed around holes in the hull -- accidental entry is a real risk.
SS Polwell
Not all U-boat captains were merciless. On 5 June 1918, SM U-96 surfaced three nautical miles northeast of Lambay Island and fired a warning shot across the bows of the SS Polwell, a British cargo steamer carrying coal from Troon to France. The crew of 30 abandoned ship in two lifeboats. Only then did the submarine fire a single shot amidships, sinking the Polwell. All crew survived, landing at Rockabill lighthouse off Skerries an hour later. The wreck at approximately 30 metres is broken into three sections, with the bow detached from the rest of the vessel. Surveyed by INFOMAR as part of marine heritage documentation of WWI wrecks in the western Irish Sea. An 86.6-metre coal carrier with an unexpectedly humane story.
SS Vesper
Captain Tolson and 18 men rowed 12 miles to Killiney Bay. Every one of them made it. On 13 January 1876, their ship -- the 478 GRT iron merchant steamer SS Vesper, laden with 620 tons of coal and sugar bound from Glasgow to Dunkirk -- had run aground on the Kish Bank and broken in two. Built by Courlay Bros of Dundee in 1865 for Huntley & Berner of Glasgow, the Vesper now lies at an estimated 10-15 metres on the shallow bank, approximately 11 kilometres off the Dublin coast. A protected archaeological site with LIVE status, the wreck provides a welcome oasis of marine life on the otherwise featureless sandy bank.
SS W.M. Barkley
Barrels of Guinness saved their lives. When the SS W.M. Barkley -- the first vessel of the famous Guinness fleet -- was torpedoed by UC-75 on 12 October 1917, she broke in two and sank within minutes just seven miles east of the Kish Lightship. Five crew died including the captain. But eight survivors escaped in an open lifeboat, buoyed by floating hogshead barrels of stout from the breached cargo hold. Built in 1898 and sold to Guinness in 1913, the 569 GRT vessel was also the first Irish merchant ship defensively armed with guns against submarine attack during WWI. The wreck lies at approximately 55 metres about 16 miles east of Dublin Port. A historically significant wreck connecting Dublin's brewing heritage with the submarine warfare of the Great War.