Christmas came late in 1908

The S.S. Irada (Gulf Transport Line) was a cargo ship of 8,124 tons built in Belfast by Workman Clark & Co in 1900 for H. Welsford & Co. She left Galveston, Texas in November 1908 with a mixed cargo of raw cotton and 21,000 bales of cotton bound for Liverpool. On the 22nd of December 1908 she hit rocks off the SW Point of Mizen Head and sank with the loss of Captain Beveridge, four crew members and a stewardess. Subsequently many of the bales washed into Pulleen Harbour to the west of Castletownbere where they were gratefully retrieved by locals in the above Picture. The propeller from the ‘Irada’ was salvaged in 1994 and now rests at Mizen Head Visitor Centre as a memorial to all wrecked ships in the area.