Iolaire

The sinking of the Iolaire on 1 January 1919 was the worst maritime disaster in United Kingdom waters in peacetime since 1878.

The Admiralty yacht Iolaire (which means eagle in the Scottish Gaelic language) was carrying soldiers who had fought in the First World War back to the Scottish island of Lewis. She left the port of Kyle of Lochalsh on the mainland late on the evening of the 31 December 1918. Early in the new year, as the ship approached the port of Stornoway in the dark, she hit the dreaded rocks outside the harbour, The Beasts of Holm, and eventually sank. The final death toll was officially put at 205 of whom 181 were islanders, but as the ship was badly overcrowded and there was a lack of proper records the death toll could have been slightly higher. Only 75 of those aboard survived the disaster.

An Admiralty enquiry shortly after did not find a satisfactory explanation for the disaster. There is a recently-erected (in 2005) memorial at Holm, outside Stornoway, to those who lost their lives in the tragedy.