Galway City Council is to host a commemoration ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of the KLM air crash on August 12.
The ceremony will take place at the New Cemetery in Bohermore; it will be followed by a reception in the Meyrick Hotel, Eyre Square.
The KLM air disaster took place on August 14 1954 off the coast of Connemara, west of Slyne Head. The Dutch airliner “Hugo De Groot” was flying from Amsterdam to New York, when it stopped to re-fuel in Shannon airport. 91 passengers were on board along with eight crew.
Some hours after losing radio contact with the plane an alert was raised.
Despite a rescue mission involving the RAF no survivors were found. Out of the 99 people on board only 34 bodies were recovered and only 12 of the 34 recovered bodies could be identified.
The bodies were then taken to the Regional Hospital and there Dutch and Irish doctors carried out post-mortems all night.
Those that could be identified were flown home, and the city held a large funeral for the rest of the victims.
The bodies of those unidentified were buried in a communal grave in the New Cemetery in Bohermore.
An inquest into the disaster was held, but was inconclusive. However the event brought Galway to the world’s attention as press agencies reported the crash and the inquest around the world.
