Limerick was a refrigerated cargo ship of the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand, registered in London. This is the motor ship of 1925, not the steamer of the same name lost in the First World War. William Hamilton and Company launched her at Port Glasgow on 12 March 1925, yard number 389, and she was finished that July. She was about 460 feet long, with a beam of about 63 feet, two diesels, and two screws, and she measured 8,724 gross tons. Her official number was 148634.
In the war she carried food, stores, and munitions on the runs between New Zealand, Australia, and farther off. On 24 April 1943 she left Sydney in convoy GP 48, bound for Brisbane, with four other merchant ships. The escorts were the Australian corvettes Colac and Ballarat.
Just after one in the morning on 26 April, about twenty miles southeast of Cape Byron, near 28°54′ S, 153°54′ E, one torpedo from I-177 hit her on the port side amidships. She caught fire and stayed afloat. At daylight Colac tried to pass a line and tow her in, and could not. She sank at about six. Her master was the last man off. Two of her men were lost, a New Zealand engineer and an Australian officer. Colac picked up the rest. The corvette dropped two depth charges. Neither hurt the submarine.
The wreck lies in about 100 meters of water, some eighteen kilometers east of Ballina. Local fishermen found it. On 2 February 2013 the research ship Southern Surveyor mapped it, and the hull was confirmed as Limerick.