In June 1918 strange and unsettling reports began to filter into the newspapers about a disease that was doing the rounds. In the beginning the stories only took up a few column inches, subtle at first, then getting more sensational. At the time the First World War was still raging and most of the population were war weary. Reports of a disease was not uncommon disease spread quickly in the trenches. The first victims did not suffer too badly and most recovered within a few days. This fever was not taken too seriously at first, with reports calling anything from a poisoning to ‘strange maladies’, some reports cited it as a plague. The newspaper clipping from the Daily Mirror of June 21 1918, took a lighthearted approach to the disease;
Even if people were collapsing on the street from the virus it was still not taken as seriously as it could have. The report below from the Hull Daily Mail suggested the same, however it did revel how the virus came to England and by ship. The first reported death in the area was that of an Indian seaman, who arrived at Hull a few days previous. The report states that he contracted it after the ship docked. That is how it arrived in Ireland too, by sea when a ship docked at Cork carrying the virus.