The Tay Bridge Disaster The Tay Bridge Disaster "The Tay Bridge Disaster" is a poem written in 1880 by the Scottish poet William McGonagall, who has been widely recognised as the worst poet in history. The poem recounts the events of the evening of December 28, 1879, when, during a severe gale, the Tay Rail Bridge at Dundee collapsed as a train was passing over it with the loss of all on board (now thought to be 75 people and not 90 as stated in the poem). The foundations of the bridge were not removed and are alongside the newer bridge. The poem is
Tay Bridge disaster have been advanced in the last 40 years, leading to 'forensic engineering' reinterpretations of what actually happened. The disaster inspired several songs and poems, most famously William McGonagall's "The Tay Bridge Disaster", widely considered to be of such a low quality as to be comical. The German poet Theodor Fontane, shocked by the news, wrote his poem "". It was published only ten days after the tragedy happened. C. Horne's ballad "In Memory of the Tay Bridge Disaster" was published as a broadside in May 1880. It describes the moment of the disaster as: "Hatter's Castle", the 1931 novel of