Two months after "Empress of Britain" entered service, "Empress of Ireland" departed Liverpool for Quebec City on her maiden voyage on Thursday, 29 June 1906. The following morning she made port at Moville, a coastal town on the north coast of Ireland, to pick up a number of Irish immigrants before making for the open Atlantic. On her first trip across the Atlantic she carried 1,257 passengers, with 119 in First Class and 342 in Second Class, Third Class being booked well past capacity with 796, a large number of small children and infants among them.