Augusta, Sicily
The keel for HMS "Irresistible" was laid down at Chatham Dockyard on 11 April 1898 and launched on 15 December 1898 in a very incomplete state to clear the building ways for the construction of the battleship . "Irresistible" was completed in October 1901. The ship was commissioned at Chatham Dockyard on 4 February 1902 by Captain George Morris Henderson and a complement of 870 officers and men for Mediterranean Fleet service. She left Portsmouth in late March 1902, arriving the following month at Gibraltar where she relieved the turret ship as a guard ship. In May 1902 she visited Augusta, Sicily, and in August 1902 she went to Piraeus.