Image copyright Allan Green

Rare ornate carved wooden panelling from HMHS Britannic, one of the Titanic's sister ships built at Harland and Wolff, will be sold at auction in County Laois on Wednesday.

The items from the first-class lounge and the second-class library could fetch a combined sum of €500,000 (£430,000).

One item has been recreated as a fine period piece bar.

The bar has been inside a private house in Dublin for the past 40 years.

The wood was taken off the vessel, which launched in Belfast in 1914, so it could be used as a troop ship during World War One.

The vessel later sank after hitting a mine in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Greece while on her way to collect troops wounded in the Balkan campaign.

Thirty lives were lost in the sinking.

The Britannic's stored luxurious furniture and fittings were auctioned in Belfast in 1919 and ornate carved wood panelling from both the first-class lounge and second-class library were used to adorn the La Scala Theatre and Opera House in Dublin, which later became the Capitol Cinema.

They remained in place until the building's demolition in 1972, when it made way for what is now Penneys, and the panelling was installed in a private individual's residence near Dublin.

Niall Mullen, the organiser of the auction which takes place on Wednesday at the Heritage Golf Resort in Killenard, said: "The seller hopes that someone from Northern Ireland will be successful in bidding for the items because then it will go back to where it was from.

"There has been a lot of interest from all over the world. A number of people from Belfast came down to view it last weekend."

"I chose the lot numbers 433 and 433a because that is the number of the ship at the famous Harland and Wolff shipyard."

"The oak had been seasoned for at least 35 years before manufacture, dating it back at least to 1877."

The Britannic was the third of the Olympic class of steamships, along with the RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic.

The Titanic sank in the North Atlantic in 1912 with the loss of 1,514 lives while the Olympic had a successful 24-year career including service as a troopship in World War One.

Items connected with the Titanic and her sister ships have a history of selling for high prices at auction.

In April, a silver brandy flask given to a first-class passenger shortly before he drowned on the Titanic sold for £76,000