Irish Aboard Titanic

by Senan Molony

  (Galway Express, 27 April 1912)

  But here is a case of a Corkman’s bottle, thrown overboard in mid-ocean, which indeed drifted for a year before making landfall, albeit on a different coast:

  The Voyage of a Bottle from the North Atlantic to the Florida Coast

  Long Journey of a Corkman’s Message

  On the 23rd February 1931 when the Dresden was 2,125 miles from Cove, Mr Michael O’Sullivan, who originally hailed from the Mallow district, dropped a bottle overboard containing the following message –

  February 21, 1931. Tourist cabin 336A. – On board the SS Dresden from Bremerhaven via Cherbourg and Queenstown to New York … This note in airtight bottle has been cast overboard 2,125 miles from Queenstown and at a latitude N. 41.32, and longitude W. 62.18. Finder please send to Cork Weekly Examiner, Patrick Street, Cork city, Ireland, giving your name and address and where found and when …

  On Saturday last, 26 March, the Editor received a letter enclosing the message from Miss A. McBride, the Belleview Biltmore Hotel, Belleair, Florida. Miss McBride had picked up the bottle on the beach at Belleair while bathing on March 6, 1932. Here is her letter:

  ‘While bathing at a local beach here in Florida I found the enclosed note which was dropped from the SS Dresden by a Mr O’Sullivan and I am carrying out his instructions by sending it to you – sincerely Miss A. McBride.

  PS: March 6th, 1932, when I found this bottle washed onto the beach.’

  We leave it to our nautical readers to calculate the exact mileage covered by that bottle. It must have drifted over one thousand miles almost exactly in twelve months. We hope that Mr O’Sullivan will communicate to us his present address when we will have much pleasure in returning to him his note, which is in marvellously good condition, after its adventurous voyage.

  (Cork Weekly Examiner, 2 April 1932)

  Jeremiah Burke left total assets of just £10, according to a subsequent application for administration of his estate by his father.

  1911 census – William Burke (55) Farmer; wife Kate (54). Married 28 years, nine children, seven alive. Kitty (23), William (20), Jeremiah (18), Laurence (16).

  Mary Burns (17) Lost

  Ticket number 330963. Paid £7 12s 7d, plus extra 5s.

  Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

  From: Kilmacowen, Knocknarae, County Sligo.

  Destination: 942 Kent Avenue, Brooklyn, New York city.

  Mary Delia Burns could have been killed by her own kindness. It was reported from one source that the teenager chose to attend Kate Hargadon on board the Titanic as the latter was suffering from nausea and was unable to climb a ladder to the boats.

  Mary, known as Delia by her family, had been rooming in the single women’s quarters at the stern of the vessel with fellow Sligowoman Kate and her own near-neighbour Margaret Devaney. They were in compartment Q-138 on E deck.

  The Irish World published Margaret Devaney’s account of what happened to the trio in its edition of 4 May 1912:

  There were four of us from Knocknarae, County Sligo – Mary Burns and Kitty Hargadon and a boy we knew. We were all on deck, not thinking it was serious, when the boy comes along and said: ‘You girls had better get into a boat.’ Then he held out his hand, saying: ‘I hope we’ll meet again.’

  I got into the boat, but Mary Burns and Kitty Hargadon held back, thinking it was safer to remain on the ship. I never saw them again.

  Seventeen-year-old Mary thought she was used to the sea. She lived in a tiny two-storey home less than 100 yards from the beach at the end of a narrow boreen that gives onto Ballysadare Bay. Mary had often helped carry seaweed up to the parcel of land they called a farm to act as fertiliser for the soil.

  In the 1911 census, her age appears correctly as 16, with a brother Joseph, aged 12. Her parents, Thomas, a labourer, and Mary, née Monaghan, were aged 43 and 37 respectively. Mary’s date of birth was 15 November 1894.

  Like many another young girl, she hoped to become a housemaid for a wealthy family in New York and was travelling to the home of her aunt, Mary Sheridan, where she had been promised room and board.

  As with the overwhelming number of Irish victims, her body was never recovered. ‘Her death was never spoken about in the house afterwards because it was so sad,’ said a younger sister, still alive at the century’s end, who asked not to be identified.

  The Cork Examiner of Saturday 20 April 1912, noted:

  There are two names of Mary Burns and Ellen Shine on the passenger list of the Titanic, while on the list of those saved, the names Burns without a Christian name and Axel Shine appear and probably mean the same. There is therefore some doubt about these passengers.

  Ellen Shine was indeed rescued, but about the fate of Mary Burns there was no doubt at all – she drowned in the North Atlantic.

  Mansion House Titanic Relief Fund, 1913 Report: Case No. 446. Burns, parents, £25.

  Mary Canavan (23) Lost

  Ticket number 364846. Paid £7 15s.

  Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

  From: Tonacrick, Addergoole, County Mayo.

  Destination: 236 East 53rd Street, New York city.

  Patrick Canavan (21) Lost

  Ticket number 364858. Paid £7 15s.

  Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

  From: Knockmaria, Nephin, County Mayo.

  Destination: 1512 Diamond Street, Philadelphia.

  Patrick and Mary Canavan were first cousins. They were among a large group of fourteen young men and women from the parish of Addergoole, County Mayo, who embarked on the Titanic. Only two survived.

  Patrick was a cousin of another Titanic passenger, Annie Kate Kelly, and was travelling to stay with his sister, Miss Kate Canavan, of Diamond Street, Philadelphia. Survivor Annie Kate makes fleeting reference to Patrick in her account of the tragedy, seeming to place him in the after well deck of the Titanic, behind the fourth funnel and close to the stern:

  John Bourke and Patrick Canavan knew there was a ladder leading to the upper decks. Gathering the women and girls about them, they started for the ladder.

  Patrick, a general labourer, was the son of Anthony Canavan and Bridget Kelly (the latter was linked to Annie Kate Kelly) and was born and baptised on 14 September 1890. He had a brother Tom, three years older, who had also already emigrated west. By 1911, Pat was the eldest son at home, although nine years younger than his sister Annie. He was the sole remaining big brother to Bridgie (17) and Anthony (13).

  Mary Canavan was a little older than her cousin Patrick. She was lost because agents canvassing for the shipping lines persuaded her to travel on ‘a brand new ship’ long before her intended crossing. Said a descendant: ‘If the canvassers hadn’t come around, Mary wouldn’t have been on the Titanic. That was the big regret for years afterwards.’

  Family members say one of the reasons so many were lost from Lahardane was because of the enthusiastic sales-pitches of agents seeking emigrants, who called to homes in early 1912. Mary fully intended to travel to the USA – she was just waiting for her American-based brother Paddy to come up with the fare. He had travelled over the previous year at the age of 24 and had promised to remit the passage money. He had not done so by the time the large group from Mayo prepared to leave, and Mary was reduced to begging her parents for an advance. Although wanting her to stay at home for another year, they finally capitulated.

  Mary Canavan was the daughter of Thomas Canavan and Mary Earley. By the 1911 census returns, Mary Canavan was aged 22, and her parents Mary and farmer Anthony were 55 and 58 respectively. Annie Kate Kelly, the young survivor, spoke of ‘Mary Flynn’ being on board the Titanic, seemingly a reference to Mary Canavan because of the Flynn family connection. Mary intended to stay with her cousin Anthony Flynn when she reached New York. Anthony was the brother of another Titanic passenger, James Flynn.

  Word of Mary’s death came by messenger to her father when he was preparing to take animals to a fair to help recoup his outlay for her ticket. Her bro
ther Paddy, who had not managed to earn the passage money, was killed a few years later when a tree fell on him while lumberjacking in California.

  Janie Carr (45) Lost

  Ticket number 368364. Paid £7 15s.

  Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

  From: Castlerock, Aclare, County Sligo.

  Destination: 7 Hamilton Street, Hartford, Connecticut.

  Probably victim of liner’s wreck

  Now practically no hope that Miss Jennie Carr survived disaster

  New York, April 19. There is practically no hope that Jennie Carr of Windsor Locks, Conn., who was a passenger aboard the Titanic returning to her home from Ireland, was saved from the steamer.

  Inquiry at the White Star Line office this afternoon elicited the information that Ellen Carr and Jennie Carr sailed as Third-Class passengers and that Ellen Carr is the survivor. Jennie Carr is listed as ‘missing’. The White Star Line does not know the point of destination of either women but is certain that the woman who was saved is Ellen Carr.

  Miss Carr, formerly a resident of Springfield, had been living with her brothers and sisters in Ireland for the past three years but the failure of the Windsor Locks bank, where the savings of her lifetime were deposited, caused her to come back to this country to go to work again.

  Her relatives in this city, two nieces, Katharine and Mary Carr of Pine Street and her nephew, Michael Carr of Lowell Street, were not aware that she had started to return until they heard from Mrs Michael O’Leary of Windsor Locks, a former employer of Miss Carr.

  The message said that she had sailed from Queenstown for New York on the day that the Titanic put out. When the list of survivors first came out, Miss Jennie Carr was named among the Third Class passengers, but the name was later changed to Ellen Carr and Miss Carr’s relatives thought that a mistake had been made in the name.

  The Carpathia docked and the rescued passengers landed, but the relatives of Miss Carr got no word as to her whereabouts. They were confident that she had been saved and were fearing that her mind might have been unbalanced by the long exposure and the horror of the past few days.

  As no message came during the day yesterday they became more anxious and tried to learn from the steamship company whether or not she was saved.

  Miss Katherine Carr, who is employed as a domestic at 235 Pine Street, was notified last evening that her aunt had undoubtedly gone down with the Titanic. At first she could hardly believe that the words were true and when it finally dawned on her that the Carr woman registered as saved was not her aunt, she was greatly affected.

  The other relatives are still hoping that their aunt will turn up in due time, although no hope is held out.

  Miss Carr first came to this country about twenty years ago making her home in Springfield. She worked as a cook in several families, later working in a Chicopee Falls hotel. Besides her relatives in Ireland and this city she leaves three nephews and one niece in Hartford.

  (Springfield Union, 20 April 1912, p. 7)

  A single woman, Janie found herself torn between other people’s offspring on both sides of the Atlantic. She had worked as housekeeper to a rich Connecticut banker and his family before going home in 1911. The return to Ireland was prompted by the sudden death of her widowed sister Catherine (56), which had left six children without parents. By the following spring, Janie had determined that she would make her future in Ireland. But then devastating news arrived from America: her former employer had killed himself. Selfless Janie immediately felt the need to return there to see what she could do. The visit back to Windsor Locks, Connecticut, also gave her the chance to settle her affairs before moving to Ireland permanently. It was another Good Samaritan journey, but it cost Janie her life.

  A kind of surrogate mother to everyone in her family of seven surviving brothers and sisters, Janie had spent more than twenty years in the USA, having originally made the trip c. 1887. Her parents, Tom Carr, a settler from Fermanagh, and Bridget Goldrick, were both dead. Now she was leaving Ireland again after only her third trip home. Margaret Carr, Janie’s teenage niece, planned to go with her but failed to get her papers in order in time, so Janie sailed alone.

  She signed aboard the Titanic as a 37-year-old spinster, although it is known that she was in fact eight years older, with a date of birth of 11 February 1867. Janie was listed aboard as ‘Jeannie’ Carr, and a grant of administration of the substantial estate she left at home in Sligo named her as ‘Jennie’, although her birth and baptismal entries positively name her Jane. She left £113 – the total of an account in the Hibernian Bank.

  David Charters (21) Lost

  Ticket number 13032. Paid £7 14s 8d.

  Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

  From: Garvagh, Ballinalee, County Longford.

  Destination: 310 West 108th Street, New York city.

  David Charters demonstrated for his family how large the Titanic would be. He walked out of his front door and to the top of a ridge in front of the house, nearly one-fifth of a mile away. The walk is still remembered by his surviving family.

  He had ten sovereigns in his pocket when he left his picturesque home place to travel to Edgeworthstown to catch a train to Queenstown. A man cannot live on scenery, even in lovely Garvagh, especially in a large household. It was a house that was repeatedly touched by tragedy. A brother, Jimmy, died aged seven on the kitchen table when undergoing a primitive operation to remove a growth on his jaw. Another brother, Robert, was killed in action in the Great War. A third brother died at the hands of the IRA. Willie Charters, nephew of David Charters, remembers that his Uncle Willie was taken out of the same homestead by an IRA flying column in 1921 and later executed for alleged informing. His body, ‘riddled with bullets’ in his nephew’s phrase, was found in nearby Gorteen Lake. A fourth brother, Alec, died young of a brain haemorrhage, and a sister, Anne, died in childbirth.

  The bad luck began with the Titanic. Described as a general labourer, David was going to join his uncle David Vance at an address in New York city.

  Two of David’s brothers, Alec and Dickie, later risked the long walk and emigrated to America. The latter lived to age 94, having begun by sweeping the streets that he had been led to believe were paved with gold, earning enough to progress to owning a small shop on Long Island.

  1911 census – William (52) and Marianne (42). Married 20 years, with ten children, all still living. David (19), general servant; Annie (14), John (12), Sarah E. (11), Richard (8), Mary Jane (6), Alexander (4), James W. (2).

  Patrick Colbert (24) Lost

  Ticket number 371109. Paid £7 5s.

  Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

  From: Kilconlea, Abbeyfeale, County Limerick.

  Destination: Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.

  Patrick was going to Canada to become a religious brother. But he was also concerned with the things of this world. He was off to serve God, but retained an affection for mammon. He took an extraordinary sum out of the bank before he left – some say it was as much as £600, but this seems truly fanciful – and carried it with him on the Titanic. His father had argued that he should take only a little, for his needs, and transfer the rest when he was safely settled. But Patrick took the money in cash – and after the shock and grief of bereavement, it somehow rankled in the family ever afterwards that such a fortune could have gone down in the Atlantic.

  Patrick was one of the ‘praying’ Colberts, as distinct from the ‘fighting’ Colberts, a family of cousins with whom they shared land – one of whom, Edmond, was an All-Ireland tug-of-war champion in 1910. Patrick, one of whose brothers was already a Christian Brother in Cork, was due to stay with his brother Christopher – himself a man of the cloth and known to all as Brother Christopher – at a religious house in the Canadian industrial town of Sherbrooke on the Magog river.

  Why he should have needed to take all his money with him was beyond anyone’s understanding. In the wake of his death, there were stories in the locality of him
being weighed down in the water by the sheer poundage of gold sovereigns. Others noted acerbically that it was not after all so hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven.

  Pious Patrick Colbert had amassed his money as a railway porter in bustling Abbeyfeale, a short distance from his home place. The youngest of seven children, he was born on 5 November 1887 to farmer John Colbert and his wife Kate of Kilconlea, County Limerick.

  Patrick was one of those originally booked to travel on the strike-bound White Star liner Cymric.

  County Limerick victims, Abbeyfeale, Sunday

  The list of survivors published today contains no reference to the name of Mr Patrick Colbert, Kilconlea, Abbeyfeale, Mr James Scanlan, Rathkeale, nor of other young men said to have been on board from East and North Kerry.

  Pat Colbert, for whose parents and family the greatest public sympathy is felt, was until his recent departure for the States, a porter at the railway station here, and a young man noted for his industry, intelligence and temperate habits.

  There were some other intending emigrants about to sail in the Titanic from this district, but on the advice of an Irish American friend waited and sailed on another steamer.

  (The Cork Examiner, 22 April 1912)

  1911 census – Colbert; Kilkinlea, Abbeyfeale.

  John (67), farmer, Kate (65); married 39 years, ten children, eight living. Michael (36), cattle buyer, Nora (34), Denis (29), and Tim (27), cattle buyers. Pat (23), railway porter.

  Edward Pomeroy Colley (37) Lost

  Ticket number 5727. Paid c. £28 10s, then £6 extra aboard.

  Boarded at Southampton. First Class.

  From: 17 Orwell Road, Upper Rathgar, Dublin.

  Destination: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

  Edward Pomeroy Colley died on his thirty-seventh birthday – 15 April 1912. In the weeks thereafter, several women wrote to his family in Ireland claiming to have been his girlfriend or even fiancée. He had indeed been an eligible bachelor. An engineer and land surveyor from Dublin and a relative of the Duke of Wellington, victor at Waterloo, Colley was returning alone to Canada and his mining interests. He occupied cabin E58, amidships on E deck.