by Senan Molony
Bridget McNeill (27) Lost
Ticket number 370368. Paid £7 15s.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: Treen, Castlerea, County Roscommon.
Destination: 200 Sherman Avenue, Elm Park, New York city.
Titanic Victim
Amongst the missing passengers on the ill-fated Titanic was Miss Bridget McNeill of Treen, near Castlerea. Miss McNeill had been four years in America, and came to Treen some time ago for a month’s holiday.
Her name does not appear in the official list of those who have been saved. Much sympathy is felt with the relatives in their great sorrow.
Mrs Beirne, of Drimdoolin, Castlerea, was to have sailed on the Titanic also. She had her passage booked with a local agent and accompanied Miss McNeill from Castlerea to Queenstown. Both were to have sailed together from that port, but at the last minute, owing to a providential mishap, Mrs Beirne did not go.
(Westmeath Independent, 27 April 1912)
On 13 May 1912, James Scott & Co., the Queenstown agents for the White Star Line, wrote to Maurice Staunton, solicitor for Bridget’s family. Using paper with a letterhead that insensitively still boasted that the Titanic was one of the ‘two largest steamers in the world’, the company wrote:
Dear Sir,
We are in receipt your favor of 11th inst, Respecting Bridget McNeill, whose name does not appear amongst the list of survivors of the “Titanic”. This passenger was booked here through a local sub-agent, named Mr. Thos O’Sullivan, and we understand that she came from Treen, Castlerea, Co. Roscommon.
Yours truly,
James Scott & Co.
McNeill, Bridget (case 77), 11 June 1912.
Administration of the estate of Bridget McNeill, late of Treen, Castlerea, County Roscommon, spinster, died 15th April 1912, granted at Tuam to Michael McNeill, farmer. Effects £100.
From Mansion House Titanic Relief Fund Booklet, March 1913, Case Number 484: ‘McNeill: Two Brothers, Grant £20 and £10’.
1901 census – McNeill. Treen, Castlerea.
Parents: Michael (58), farmer. Rose (52).
Children: Martin (18), Bridget (16), James (12)
John Meehan (22) Lost
Ticket number 3130. Paid £7 15s.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: Currowhunane, Curry, County Sligo.
Destination: 4745 Indiana Avenue, Chicago.
John was a 22-year-old general labourer who hoped to make a better life for himself in America. He was travelling out to Chicago to join his sister Nora, two years his junior.
John belonged to that group in which death was most likely – male steerage passengers. He joined the depressing statistics of the lost, for if chivalry was against him in 1912 it was outright class discrimination which copper-fastened his fate. Steerage passengers appear to have been deliberately held back in some areas because of fears that a mass surge to the boats could jeopardise the lowering of escape craft. Thus First- and Second-Class passengers were accorded the preferential treatment for which they had paid premium fares and this extended to avoidance of a meeting with the grim reaper. It was simply the scheme of things.
The casual dismissal of a whole swathe of humanity extended beyond the watery tomb. No one in the White Star Line was terribly concerned with getting John Meehan’s name right. He was variously and sloppily reported as Mechan, Mahan, or some other variation.
Very little is known about John Meehan except what can be gleaned from the American Red Cross report on aid to victims, published in 1913:
No. 304. (Irish.) Young man, 21 years of age, was drowned, leaving dependent parents in Ireland. This Committee gave emergent help and referred the case to the English Committee, which later made an appropriation of £80. ($100)
Folklore in his district says that John Meehan was a powerful swimmer and ‘a big strong fellow’. The tale has grown up, more wishful thinking than reality, that he clung to a piece of wreckage for hours, before finally succumbing to exhaustion. This tale seems grounded in stories that John, in times past, often won impromptu swimming races with his pals in the River Moy in the heart of summer after long hours toiling in the fields. But the Atlantic in April is an altogether different proposition.
1901 census – Meehan. Curraghhoonaun, County Sligo.
Parents: Thomas (42) farmer; Honora (39).
Children: Bridget (14), Margaret (18), John (11), Honora (9), Ellen (6), Thomas (3).
Robert Mernagh (28) Lost
Ticket number 368703. Paid £7 15s.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: Ballyleigh, Ballywilliam, New Ross, County Wexford.
Destination: West Street, Chicago.
Quiet, decent and industrious. Three adjectives used to describe another of Ireland’s Titanic dead, another steerage male whose fine qualities were never going to be enough to advance him up the queue for salvation dictated by cruel variables.
Robert was travelling to Chicago, his home of two years, having originally emigrated from Queenstown aboard the Celtic on 8 May 1910, as seen from extant Ellis Island records, which show him to be 5 feet 8 inches, with brown hair and blue eyes. He boarded the Titanic in the company of his cousin Elizabeth Doyle, 24, from Bree, near Enniscorthy. Both were drowned. It appears that Mr Mernagh may have gallantly delayed his own return to the United States to accompany his younger relative.
It is rumoured that Mernagh had intended going to America a year ago, but waited for Miss Doyle, who, it is stated, was a sweetheart.
So reported the New Ross Standard, four days after the sinking. The erroneous sweetheart reference can only have caused more distress to both families – and this is apparent in an effusive apology and correction printed later by the same newspaper.
Errors were common. The final White Star Line list of all victims referred to Robert by the preposterous surname of ‘Nemaugh’, a further careless, almost random, discourtesy. The mistake came from a misreading of the handwritten entry of names in the passenger manifest.
County Wexford passengers
Two County Wexford passengers, Robert Mernagh, Ballyleigh, Ballywilliam, and his first cousin, Elizabeth Doyle, Bree, Enniscorthy, were on board the ill-fated Titanic, having booked the passages with the New Ross agent, and embarked at Queenstown.
So far no account as to whether they were saved or otherwise has been received, but it is feared that they have been drowned. Mernagh, who was 28 years of age, a labourer, and unmarried, was two years in America previously and only came to see his parents last winter. He was a very quiet, decent and industrious young man. His companion, who was also unmarried, was 24 years of age, and had been in America two years previously and was only a short time home. Several people from the New Ross district intended travelling by the Titanic, but luckily delayed their journey to a later date.
(Enniscorthy Echo, 20 April 1912)
MERNAGH & DOYLE – Robert Mernagh, aged 28, Ballyleigh, Ballywilliam, New Ross, and Elizabeth Doyle, Bree (first cousin), aged 24, lost in the Titanic. High Mass and Office at Bree Catholic church on Thursday. May their souls rest in peace.
(New Ross Standard, 17 May 1912)
The same newspaper later reported of the event:
The relatives of the deceased man who were present are – Mr Matt Mernagh, father; also deceased’s mother, his brother Mr James Mernagh, and his sisters, Miss Mary Mernagh and Mrs John Molloy, Wexford. He was going to his brother Mr Matthew Mernagh, Chicago.
Robert Mernagh had been born as one half of male twins. His brother Moses died in infancy.
1911 census:
Matthew (78), cannot read; farm labourer. Wife Mary (70).
Married 45 years, nine children born, of whom five are living.
Matthew Murphy Snr died four years and one week after his son Robert, on 23 April 1916, aged 86 years. A memorial tablet containing both their names, bordered by angels, hangs in a descendant’s home.
Ellen Mockler (23) Saved
Ticke
t number 330980. Paid £7 12s 7d, plus 5s extra.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: Currafarry, Caltra, County Galway.
Destination: 412 West 17th Street, New York city.
‘Sister Mary Patricia is a delight,’ wrote John O’Connor in the 15 April 1982 edition of the Worcester Telegram, Massachusetts:
Her 93 years have not robbed the sparkle from her eyes or her quick smile and brogue as she talks of the past …
Hard of hearing, she leans forward to listen to questions but can give minute details of an event that happened 70 years ago today.
At the age of 23, Sister Mary Patricia, then known as Helen M. Mockler, left her home town of Currafarry, Ireland, with two other young women and three men of the village to begin a new life in the United States.
They had no idea they were soon to be involved in one of the greatest civilian disasters at sea. Bound for New York the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic struck an iceberg 800 miles off Cape Race, Newfoundland, and sank, taking 1,517 men, women and children with her. The 46,328-ton ocean liner crashed into the iceberg at 11.40 p.m. By 2.20 a.m. the next morning the ship had sunk. Only 705 people survived.
Helen Mockler was on deck that night 70 years ago when suddenly the whole ship shook. ‘We knew something was wrong, but no one told us what.’
She remembers that chickens escaped from the kitchen and began running around on deck.
‘No one seemed to be worried,’ she said. ‘I remembered one woman was playing the piano.’
At one point Miss Mockler decided to go back to her room and get her bag, which contained all of her belongings. But a man stopped her and said, ‘Forget about your bag. If you save yourself you’ll be lucky.’ At another point, she remembers that she and her five companions knelt on the deck and said the rosary.
‘Everyone was calm on the ship,’ she said. ‘No one knew what was happening.’ Finally someone told her and the two women to get in a lifeboat. About 20 minutes later ‘we saw the ship go down.’
The three men with her did not survive. ‘The three boys went back downstairs.’
Why was Sister Mary coming to the United States? She chuckled. ‘I was coming here to make my fortune.’
The youngest in a family of four, Sister Mary’s Third-Class passage was paid by her two sisters who were already in New York.
She spent five years working for the National Biscuit Company in New York (‘the best place in the country’) before joining the Sisters of Mercy on Sept. 8, 1917, and being assigned to Worcester, where she later served as sacristan at St Paul’s Cathedral for 30 years.
Sixty-four years later, Sister Mary admits that her calling to religious life was probably always there. Recalling the night of the sinking, [she] said, ‘There were only seven in our lifeboat. Many passengers stayed below deck. No one told them to come up. We probably would have gone to our rooms if the three boys with us didn’t tell us to stay on deck.’
She spent the frigid night in the lifeboat wearing only a dress and her lifejacket. ‘It was a very cold night,’ she said. She was in the lifeboat from 2 to 9 a.m. until rescued by the Carpathia.
‘We watched the Titanic sink until the last light went under water. Then everything was calm and smooth. You wouldn’t even have known there was a ship.’
The two men in the lifeboat rowed during the night. ‘We didn’t see any other lifeboats.’
Is the tale true that the band played ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ until the ship went under? ‘If they did, I never heard it,’ she said.
The survivors were taken to New York. ‘We were taken to a hospital and given an examination before we were able to see our families.’ She said: ‘I remember that Sunday, the New York police gave a party for the survivors after Mass.’
Two years after the above interview, Helen Mary Mockler, the name on her death certificate, passed away. She was aged 95 and it was 1 April 1984. In an obituary, the same newspaper reported another nun recalling that she had been initially reluctant to go over the side of the ship into a lifeboat. ‘She asked, “Is there a bottom to it?” She was fearful. She didn’t want to step into the water.’
Later, when away from the ship, the sister recalled her fellow religious saying that the lifeboat began to leak. ‘They were scooping it out with their hands when they saw the Carpathia.’
The newspaper further noted:
‘When the news of the Titanic’s fate reached New York [Ellen] was listed as missing and presumed drowned,’ the sister said. ‘Of course the first news got was that she was drowned,’ so they sent for the parish priest.
‘He said, “I don’t believe that we’re going to pray. Get your coats and come with me”,’ the sister said. So the priest and the sisters went to the New York hospital where survivors were held overnight for examinations.
‘The priest stood on a chair and he shouted her name out and said, “If you’re there, stand up and wave.” She stood up and waved,’ the friend said. And one of her sisters immediately fainted.
Sister Mary did not talk willingly about that cold April night, the sister said. ‘It was such an experience, she never really talked about it much. You had to probe her.’ Even then, ‘she only answered the questions that you asked her.’
Her experience aboard the Titanic and just after ‘had nothing to do’ with her decision to enter the Sisters of Mercy, her friend said.
Perhaps – but consider this contemporary report from the New York Herald of April 1912, quoting Ellen Mockler and two other Irish female survivors:
A priest’s heroism – Rev. Thomas R.D. Byles
Three of the survivors who vividly remember the last hours of the heroic English priest are Miss Ellen Mocklare [sic], a pretty dark-haired young girl from Galway, now at her sister’s home, number 412 West Seventeenth Street, Miss Bertha Moran, who had gone to Troy, New York, and Miss McCoy who is in St Vincent’s Hospital.
These told their story in concert at the hospital.
‘When the crash came we were thrown from our berths,’ said Miss Mocklare. ‘Slightly dressed, we prepared to find out what had happened. We saw before us, coming down the passageway with hand uplifted, Fr Byles.
‘We knew him because he had visited us several times on board and celebrated Mass for us that very morning. “Be calm, my good people,” he said, and then he went about the steerage giving absolution and blessings.
‘A few around us became very excited,’ Miss Mocklare continued. ‘And then it was that the priest again raised his hand and instantly they were calm once more. The passengers were at once impressed by the absolute self-control of the priest.
‘He began the recitation of the Rosary. The prayers of all, regardless of creed, were mingled and the responses “Holy Mary” were loud and strong.
‘One sailor,’ said Miss Mocklare, ‘warned the priest of his danger and begged him to board a boat, but Fr Byles refused. The same seaman spoke to him again and seemed anxious to help him, but he refused again. Fr Byles could have been saved, but he would not leave while one was left, and the sailor’s entreaties were not heeded.
‘After I got in the boat, which was the last one to leave, and we were slowly going further away from the ship, I could hear distinctly the voice of the priest and the responses to his prayers.
‘Then they became fainter and fainter until I could only hear the strains of “Nearer My God to Thee” and the screams of the people left behind. We were told by the man who rowed our boat that we were mistaken as to the screams and that it was the people singing, but we knew otherwise.’
‘Did all the steerage get a chance to get on deck?’ she was asked.
‘I don’t think so because a great many were there when our boat went out, but there were no more boats and I saw Fr Byles among them.
‘A young man who was in steerage with us helped me into the boat. It was cold and I had no wrap. Taking off the shirt he was wearing, he put it around my shoulders and the suspenders to keep it from blowing undone,
and then stepped back into the crowd.’
(New York Herald, 24 April 1912)
The man who gave Ellen his shirt was Thomas Kilgannon, and nine years later, on a visit home to Ireland, Ellen presented the garment to the dead man’s mother.
There are contradictions and implausibilities in some areas of the above interviews. Ellen Mockler said she was on deck and in her berth when the iceberg struck. She said there were only seven in her lifeboat, while the least-full lifeboat contained twelve occupants, all of whom are known. And being in an under-populated lifeboat is not consistent with it being one of the ‘last to leave’, nor being able to see both Fr Byles and the Titanic’s last moments, while paradoxically not being able to see any other lifeboats all night.
Sister Mary Patricia’s very advanced age must be considered at the time of the later interviews, while the 1912 account seems to include much that belongs exclusively to the journalist – such as the strains of ‘Nearer My God to Thee’, when the survivor herself later said she never heard the hymn.
Ellen told US immigration on arrival that she was to join her sister, Bridget Lynch, at West 17th Street. She also told the Red Cross that she was 19, and received a $100 relief payment. The organisation noted that Ellen, case number 315, had been injured during her ordeal.
Meanwhile word had been sent back to Ellen’s elderly father in Ireland soon after the sinking that his daughter had been lost. As a result he had a heart attack and died. Sister Mary Patricia sometimes reflected sadly to her family in subsequent years how sad it was that he never knew she had survived.
Ellen Mockler was born on 1 April 1889 and died on 1 April 1984, her 95th birthday. She is buried in St Joseph’s Cemetery in Leicester, Massachusetts.
1911 census – Mocklare, Currafarry.
Parents: Andrew (72), Catherine (70). 35 years married.
Children: Michael (29), Ellie (20).
Daniel J. Moran (27) Lost
Bertha Moran (28) Saved
Joint ticket number 371110. Paid £24 3s.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: Toomdeely North, Askeaton, County Limerick.
Destination: 22 Dow Street, Troy, New York.
