by Senan Molony
Interviewed in 1956 on the forty-fourth anniversary of the sinking Bertha declared: ‘I don’t know where they get all that women and children first business. I never saw it! I’ll tell you what I saw. I saw a mother and her five children standing there on that ship. When the ship split in half, I saw the mother and five children drown.’
In 1958, she refused an all-expenses-paid trip to England offered by the production unit of the movie A Night to Remember, pleading that her memories were too painful.
Bertha died from cancer at the age of 73 in North Providence on 15 October 1959. The following obituary appeared two days later:
Mrs Noon, formerly of 28 Windham Ave, lost her trousseau when the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in 1912.
A resident of the Mt Pleasant section most of the last 33 years, she came to this country from Ireland at an early age and later became engaged to Henry F. Noon of Providence. Before the marriage, she returned aboard the Lusitania to County Athlone [sic] for a last visit with her parents and relatives. During the nine months’ visit, she collected hand-stitched Irish linens and laces for the trousseau, and a chiffon gown for the wedding, and carefully packed them for the return voyage.
When the ship hit the iceberg, the girl, a steerage passenger, rushed up on deck and never gave a thought to the trousseau. She managed to get in one of the last lifeboats with 75 other survivors, and suffered several broken ribs in the crush. She wore shoes on bare feet, a coat over her nightgown and, as she waited for rescue, used her prayer book. The only other article she saved was a watch, a gift of her fiancé, which she had pinned to her nightgown.
Mrs Noon died Thursday at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital after a short illness. Mr Noon died about thirteen years ago.
Margaret Murphy (24) Saved
Kate Murphy (17) Saved
Joint ticket number 367230. Paid £15 10s.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: Fostragh, County Longford.
Destination: 2238 Fairhill Street, Philadelphia.
Maggie Jane and Kate were sisters who ran away from home to join the Titanic. Margaret told of an emotional last kiss with her male companion, who pledged he would see her soon.
Locked in steerage: Irish girl’s terrible story
A terrible story of women and children locked in the steerage of the sinking Titanic is told by Miss Margaret J. Murphy of Foster [sic], County Longford, who, with her sister, Miss Katherine Murphy, was saved from the wreck.
Interviewed by a representative of the New York American at the residence of their sister, Miss J. Toomey, the Bronx, Miss Murphy stated –
‘Before all the steerage passengers had even a chance of their lives, the Titanic’s sailors fastened the doors and companionways leading up from the Third-Class section. That meant certain death to all who remained below.
‘And while the sailors were beating back the steerage passengers, lifeboats were putting away, some of them not half-filled.’
A Brave Irish Youth
Having related how a brave young Irishman, John Kiernan, who was lost, gave her his lifebelt, she said –
‘A crowd of men were trying to get up to a higher deck and were fighting the sailors; all striking and scuffling and swearing. Women and some children were there praying and crying.
‘Then the sailors fastened down the hatchways leading to the Third-Class section. They said they wanted to keep the air down there so the vessel would stay up longer. It meant all hope was gone for those still down there.’
John Kiernan, she said, helped her into the boat and said ‘Good-bye’ – as he had said it a hundred times before at the door of her father’s store. She knew he did not intend to get in himself, but the sailors drove him away. She added –
‘Just as the davits were being swung outward, a Chinaman pushed a woman out of the boat and took her place. Sailors grabbed him and handed him back to the deck. Then someone shot him and his body tumbled into the water. It was terrible.’
(Irish Independent, 9 May 1912)
This report, with its ‘Brave Irish Youth’ headline was raised during the British inquiry by counsel for the Third-Class passengers. But inquiry chairman Lord Mersey ruled it out of order.
The Murphy sisters are reported to have saved the life of their fellow Longford passenger Thomas McCormack after their boat had been lowered and he swam to its side to beg to be taken aboard. This is his tribute:
Girls saved youth
Thomas McCormick [sic], nineteen years old, of No. 36 West Twentieth Street, Bayonne, N.J., who was a passenger on the Titanic, and is a patient in St Vincent’s Hospital, this city, suffering from exposure, says that his life was saved by two sisters, Kate and Mary Murphy, who picked him up from the water, dragging him into a lifeboat and sitting on him after sailors manning the boat had struck him on the head and tried to drive him from clinging to the sides of the boat.
(New York Herald, 22 April 1912)
A week later, the same newspaper reported on the Murphy links with the Kiernans:
Eloping girl tells story
Perhaps the most interesting story was that told by Miss Margaret Murphy, a pretty girl with rosy cheeks and Irish blue eyes, who left her home in Fostra, County Longford, unknown to her parents and relatives, with the intention of marrying here John Kiernan, a neighbour, who was in her party.
When the critical moment on shipboard came, Kiernan gave up his life for her when he surrendered his lifebelt to her and saw her safely into a lifeboat. She said:
‘The night before the little group in our village was to leave to go aboard the Titanic, together with several other young women and men, I slipped away from my home, carrying all the clothes that I could, and went to the Kiernan home, where a farewell party was being held. At that time, I had promised to wait at home until Mr Kiernan would come to this country and make a place. Then I was going to join him. But the thought of being separated from him was too much for me and I decided to run away from home.
‘At the Kiernan house I was received kindly, as we were all neighbours. At the first opportunity I told Mr Kiernan of my purpose. He reluctantly agreed. He was twenty-five years old and I am nineteen.
‘When we heard the Titanic was doomed, we left our berths and rushed on deck. I saw boat after boat being loaded with passengers while I stood trembling at the side of Mr Kiernan. He tried to cheer me, and the truth of the matter is that I never thought for a moment that the steamship was going down.
‘When both of us realized it was sinking, Mr Kiernan took a lifebelt off himself for me and assisted me in one of the last lifeboats. We kissed each other goodbye and he promised to see me soon.’
Miss Murphy could not restrain herself longer and she told this story and broke into tears. When she regained her composure she said:
‘I saw the poor fellow go down with the Titanic soon afterward, and I felt mighty mean to know that I had a lifebelt around me which might have saved poor John.’
Miss Murphy is here at the home of her sister at No. 3649 Olinville Avenue, the Bronx.
From The Irish Post, 11 May 1912:
Longford girls’ experiences: interview with their mother
Letters describing the disaster
The house where the Murphys were born is a thatched farm house approached by a narrow lane from the main road, leading to Aughnacliffe and about a mile and a half from the village. Mrs Murphy, the mother of the girls, a comparatively young woman, with hair turning grey, produced the letters written by her daughters, to our representative.
The letter from Miss Kate Murphy in reference to the disaster ran as follows:
‘It was a terrible disaster which happened the ship which was to bring us here. I suppose you have heard a good deal about it. It was a terrible place when the ship was going down to hear the cries of the poor passengers who were drowning.
‘We were in bed, and were the first to hear in our rooms, for the water came rushing into our room, so we got up and called the other g
irls. Everyone was up in a few minutes, and rushing on deck for the lifebelts.
‘You know we had no hopes of being saved, and the stewards were telling everyone to go back to bed, that there was nothing the matter. They didn’t care, I suppose, for they knew that they would be saved themselves. The crew are saved but a few, and nearly all the passengers we knew were drowned, and poor John and Philip Kiernan are lost too.
‘It was they got the lifebelts for us, and there were five girls and seven boys that we knew in Queenstown who were with us, lost.
‘My name was on the papers for being lost and poor Patrick (her brother) was nearly dead with grief when we met him after coming off the Carpathia, which picked us up. After landing, we got money to buy clothes, &c., in place of what we lost, as we only had a light garment on.’
The writer of the letter is only seventeen and never travelled on sea before. Her sister, Maggie, was returning to the States after a holiday with her relatives. She did not write much about the disaster and most of what she wrote was similar to the other letter:
‘We were awake after two o’clock. I was first to waken after the accident, and I saw the water coming into our room. I woke Katie, and we then called the other girls. Having first put on some little clothes, we ran up on deck. We were told by an officer there that nothing was the matter, though.
‘Lots of people were there looking for lifebelts. Philip Keernan [sic], who is lost, put on my lifebelt. We were taken into one of the boats and were eight hours in it, famished, before a ship that was going to California picked us up.
‘We could see poor John Keernan and his brother Phil on deck when the ship was going down. That was the last I saw of them, and a boy named James Farrell, of Clonee, Killoe, who was lost too. It was terrible to hear the cries of the poor creatures when they were going down, and I can’t just bear to write about it, so I will send you the papers with all about it. We were brought to St Vincent’s Hospital and feel all right again.’
(The Irish Post, 11 May 1912)
Family accounts tell that the girls’ widowed and elderly mother, Maria, refused to entertain the idea of her two daughters emigrating and insisted that they both stay on the farm. She said she did not rear her children for them all to go to America and abandon their last parent. It is difficult not to have sympathy with Mrs Murphy’s position – she had given birth to twelve children in all, five of whom died in infancy, and by 1912 she had but a quarter of her offspring at home. Her husband had died from a heart attack a year previously.
Margaret and Kate decided that they were going to go to America anyway, despite their mother’s refusal, and began hiding trunks in the barn and taking items out to the trunks. Both ran away to the Kiernan home just before the departure for Queenstown.
Kate brought her violin aboard the Titanic and played sets with other musicians in the Third-Class party on the night of the collision. She left behind her instrument in the chaos of trying to get to the boat deck and remembered John Kiernan building a makeshift ladder out of deckchairs for the girls to clamber to the safety of the Second-Class deck.
Anne McCabe, daughter of Margaret Murphy, says she does not believe her mother was engaged to John Kiernan, despite mysterious mention of a $100 diamond ring in Margaret’s claim for lost personal effects.
The Murphy girls were met on arrival in New York by brother Patrick and the three other sisters – Annie, Bridget and Rose.
Barely two weeks thereafter, Kate met the man who was to become her husband. Romance blossomed at the wedding of her sister Annie to Dennis Guilfoyle, when bridesmaid Kate became entranced with the groom’s brother Michael and later married the 19-year-old postman at Corpus Christi Church in New York in 1913. Two sisters were now married to two brothers.
In that same year of 1913, fellow Titanic survivor Margaret Murphy met and married mortician and sometime ballroom promoter Matthew O’Reilly from Cavan. This couple returned home that year on honeymoon to see Margaret’s mother, the bride deeply ashamed that she had never said goodbye properly. Kate, however, could not be prevailed upon to make a return visit, and in fact never did so, retaining ‘an extreme fear of water and flying’.
It is reported that Mrs Murphy was relieved to see at least one of her daughters, having originally believed that neither Margaret nor Kate had been saved, but rather drowned as punishment for defying their mother.
Both Catherine and Margaret had children, three each, and both families were brought up for a time in the same four-storey building in Manhattan.
Report of the American Red Cross (Titanic Disaster) 1913:
No. 323. (Irish.) Two sisters, domestic servants, 21 and 16 years old. ($200)
The sisters were also each given $25 in cash from Fr Michael J. Henry of the Irish Immigrant Society. Perhaps believing that free money was easily obtained in the United States, both Margaret and Kate filed hugely exaggerated claims for compensation for property lost on the Titanic. The extended clan now insists the sisters were acting under instructions from an older brother. Together they sought more than $1,800 for their few belongings, as follows:
Schedule of Margaret Murphy:
1 cloak, $30; 3 suits, $80; 10 gowns, $150; 6 shirtwaists (2 lace), $35; 4 skirts, $25; 1 set of furs, $50; 6 hats, $60; ½ doz. pairs silk stockings, $6; 1 doz. cotton stockings, $6; undergarments, $50; 6 pairs shoes, $24; 2 albums, $12; 12 yds linen, $30; 5 Irish lace collars, $125; 6 prs gloves, $9; ½ doz. lace handkerchiefs, $3; 1 doz. linen handkerchiefs, $3; 1 silk umbrella (gold handle), $15; 1 parasol, $5; 1 diamond ring, $100; 1 locket and chain, $25; 1 bracelet, $10; 2 hand knit sweaters, $10; 1 raincoat, $7; 1 silver mesh bag, $10; 1 leather bag, $4; 1 silver toilet set, $10; 2 sets combs, $4; 2 trunks, 2 dress suit cases. Total: $901.
Schedule of Katherine Murphy:
One gold watch, $30; Two rings, $20; One gold bracelet, $5; Two gold breast pins, $8; One set of Rogers’ silverware, $15; One assorted lot of linen, towels, table cloths, $25; Two long coats, $50; One set of mink furs, $50; Four embroidered dresses, $60; Two silk dresses, $40; Four tailor-made suits, $100; Two hats with plumes, $25; Three Irish linen dresses, $40; One gent’s suit, $35; Twelve pairs of hand-made stockings, $12; One shawl, $2; One lot of underwear, $23; One half-dozen pairs of shoes, $20; One lot of family relics, $40; Cash, U.S. currency, $300. Total: $900.
Margaret Murphy O’Reilly died of a heart attack in Slate Hill, New York, on 29 September 1957. Aged 68, she had been a widow for nearly twenty years.
Katherine Murphy Guilfoyle died at Swan Lake, New York, her home of thirty-seven years, on 24 September 1968. She was aged 73, and had been a widow for six years.
1911 census – Murphy. Fostragh, County Longford.
Parents Michael (70), farmer, and Maria (66).
Married 40 years, with 12 children born, of whom seven were then living.
Children in house: John (38), Maggie Jane (21), Kate (16).
Norah Murphy (34) Saved
Joint ticket number 36568. Paid £15 10s.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: Sallins, County Kildare.
Destination: 231 East 50th Street, New York city.
Norah was travelling with Michael McEvoy, a 19-year-old workman with whom she had taken up following the ending of her own marriage, details of which remain obscure.
She was 34 years old, and had been working as a nanny in her home town of Sallins, County Kildare. In the 1911 census, she is found to be a domestic working in the household of John and Mary Healy and their family of six children in Sallins.
Norah and Michael were travelling on the same ticket, but were accommodated at opposite ends of the Titanic. Norah had signed aboard as a spinster, but local folklore in her home village suggests she had a chequered past.
In the chaos of the early morning of 15 April 1912, Norah was bundled into a lifeboat, possibly No. 16 on the port side, while Michael accepted the fate ordained for him as a man of low social standing.
Ms Murphy had initia
lly stated a boarding house address as her intended destination, at 231 East 50th Street, but following her rescue by the Carpathia she indicated to customs and immigration officers that she now intended to seek refuge at the Irish Immigrant Girls Home at 7 State Street. It is known that she did go there and received a small amount of assistance from the religious administrators of the home. She was also given relief by the American Red Cross, in the amount of $100. Listed as case number 324, an Irish nursemaid, she said she was 32 years old.
Not a single detail is known of Norah Murphy’s later life in the United States. One report was that she became a domestic for a Titanic survivor from First Class – a woman she met on the Carpathia.
Thomas Myles (62) Lost
Ticket number 240276. Paid £9 13s 9d.
Boarded at Queenstown. Second Class.
From: Fermoy, County Cork.
Destination: Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Thomas Myles was an adventurer who had worked for the White Star Line – owners of the Titanic – for nearly half a century. But he had also been able to assemble an independent fortune, having arrived in America in 1875 at the age of 26 with just £1 in his pocket.
From a wealthy landed family who lived in Brook Lodge, Fermoy, he had nonetheless roved off to sea, joining the original White Star company. He sailed to India from Liverpool on a freighter skippered by his cousin, and visited Bombay and Calcutta. Later he sailed the length of the mighty Mississippi. He began acquiring land and eventually became a real estate tycoon, owning a string of properties. By the turn of the century, he lived in a splendid mansion named ‘Idlewild’ in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He had reached his later years when a family death brought him back to Ireland to sell part of the family’s holdings to provide for the future well-being of his severely mentally handicapped brother James, now the only family member in Ireland. In packing for the return journey, he made sure to bring with him fifty pounds of pure Irish creamery butter, together with ten pounds of tea, valued at $15. Clearly he was a man who liked his comforts from the old country. Myles was the only passenger booked aboard with an address at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and he is clearly the man described by his fellow Second-Class passenger, Lawrence Beesley, on the afternoon of Sunday 14 April:
