Irish Aboard Titanic

by Senan Molony

  He perished in the disaster, and the moment the big ship went down Mrs Lynch heard a noise outside her house and saw the figure of her son approaching her in the same attire he wore the morning he left.

  Thinking he had changed his mind, she rushed forward, exclaiming ‘Have you come back again, Tom?’ when suddenly the figure vanished.

  (Irish Independent, 27 May 1912)

  The family of Pake confirm the substance of the above error-strewn story. Ellen Shaughnessy did indeed have a vision of her son in broad daylight and knew at that moment he was dead. A namesake nephew, Pat Shaughnessy, declares: ‘She didn’t want him to go because he was the youngest and the favourite.’

  A physically tough man, equine trader Pake was also described, somewhat paradoxically, as a stylish dresser, always concerned to cut a dashing figure. He was envied too for a new bicycle, the best in the village.

  On the gravestone of his brother Thomas in Tynagh today is the inscription: ‘His brother, Patrick ‘Pake’ who was lost in the Titanic Apr 14 1912 aged 28 years’.

  Being the eldest, Thomas had stayed at home, as he would inherit the family farm. By the 1911 census, Tom is the farmer on the land, while mother Ellen is a widowed housekeeper. Tom’s younger brother, Patrick, in a place of subservience, is described as a farmer’s labourer.

  Pake was initially travelling out to America to join his sister Bridget, who had married a man named Burke and had moved to New York. The Burkes lived on Lexington Avenue, and Pake was assured of a hearty welcome in his newly adopted home. He hoped to pick up some kind of manual work and had already lopped some years off his age to prepare for hiring-fair competition with younger men. He told the record-takers for the Titanic that he was 20, but had hit that mark at least six years earlier if the 1911 census or later grave inscription are to be believed.

  Pake was one of those originally slated to travel on the White Star’s Cymric, but transferred to the more luxurious Titanic by reason of the coal strike and crossing cancellations.

  1911 census:

  Ellen (65), housekeeper, widow.

  Thomas (40), farmer; Patrick (24), farmer’s labourer.

  Ellen Shine (17) Saved

  Ticket number 330968. Paid £7 12s 7d, plus 4s extra.

  Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

  From: Lisrobin, Newmarket, County Cork.

  Destination: 205 Eighth Avenue, New York city.

  The longest-lived Irish survivor of the Titanic was Ellen Shine. She reached the age of 98 (although she had convinced herself she was 101), dying in Long Island, New York, in 1993.

  She told a story of the men in steerage being kept back and was quoted as witnessing actual killings.

  Cork girl’s story

  A thrilling story was told by Ellen Shine, a 20-year-old girl from County Cork who crossed to America to visit her brother.

  ‘Those who were able to get out of bed,’ said Miss Shine, ‘rushed to the upper deck where they were met by members of the crew who endeavoured to keep them in the steerage quarters.

  ‘The women however rushed past the men and finally reached the upper deck. When they were informed that the boat was sinking, most of them fell on their knees and began to pray. I saw one of the lifeboats and made for it.

  ‘In it there were already four men from the steerage who refused to obey an officer who ordered them out. They were however finally turned out.’ – Reuter

  That report, carried in The Times of London on Saturday 20 April, is exactly the same as quotes attributed to Ellen Shine and carried in the Denver Post, the Daily Times, and other US newspapers on the previous day, with one difference. The American reports continued:

  … in it were four men from the steerage. They were ordered out by an officer and refused to leave. And then one of the officers jumped into the boat, and, drawing a revolver, shot the four men dead. Their bodies were picked out from the bottom of the boat and thrown into the ocean.

  How can posterity reconcile these two versions? Were the claimed killings the product of a survivor’s fevered mind or a journalist’s reckless embellishment? Did Reuter deliberately choose to tone down the story in plucking it from another source, or was there simply no mention by Ellen of any killings in the first place? No other witnesses described four men being callously shot inside a lifeboat by an officer of the White Star Line, and no bodies were ever recovered with discernible gunshot wounds.

  Ellen Shine appears to have escaped in lifeboat No. 13, which was located as the second-last boat on the starboard side, towards the stern. Eugene Daly frankly confesses that he was a steerage passenger who climbed into a lifeboat in defiance of orders at this location. Daly said he was forced from a boat at the ‘second cabin deck’, an area of promenade for middle-ranking passengers, and talks of being on the starboard side, where boat No. 13 was lowering:

  We afterwards went to the second cabin deck and the two girls and myself got into a boat. An officer called on me to go back, but I would not stir. Then they got a hold of me and pulled me out.

  No one testified to any disorder at boat No. 13 at the two official inquiries. Steward Frederick Ray, who was in this boat, told the US Senate investigators, in reply to questions, that he saw no male passengers or men of the crew ‘ordered out or thrown out of these lifeboats on the starboard side. Everybody was very orderly.’ But Irish passenger Dannie Buckley declared: ‘Time and again officers would drag men from the boats … ’ Resolution of the problem is elusive. Should one disregard the claims of men shot dead for staying stubbornly in a lifeboat? Someone somewhere is spinning pure invention.

  Ellen Shine told her story once and would never be drawn on it again. According to the embarkation records, she was an 18-year-old spinster, but by the time US immigration had come aboard the Carpathia, she declared herself to be a 16-year-old servant from Newmarket, County Cork. She was actually aged 17 when she boarded the Titanic and from the small hamlet of Lisrobin (Buckley mistakenly referred to her as ‘the Shine girl from Lismore’ in a letter home composed on the Carpathia). She was on her way to join her brother Jeremiah in New York.

  Ellen collapsed in hysterics when met by Jeremiah and other relatives at the Cunard pier in New York, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. It reported the next day that she and other women had knocked down crewmen who tried to prevent steerage passengers from reaching the boat deck.

  Ellen’s was case number 418 to be dealt with by the American Red Cross. The notes from this report record her saying she was aged 16 and that she had lost clothing and a cash sum of $500. She was awarded $100 in aid.

  In later years, Ellen Shine married and became Mrs John Callaghan. Her husband, a firefighter, hailed from Kiskeam, also in Cork, and they settled in New York. They first returned to Ireland only in 1959, on the Mauretania, but made a number of visits thereafter. The couple had two daughters, Julia and Mary, whom Ellen would be fated to outlive.

  In 1976 she moved from Manhattan to Long Island to be with her family following the death of her husband. In 1982 she entered Glengariff nursing home where she celebrated her 100th birthday in 1991 – three years early. By this stage, however, Ellen was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Never having discussed the Titanic disaster in nearly seventy years, she suddenly could not stop babbling about it. A torrent of Titanic revelations flowed from her loosened tongue, to the irritation of other residents. When Ellen finally wanted to talk about the disaster, no one was listening.

  Ellen Shine Callaghan died on 5 March 1993, and is buried in St Charles Cemetery, East Farmingdale, New York.

  A survivor of the Titanic Dies: Glen Cove woman was 101

  Helen Shine Callaghan of Glen Cove, one of the last survivors of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, died yesterday at North Shore University Hospital at Glen Cove at the age of 101.

  Callaghan, who was a resident of the Glengariff Nursing Home in Glen Cove, was 20 when she left her native Cork County, Ireland, for a better life in the United States, according
to her granddaughter, Christine Quinn [in 2011, the Speaker of the New York City Council].

  ‘She was from a big family and her parents were deceased and her sister was head of the family and decided that some of the siblings had to go to America,’ said Quinn.

  Like many of the survivors, Callaghan rarely discussed the tragedy. ‘I remember asking her questions as a girl. She never really answered them directly,’ Quinn said. ‘My mother only found out about it when she was in school and the teacher passed around a list with the survivors’ names on it and she saw her mother’s name on the list.’

  (Glen Cove Record-Pilot, 6 March 1993)

  1911 census – Shine, Lisrobin.

  Mary, widow (55). Had been married 21 years, nine children, eight yet living.

  Maggie (30), Ellie (18), James (22), John (25), creamery manager.

  Julia Smyth (17) Saved

  Ticket number 335432. Paid £7 14s 8d.

  Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

  From: Pottlebawn, Kilcogy, County Cavan.

  Destination: 462 West 20th Street, New York city.

  Julia credited her long legs with saving her – she was one of those who had to jump across a terrifying gap towards lifeboat No. 13 as the Titanic slumped deeper in her final death throes. In a letter home from New York to her family in Pottlebawn, written in a poorly educated hand, Julia described in a fleeting paragraph all the terror of the Titanic. She told how one of her shipboard companions, fellow Cavan passenger Kate Connolly, made the first leap of faith into a boat, prompting her to do the same:

  I am sure that there is not one in Pottle, boys or girls, would make the fight I made. There was thousands before me, and Katie jumped ought [sic] into the boat. Only my legs was long, I would never made it.

  Julia later also attributed her salvation to having some clay from a saint’s grave with her on board the Titanic, which was reputed to protect one from death by drowning. Mary McGovern, Julia’s roommate, had obtained the sacred clay as a precaution before sailing.

  Mr P. O’Connor, agent to the White Star Line in Granard, has received a telegram stating that Miss Julia Smyth, Pottlebawn, was rescued. The passage issued to Miss Smyth was first issued to a Miss Lynch from Pottlebawn for the Olympic on the 21st September last, on which occasion the vessel collided with the Hawke.

  Miss Lynch changed her mind about emigrating, and a few weeks ago her passage was transferred to Miss Smith.

  (Irish Independent, 19 April 1912)

  Julia was the daughter of Henry and Mary Smyth, of Pottlebawn, Kilcogy, County Cavan, one of seven children. She had been born in Dublin on 4 July 1894, the date perhaps a portent of her future emigration. When she chose to go, she was only 17 years old. She already had a brother in the United States, Henry, ten years her senior.

  When she wrote home to her mother, Julia had already found work as a domestic in a house at 346 Lexington Avenue. The letter, undated but thought to have been composed in late May at the earliest, betrays her inadequate schooling:

  My Dear Mother,

  I suppose you thought you would never here tell of me again when the ship sank. I suppose youse were in a terrible fret. But if any of you see the site that we all had to go through your faces would never be seen again.

  I cannot always be explain of it, for I am sick and tired of it talking of it all the time. Well mother I am not feeling so lonesome now because I have a good place for the start. I am learning everything. It is so hard to get a first-class place but I got it. But there is nothing but work. No matter where you go, every one say I am the luckeys one that ever struk New York to get in, because there is not a job to be got in the office. These people go to the country for the Summer. Nora Glean and me is left in the house for the Summer.

  We will be doin nothing the holl Summer. I can have a good rest. I hope youse have all the work done home and not last. Hope youse have Larry McCoonarty again. Tell him for me I will send him what will give him a good wash down for the Summer.

  I am so very lucky to be on the land of the living at all. Every says to me I was not on the Titanic at all I look so good. Every say I must get good times in the old Ireland. I suppose I would look if I never got much. I was pretty shuck coming over. I was sick all the time on the Ship.

  I nearly fell into the big sea when I was going up they ladder to the Carpatin that morning. I got wake [weak]. I was a few steps up. I fell back again but I said to myself I might as well strive and get in. Everyone for themselves that moment, life or death.

  I am sure there is not one in Pottle, boys or girls, would make the fight I made. There was thousands before me and Katie jumped ought into the boat. Only my legs was long I would never made it. Everyone seems very nice to me. Bridget Ballasty bought me a nice waist. Bridget the neighbour bought me a lovely present. I saw all from home.

  James told me that a lot of people went from home. He never told me there names. Tell him write and tell me. I am finished cleaning. Resting all evening. Write me soon. Pray for me, mama. XX Julia

  I get oatmeal sturboat in the morning to ate. Tell the cricket I was asking for him. Is the gang in Pottle again.

  346 Lexington Ave. This is my adres. America is no jock. Ireland is the place for everyone that can stay home. I am sure Henry crys the day he ever left Pottle.

  The ‘start’ is an Irish term for getting a job. Julia jokes that she hopes that her family at home have all the work done and are not last – a reference to saving the hay and local competition not to be the last family to have gathered it all in. Larry appears to be a hired hand for that purpose, and his promised good wash down has nothing to do with hygiene and everything to do with refreshment after labour. Her mention of the ‘Titinice’ is a wonderful, if Freudian, conjunction of a Titanic that seems to have become enmeshed in ice.

  It is noticeable that her friends in America bought her presents to console her, including a waist, which was a cummerbund-type of female apparel. But it also seems that Julia was sick for some time after rescue – she was pretty shaken coming over and ‘sick all the time on the Ship’, being the Carpathia.

  We know from American Red Cross records that Julia became more seriously ill upon landing, reason perhaps for her to receive sympathetic presents and plenty of visitors:

  No. 428. (Irish.) Girl, 20 years old, soon developed scarlet fever, and needed hospital and convalescent care. ($150)

  Julia seems to have later lost contact with her comrade-in-catastrophe Kate Connolly, whom she had met at the platform in Ballywilliam train station in Cavan and accompanied all the way to Queenstown, onto the Titanic, into a lifeboat, up the ladder to the Carpathia, and onto Pier 54 in New York. The pair had roomed together on the Titanic, along with Mary McGovern and Clare woman Mary Agatha Glynn. Julia later married twice, but never had any children.

  Her first wedding was in 1917. On 30 November that year, she married US Army officer William Glover, a 26-year-old New Yorker. Julia was aged 23, and had been living at 97 Central Park West. The space for her occupation on the marriage licence was filled with a dismissive pen-stroke. How that marriage came to an end is not known, but Julia visited Ireland in 1962, fifty years after the sinking, as the wife of an Englishman named Thomas White. He was then aged 68, Julia a year younger. Thomas outlived her by six years, dying on 28 April 1983.

  A United States Navy chaplain held a memorial service in an aircraft over the North Atlantic yesterday to mark the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

  A wreath was dropped from the US coastguard plane on the icy waters where more than 1,500 people died after the liner hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York in 1912.

  Several survivors of the sinking attended another memorial service in New York Seamen’s Church Institute. Among them was … Mrs Julia Smith White (64), who was 14-year-old Julia Smith [sic] at the time of the disaster.

  (Belfast Telegraph, 16 April 1962)

  Miss Julia Smith White … recalled the legend of the man
in woman’s clothing. She said: ‘I remember him, he was a lad from Dublin, and he got into our lifeboat, No. 13, the last to leave the ship.’

  She remembered not being able to leave the vessel immediately. ‘We went back and braided our hair, and said our prayers,’ she said.

  (Evening Press, 16 April 1912)

  Niece Diana Ylstra Maher, the two-year-old in the photograph, said: ‘My memories of Julia are of a very strong, outspoken woman who always stood up for what she believed. When my mother or I had to handle a difficult situation, we used Julia as our model.’

  Julia Smyth White died on 27 April 1977 in Manhattan, at the age of 82. She is buried in St Raymond’s Cemetery, the Bronx. Her long legs and determination had saved her for over sixty-five years since the Titanic’s sinking.

  1911 census – Smyth. Pottlebawn.

  Parents: Henry (68) and Mary (50), married 30 years, 9 children, 7 surviving.

  Children: Mary Anne (29), dressmaker; Henry (26), James (23), Agnes (20), Delia (19), Julia (17), Maggie (12).

  Thomas Smyth (26) Lost

  Ticket number 384461. Paid £7 15s.

  Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

  From: Chapelfinnerty, Caltra, County Galway.

  Destination: Long Island, New York city.

  Thomas Smyth was a talented groom. He loved working with horses in the stables of Lord Clonbrock’s estate close to his home. But slowly, the white horses of the sea began to exert their own beguiling influence.

  Tom was 26 years old and was the last of the offspring left at home. He alone had to look after his widowed father, Patrick, who was aged 77 by 1912. He worked all day, coming home to cook, clean and wash for the pair of them, and a concern grew that the best years of his life were slipping away. He struck a remarkable pact with his older brother Patrick, an electric streetcar driver in New York, to come home to relieve Tom in the filial duties, allowing the youngest sibling to sample life in America.

  Patrick, aged 30, bought Tom his ticket and received a promise that Tom would return after two years in America. Two sisters, Bridget and Margaret, were already in Long Island, and it was to these that he would initially journey as the bargain was put into effect.