Irish Aboard Titanic (11 page)

He returned permanently to the United States in the early 1960s and died on 30 October 1965, at the age of 82, and was buried in St Raymond's Cemetery, the Bronx. He and wife Lillian had an only daughter, Marian Joyce, later Marian Van Poppe.

Athlone woman Bertha Mulvihill told the
Providence Evening
Bulletin of 19 April 1912, that a boy named Eugene ‘Ryan' from her home town had told the group on leaving Queenstown that he had dreamt the
Titanic
was going to sink: ‘Every night we were at sea he told us he had dreamt that the
Titanic
was going down before we reached New York. On Sunday night just before we went to bed, he told us the
Titanic
was going to sink that night. It was uncanny.'

Daly certainly knew Bertha and seems to have been keen on her. On 20 August 1912, he sent a postcard to ‘Miss Mulvihill' at the City Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. The card was a
Titanic
memorial card. Daly placed an X on the front illustration to indicate where his sleeping quarters had been and wrote on the reverse that he had ‘got home safe', apparently after a visit to Bertha. He added: ‘Hope you keep well until we meet again and perm. me to be ever your friend, Eoghan O'Dalaigh, a survivor. xxx'

Maggie Daly (30) Saved

Ticket number 382650. Paid £6 19s.

Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

From: Irishtown, Athlone, County Westmeath.

Destination: 356 East 157th Street, New York city.

Maggie was a cousin of Eugene Daly. She planned to join her older brother John Daly, who was a policeman in New York. She had previously lived in America and declared herself a citizen of the United States. After the disaster, Maggie wrote to her sister, Mary, a 41-year-old seamstress who lived with their widowed mother, Bridget Daly, at No. 98 Upper Irishtown. The parentheses are her own:

Dear Mary,

I am sure you think by this time I must have been at the bottom of the sea. Well I must say I am one of the lucky ones. I and Bertha Mulvihill are all that remains (11 left Athlone). That little girl from Summerhill (Delia Henry) and that boy Connaughton (Athlone), and I think Mrs Rice and her five boys perished.

It was a night I shall never forget. 20 people out of 200 Irish saved … all I have to regret is that I lost my clothes. I thought I would have a hard fight and I never would have been saved but for Eugene. He fought very hard for our lives.

(
The Cork Examiner,
7 May 1912)

Anxious relatives receive good new
s

This afternoon a cable was received by Miss Mary Daly, Irishtown, in the following terms: ‘Maggie and Eugene saved'.

The cable was despatched at New York by Miss Mary Daly's brother who met Miss Maggie Daly on the arrival of the
Carpathia
. The name Eugene refers to Mr Eugene Daly (a namesake) about whom his friends have been anxiously awaiting news for some days past.

Miss Margaret Daly has already spent many years in America, and came home about two years ago to her mother and sister, who reside in the old home in Irishtown. She was returning to join her brother and sister, who anxiously awaited her arrival in New York …

(
Westmeath Independent,
27 April 1912)

Report of the American Red Cross (Titanic Disaster) 1913:

No. 100. (Irish.) Domestic servant, 30 years old. ($100)

Margaret Devaney (23) Saved

Ticket number 330958. Paid £7 12s 7d, plus 5s extra.

Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

From: Kilmacowen, County Sligo.

Destination: 861 Sixth Avenue, New York city.

A knife given to Margaret Devaney as a parting gift by her teenage brother John was the implement that helped to save her and a boatload of others. Margaret was originally reported rescued in lifeboat No. 12 on the port side, launched relatively early. Once it reached the sea there were difficulties unhooking the boat from its falls, and a woman lent a pocketknife to able seaman John Poingdestre to enable him cut through the ropes.

Her children, however, believe Margaret to have been saved in collapsible C, launched from all the way forward on the starboard side at around 1.40 a.m. They believe the knife was used to cut ropes binding the oars in the boat. Margaret also spoke of having to reach out and help push the lifeboat away from the side of the stricken ship as it was lowered, which was the experience of people in collapsible C because the vessel they were abandoning was by now listing heavily to port. Her daughter, Helen Landsberg, declares firmly: ‘I know my mother was in collapsible C.' Margaret told her that when she arrived the lifeboat was full, but two men climbed out, allowing her a seat, thereby sealing their own fates.

Margaret was horrified at the screams of the drowning as the
Titanic
went down, and said she spent the whole night adrift praying on her Rosary. She later recalled how she had earlier been so happy peeling apples with John's knife and chatting with friends in the
Titanic
's Third-Class common room after an evening meal of ragout beef and potatoes. She said it was a lucky thing she had the knife when the call came to prepare to abandon ship.

Her grandson, Peter Mastrolia, says Margaret had left the steerage, coat in hand, for some fresh air on deck before going to bed when she felt a ‘tiny bump', that of the iceberg striking the ship, as she climbed the stairs. Later she tried to go back below to find her three travelling companions, but was ‘literally thrown into a boat'. Once away, and after the screaming had stopped, the occupants rowed for flickering pinpoints at the edge of the horizon. ‘You rowed toward a light and it would just be a star … '

Miss Mary Devaney, who is here with her sister, at No. 861 Sixth Avenue, told of burning her large straw hat in the night of terror they spent on the seas trying to attract help.

(
New York Herald
, 29 April 1912)

On arrival in New York, Margaret was equipped with a metal White Star flag emblem taken from her lifeboat and presented to her by a
Carpathia
crewman as a souvenir. Her family believes the gesture was a thank-you for providing the knife that helped her boat get away. Margaret also kept her steerage boarding card, stamped with the allocation of Q41, which placed her in a multi-berth cabin on E deck, all the way aft.

Margaret told US immigration on arrival that she was heading to join her sister Mary, and named her next of kin as her father John Devaney of Kilmacowen. She gave her occupation as a domestic. Also in America was her brother Michael (26), who was a stable groom to no less a personage than John D. Rockefeller, and who had sent her the fare to America. This expert horseman reportedly commandeered a police horse to force his way through the 10,000-strong quayside throng awaiting the rescue ship's arrival. When he did so, he discovered with relief that Margaret – who was not listed among the initial escapees – had been taken to St Vincent's Hospital.

Margaret Devaney, who found refuge in the home of her sister at No. 861 Sixth Avenue, in telling of her experiences, said:

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.

We were in the third cabins when the alarms were sounded. The doors leading to the other decks were closed on us and we had to climb up ladders to the boat deck. The last thing I remember after being in the boat was the cries of the drowning. I said the Rosary for them, and thought it didn't matter much what became of me, only I knew my parents would grieve.

(
Irish World,
New York, 4 May 1912)

In a later interview, Margaret indicated that the boy who had alerted the girls to the danger was Henry Hart, also from Sligo. Having gone up on the after well deck, the women returned to their cabin to put on life jackets. Margaret said Kitty Hargadon began suffering from seasickness or was nauseated with fear. She couldn't climb a vertical ladder – meant for crew use only – from the aft well deck to the Second-Class area. Mary Burns remained with Kitty while Margaret went on to attempt to locate a boat they could all use. Miss Devaney then said she was caught up in the crowd and forced into a boat alone.

On arrival in New York she stated her age to be 19, as she had on embarkation, trimming some years off. The 1901 census showed the family ages to be as follows: father John (40), mother Margaret (38), seven siblings – Michael (15), Mary (14), Maggie herself (12), Kate (10), John (8), Tim (5) and Dominic (3). Margaret appears to have been born on 15 May 1891, but she later adopted her husband's date of birth of 3 May 1892. She lived to be 83, a year older than her obituaries show.

Report of the American Red Cross (Titanic Disaster) 1913:

No. 118. (Irish.) Girl, 19 years of age, injured. ($100)

Margaret got work as a housemaid for a New York gynaecologist, helping to look after his young son. In 1914 she met her future husband on Long Island beach. John Joseph O'Neill was a plumber, and the couple were married in St Patrick's Cathedral in the heart of New York. They soon experienced heartbreak – their first child, Matthew, died after only one day of life in April 1921. Another baby, who went unnamed, lived for only twenty minutes after birth in October 1930.

The couple had four other children, two boys and two girls, who all lived long lives and brought joy to their parents. Margaret visited Ireland once, forty years after the
Titanic,
aboard the
Mauretania.
She found that little had changed with her home place. She visited the grave of W. B. Yeats in Drumcliffe, the poet to whom she had had a lifelong devotion.

Margaret Devaney O'Neill died on 12 June 1974, and lies buried in the Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey city. Her husband had predeceased her by fourteen years, dying in 1960, aged 65.

Margaret's knife, metal White Star burgee and ticket stubs were placed on display for many years in the immigration museum at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

Bridget Donohue (21) Lost

Ticket number 364856. Paid £7 15s.

Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

From: Cum, Addergoole, County Mayo.

Destination: 319 Central Avenue, Highland Park, Chicago.

The White Star Line turned Bridget Donohue into a man. The steamship company, in its final catalogue of the casualty toll from the world's worst shipping disaster, named her ‘Bert O'Donoghue'. The error has continued for decades, with many lists of the lost containing the name Bert O'Donoghue, when in fact that final indignity stems from a careless misreading of her handwritten name in the embarkation records. Bridget had been abbreviated to ‘Brt'.

Bridget was the daughter of David Donohue and Catherine Moyles, and was born on 11 January 1891. She was baptised three days later. Her mother died from complications of childbirth after the next baby, John, was delivered prematurely four years later, at just seven months. Their father struggled with his grief and two young children, but married again before the end of the century. His second wife was Ellen Cawley.

Bridget grew up as the mother hen to three stepsisters, Honoria, Ellen and Katie. They were aged just 13, 11 and 9 when she opted to leave home for a new start in the Windy City. She was on her way to her cousin Bridget Burke, who had offered accommodation and a leg up in life. She was 21 when she sailed on the
Titanic
with a large group of fourteen others from the general Lahardane area of County Mayo. Survivor Annie Kate Kelly described Bridget Donohue to the
Chicago Evening World
as one of ‘three blue-eyed rosy-cheeked girls', the others being Delia Mahon and Bridget Driscoll, although this is likely to be journalistic licence.

As in the case of most of the Irish victims, Bridget's body was never recovered.

United Irish League, Lahardane Branch

The members of the above branch met on Sunday to transact business of great importance, but the Chairman, Mr James Early said that he knew that every member of the branch felt awfully sad at the great many fine boys and girls who from their parish were lost by the
Titanic
disaster.

He himself felt extremely sorry that they had even some of the committee, who were at all times supporters of the cause, and who on that day four weeks, came into the league room and wished them to be successful until their isle would be crowned a nation.

Others who were lost were the sons and daughters of the good fighting nationalists of this parish, and as a token of sympathy for their parents and relatives they would adjourn the business of the meeting to another date.

(
Western People,
4 May 1912)

The
Titanic
Disaster
:
An Appeal to the Public

Sir – the whole parish of Lahardane, a poor district around Nephin, was plunged into grief when it became known that out of thirteen young girls and boys who embarked from there for America on the
Titanic
, only two were saved.

The young people left their native homes full of hope that they would soon be able to relieve the distress of their poor parents who have tried in vain to support themselves and their families on small uneconomic holdings of mostly reclaimed bog. The condition of the parents of those who went down with the
Titanic
may now be better imagined than described.

(
Western People
, 22 May 1912)

1911 census:

Parents: David (54) and Ellen (51).

Children:
Bridget (20)
, John (16), Honoria (12), Ellen (10), Kate (8).