Irish Aboard Titanic (6 page)

I want to ask you whether, from what you saw that night, you feel that the steerage passengers had an equal opportunity with other passengers and the crew in getting into the
lifeboats
?

Yes, I think they had as good a chance as the First- and Second-Class passengers.

You think they did have?

Yes. But at the start they tried to keep them down on their own deck.

But they broke down this gate to which you have referred?

Yes, sir.

And then they went on up, as others did, mingling all together?

Yes, they were all mixed up together.

Have you told all you know, of your own knowledge, about that?

Yes.

Were you where you could see the ship when she went down?

Yes, I saw the lights just going out as she went down. It made a terrible noise, like thunder.

I wish you would tell the committee in what part of the ship this steerage was located.

Down, I think, in the lower part of the steamer, in the after part of the ship, at the back.

That is all. Thank you.

Buckley told the
Daily Times
on landfall: ‘The lights were kept burning until the ship sank from sight. Men fought with women down in the steerage, and time and again officers would drag men from the boats in order to let women have their places.'

Daniel Buckley is buried in his native Ballydesmond, County Cork. The inscription on his grave reads: ‘Of your charity, pray for the soul of Dannie Buckley, Ballydesmond, who was killed in action in France, on Oct 15th 1918, aged 28 years. Survivor of Titanic.'

Brave Irish American Soldier Second Lieutenant Daniel Buckley

A survivor of the ill-fated
Titanic,
he volunteered for active service under the stars and stripes in the 69th Irish (Rainbow Division) on American entrance to the war.

He came to France with his regiment in October 1917, saw fighting in several battles, had some miraculous escapes, the same Supernatural power which aided him in the
Titanic
still appearing to come to his assistance.

He was wounded, though not seriously, in April last, and fell, paying the supreme penalty, fighting under the flag of his adopted country, just previous to the cessation of hostilities. He was a native of Kingwilliamstown, County Cork, where he was extremely popular previous to his departure for the States.

(
The Cork Examiner
, 15 January 1919)

Buckley had joined the US army in June 1917, reasoning that it was better to choose his unit rather than wait to be conscripted. He wrote home having left his job in a Manhattan hotel: ‘Well mother, I am after volunteering to go with the 69th regiment. The regiment is composed of all Irish fellows, about 2,000 strong … I hope you won't be vexed, but proud that there is one of the family gone in at least to put some nails in the Kaiser's coffin.'

He trained at Camp Mills in Long Island and arrived in France that fall with Company K of the 165th US infantry. His early letters complained of overcharging by locals – ‘they think we must be all millionaires when we come from the US' – while adding that he had little of his $15 a month pay left having contributed $6.70 to an insurance scheme. He also arranged for much of the pay to be channelled directly to his family.

He was soon in the trenches, and though censorship meant he could not describe military activity, wrote glowing generalised accounts: ‘We had some great battles with the huns, but they run away when they see an American bayonet shining in the sunlight.'

Reality intruded, and he sustained some wounds which he passed off with brief references. A letter written on captured German paper related the death of a friend, Jack Reardon. ‘He was a fine fellow and loved by all his pals as he was full of life. God have mercy on his soul. I hope he is better off, as this is a rough life over here. He was not killed instantly, but died in hospital. I have had some narrow escapes myself, but thanks to God I have been lucky so far …'

His last letter was written on 9 October 1918, six days before his death:

My dear mother,

I am writing you a few lines hoping you are well, also Nonie, Julian, Jack and Neal, also all in Kingwilliamstown.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago and did not get a chance since, as we are very busy drawing the huns back on all fronts. I believe the war will soon be over, as the Germans are getting a great licking.

I received the medals you sent me, also the cigarettes, but only 15 packets were left. I was glad to get them as I was at the front then. At present I am behind the lines a little way and the music of our big guns is ringing all around. Last Sunday we attended Mass in the woods, + as Father Duffy says, with the music of the cannon to take the place of the organ.

I hope you receive the allotment as it will soon be five months due, as it started June 1st. Tell Nell Herlihy I received her letter + will write later as I get no paper at present. This is a wild place and all towns are in a level with the ground. I got a cold already and I hope we will be out of here before winter.

I will close now and say Good Bye, Good luck to all at home.

Your fond son,

Pvt Daniel Buckley.

Dannie Buckley was reported shot dead by a sniper while helping to retrieve wounded, somewhere on the Meuse-Argonne front.

He was initially interred in France, his remains only returning to Ireland in the spring of 1919 for burial in ‘sweet' Kingwilliamstown. It was the first time he had been back since 1912 – and the locals standing in the graveyard noted that the surrounding fields were indeed ‘white with daisies'.

Jeremiah Burke (19) Lost

Ticket number 365222. Paid £6 15s.

Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

From: Ballinoe, White's Cross, Upper Glanmire, County Cork.

Destination: Mrs Burns, 41 Washington Street, Charlestown, Massachusetts.

Jeremiah Burke is the passenger fabled to have thrown a despairing message in a bottle from the decks of the sinking
Titanic
. Miraculously, the bottle washed up on the shoreline just a short distance from his home in Ireland just over a year later.

The message contains an unclear date which could variously be 10, 12 or 13 April 1912. The
Titanic
struck the berg at 11.40 p.m. on 14 April. Interestingly, an article in the
Irish News
, published on 20 April 1912, observed that very few authentic messages from shipwrecks had ever come to safety and ‘very many … are cruel hoaxes'.

Jeremiah's grieving family believed the message found by a coachman on the shore at Dunkettle, close to their home, was authentic. The message reads: ‘From
Titanic.
Good Bye all. Burke of Glanmire, Cork'. Kate Burke, his mother, recognised her son's handwriting. She announced that the bottle was the same holy water bottle she had given to her boy on the day of his departure.

Jeremiah Burke was only 19, and stood six feet two inches in his stockinged feet. He was the youngest of seven children who had all worked on the 70-acre family farm, and stated on embarkation that he was an agricultural labourer.

Two of his sisters had previously emigrated to the US and he was resolved to join them when a letter arrived from Charlestown with money for his passage. His cousin Nora Hegarty, from neighbouring Killavarrig, decided to accompany him on the expedition to America.

Jeremiah's father William drove the cousins to Queenstown in his pony and trap. He reported seeing them making friends with another intending passenger, a piper identified as Eugene Daly. He survived, while both Jeremiah and Nora drowned.

More Cork Victims

The sympathy of the people of Cork will go out in full measure to the parents of Miss Nora Hegarty of Killavallig, Whitechurch, and Mr Jeremiah Burke, of Upper Glanmire, both of whom were only 19 years of age and who lost their lives in the
Titanic
disaster.

They left Queenstown full of hope for a bright and happy career in the United States. They were seen off by a number of relatives and friends and with them they cheerfully discussed their future prospects, but alas their young hopes and schemes were doomed by cruel disappointment.

They were both very popular in the Glanmire and Whitechurch districts and the shock which their death occasioned was general and acute. Their parents and relatives will have the sympathy of all in the great sorrow into which they have been plunged.

(
The Cork Examiner,
27 April 1912)

Then in early summer 1913, the Royal Irish Constabulary contacted the family with the news that a man walking his dog had picked up the message in a bottle at Dunkettle, where the river in Glanmire meets the Lee and flows to the sea. The note is now on public display at the Queenstown Experience visitor attraction in Cobh.

His grandniece has said: ‘The bottle and note were all his mother had, and in a way it was like a tombstone. He wouldn't have thrown away a bottle of holy water his mother gave him. There was an element of panic to it.'

Last Hour Messages

The possibility that messages from some of the people left on the doomed
Titanic
may have been committed to the deep is discussed … Such notes, enclosed in bottles, may have been thrown overboard; and if so, their chances of being found are a hundred times better than those of any messages ever given to the sea. The US cruiser [
sic
]
MacKay-Bennett
is only one of the many ships that will be sent specially to search the scene of the shipwreck, and the possibility of salvaging something from the wreckage is certain to draw many Newfoundland fishing boats to the spot.

It is of course true that very few authentic messages from wrecks have ever come to safety. Very many that were first reported turned out to be cruel hoaxes. The bottle-messages that purported to come from the
Yongala
, which went down off Queensland, and from the Allan liner
Huronian
, which was lost in the North Atlantic, and from the
Waratah,
whose fate was never known, were all discovered to be false.

One of the few cases that were considered authentic was the bottle-message that was found some time after the
Bay of Bengal
sailed from England, saying that she had been wrecked almost immediately after putting to sea. Nothing more was ever heard of this ship.

(
Irish News
,
20 April 1912)

The theme of the ship that sailed and was never seen again has always had a horrible fascination. The White Star steamer
Naronic
was built in 1892 and was described as the finest and safest vessel ever launched.

She left Liverpool for New York on 11 February 1893, and then disappeared forever. But six weeks afterwards a champagne bottle was found on the beach at Ocean View, Virginia, containing a letter alleged to have been written by John Olsen, a cattleman on board.

‘The
Naronic
is fast sinking. It is such a storm that we cannot live in the small boats. One boat with its human cargo has already sunk. We have been struck by an iceberg in the blinding snow. The ship has floated for two hours. It is now 3.20 in the morning, and the deck is level with the sea.' That is all we have ever heard of the
Naronic.

(
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.