Irish Aboard Titanic (17 page)

Eliza (15), Edward (14), Mary (12),
Bridget (Delia, 10)
, Margaret (9), Thomas (8), Nannie (5), Patrick (2).

‘John Horgan' Lost

Ticket number 370377. Paid £7 15s.

Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

From: Cork/Limerick?

Destination: New York.

The ‘Quiet Man' could be applied to John Horgan, whose name appears on the embarkation records for the
Titanic,
but whose disappearance led to not a single newspaper reference, nor any legal action against the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, nor any charitable disbursement, nor even a death notice nor a legal move for administration of his estate.

John Horgan certainly existed – but whether he embarked on the
Titanic
, or was replaced by someone using his ticket, is another matter. It will remain a mystery while Horgan's own origins remain unclear.

What is known is that John Horgan was listed to sail on the
Cymric,
from Queenstown, on Easter Sunday, 7 April 1912. He did not board that vessel – instead all of those booked aboard were transferred to the
Titanic
when the
Cymric
did not sail.

A man called ‘John Horgan' did board the
Titanic
on Thursday 11 April 1912. Later, in listing the Irish victims, the
Irish World
in New York referred to Horgan as being from County Limerick. It is also true that he came to the
Titanic
at Queenstown in the company of six other passengers from County Limerick. They were among the last to board, and it is known that the connecting train from Cork to Queenstown was late arriving at Deepwater Quay on that day. But it is also possible that John Horgan might have sold his ticket and this would explain the lack of newspaper references to anyone mourning his passing.

It is known that William O'Doherty, a Cork publican, bought the ticket assigned to a James Moran, and died in the disaster in the latter's name. O'Doherty was friends with another tavern worker, 19-year-old Timothy O'Brien, whom the Cork newspapers also insisted had gone down on the
Titanic
. But Timothy O'Brien does not appear on the list of passengers. Is it possible that he followed his friend O'Doherty's example and bought his ticket from John Horgan?
The Cork Examiner
of 17 April 1912, in a section headed ‘Believed Passengers', referred to ‘William Doherty [
sic
], 12 Old Market Place, employed by Messrs W. F. O'Callaghan, Daunt's Square, and Timothy O'Brien, billiard marker at the Oyster Tavern'. The rival
Cork Constitution
newspaper made the same pairing in the same day's edition.

The Mansion House relief fund does not list John Horgan among its Irish cases in a March 1913 report, but mentions a claimant mother of the surname Landers. It may be that Horgan sold to O'Brien, who in turn sold to Landers, but the case is mysterious. Daniel Landers of Castletown Conyers, County Limerick, is a likely candidate – most of his siblings had preceded him to New York.

Annie Jermyn (26) Saved

Ticket number 14313. Paid £7 15s.

Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

From: Dereenaclough, Ballydehob, County Cork.

Destination: East Lynn, Massachusetts.

Assisted into collapsible D, the last boat to be launched from the davits at around 2 a.m. on the morning of 15 April 1912, Annie Jermyn must have been terrified by the swamping sea now visibly dragging the
Titanic
nose-first to her watery consummation.

Amidst the green glow of the water swallowing rank on rank of portholes, the fury of men's desperate last actions and the tumult of grief and panic, Annie Jermyn may not even have known that her saviour was Bridget Driscoll, who eased her into the boat to safety. Bridget and Annie had travelled together from Ballydehob, County Cork, to the Devil's Hole off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, but instead of cementing their comradeship, the
Titanic
drove them apart.

Bridget Driscoll never saw Annie Jermyn again after the numbed and bedraggled survivors landed at New York three days later like so much storm-tossed flotsam. Both were treated by the American Red Cross, but Annie's movements later faded into obscurity – cloaked by her abrupt decision to disappear from her family in the United States with a man they regarded as an unsavoury character.

The entire family emigrated to the United States in the immediate aftermath of Annie's brush with death. Thomas Jermyn, her brother, died in Massachusetts in October 1965. Annie had been travelling to stay with her married sister, Mary Grace Draper, who was aged 29 and already living in Lynn, Massachusetts, where a local newspaper reported:

Survivor of
Titanic
in Lynn Home

Miss Annie Jermyn, sister of Mrs May Draper, of 21 Webster Street, and who is a survivor of the ill-fated steamer
Titanic
, arrived in this city Monday evening in company with Richard W. Draper, her brother-in-law … Mrs Draper had given up all hope of ever seeing her sister again. News came Saturday that she had been saved and was in St Vincent's Hospital, New York city.

Sunday, Mr Draper left for New York, met Miss Jermyn at the hospital and assisted her to this city, where she is to make her home with her sister, at 21 Webster Street. This was the first time that they had met each other in many years, and the meeting was a happy one. Miss Jermyn was in a very nervous condition.

Only immediate relatives of the young woman were allowed to see her. She immediately took to her bed and will probably be confined there for a week or so.

Mrs Draper says that her sister made but little talk of the disaster, evidently wanting to forget the terrible scenes of the night of horror when she made her hasty escape from the vessel. Miss Jermyn is unable to account for the exact cause of the injuries she received to her stomach, but believes that they must have been caused while getting into the lifeboat. She comes from County Cork, Ireland.

Audrey Carlton Sampson tells the subsequent story of this survivor. Audrey says her mother, Susan Sophia, known as Sophie, worried for years about what ever became of her sister Annie – whom the family always called ‘Nancy'. Sophie told her daughter that ‘Nancy' had lived with her own parents, Henry and Susan Jermyn, for a short time after they came to settle in the US, immediately after the disaster. But Annie – or ‘Nancy' – became involved with ‘a character the family didn't like' and suddenly vanished with him, losing all contact with the family.

The estrangement was a lasting one, and it is not known if Nancy later married her unsuitable suitor. Henry and Susan settled in Peabody, Massachusetts and lived in a big house on Carlton Street. Henry died there in 1930. Four years later, his widow, Susan Connell Jermyn, went for a one-day visit to the home of her son Harry in Lynn, Massachusetts, only to fall ill and die suddenly.

It was at this time that another of the sisters, Elizabeth Jermyn Hurd (also called Bessie or Betty), decided to try to find ‘Nancy'. She went to great effort and was successful in locating Nancy, who at that time, 1934, was living in New Jersey. But Nancy, perhaps still smarting from the sting of parental disapproval, refused to return for her mother's funeral and was never again seen by the family. Alienated in turn, some members of the Jermyn family told their children that their Aunt Nancy had been drowned on the
Titanic
. It was easier than telling them the painful truth.

Annie Jermyn had been born on 13 July 1885 into what appears to have been a prosperous Church of Ireland family – one that brought forth ten children over twenty years. Aged 26 when the
Titanic
sailed, she was in the company of Bridget Driscoll and Westmeath woman Mary Kelly, the trio buying sequential tickets at the Ballydehob shipping agency in West Cork.

1901 census – Jermyn. Dereenaclough, Ballydehob, County Cork.

Parents: Henry (45), Susan (44).

Children: Mary Grace (19), Richard (17),
Annie Jane (15),
James (14), Henry (11), John Willie (8), Lizzie (6), Thomas Michael (3), Susan Sophia (1).

Henry Forbes Julian (50) Lost

Ticket number 110344. Paid £26.

Boarded at Southampton. First Class.

From: Torquay, Devon.

Destination: San Francisco.

A thoroughly English gentleman, Henry Forbes Julian happened to have been born in Cork city on 9 May 1861. He was the son of a coachbuilder and his wife, Marie. He began his schooling in Cork, but the family soon relocated to Little Bolton, Lancashire. There is no evidence that Henry spent any time in Ireland for more than thirty years before the
Titanic
sailed.

He married in 1895, by which time he was a metallurgical engineer and a consultant to mines in South Africa and Germany. He was an extensive traveller, having also visited the West Indies, Mexico, Canada and the United States, having crossed the Atlantic thirteen times in the process.

Trip number fourteen was the unlucky one. His wife, Hester, was saved by a bout of flu which meant she could not join him on his journey to do business in California. The couple lived at ‘Redholme', 62 Braddons Hill Road East, Torquay. Henry was a founder of the Royal Automobile Club.

Andy Keane (23) Lost

Ticket number 12460. Paid £7 15s.

Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

From: Tobberoe, Derrydonnell, Athenry, County Galway.

Destination: 162 Melrose Street, Auburndale, Massachusetts.

Andy Keane was one of three brothers who were local sports stars. He and his brothers, Pat and Mike, were the backbone of the Derrydonnell hurling team, winners of the club championship for all of County Galway in the years 1909 and 1911. A former treasurer of Derrydonnell, Andy played in the championship final at Tuam on 26 November 1911, when special trains were laid on to carry supporters to the venue. Derrydonnell scored three second-half goals to beat Claregalway by a good margin.

Andy decided to leave Ireland and the team just months later, because his two sisters, Mary-Anne and Ellie, who were already in the United States along with his brother John, sent over the money for his passage. Both girls returned home for good in the wake of the sinking. Buying his ticket at Mahon's shop in Athenry, Andy signed aboard the
Titanic
as an agricultural labourer, giving his age as 23. He knew a near neighbour, Nora Healy, was also travelling on the vessel but was anxious to avoid her. He considered Nora ‘a bit touched'. He joked with his brothers that if he met her on board he would pretend he had never encountered her in his life before.

Andy packed his championship hurling medals, a dozen hurleys and a melodeon in his baggage. He was due to stay in America at the address of his brother John Keane, two years older, who had established his home in the small town of Auburndale, Massachusetts. Andy might also have decided to become an emigrant because his father had recently died, leaving older brother Patrick (26) to inherit the family farm.

There were eleven children in the family, six boys and five girls, and while the 120-acre farm was large, Andy evidently decided his fortune lay elsewhere.

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

No. 232. (Irish.) A farmer, twenty years of age, was drowned, leaving dependent his widowed mother and four younger children in Ireland. This Committee gave $100 to the mother for emergent relief. The case was referred to the English Committee, which made a grant of £25. ($100)

A solemn Requiem Mass was said in Andy's honour in the parish church, Athenry, in July 1912, celebrated by Canon Canton, PP, and attended by Gaelic games enthusiasts, team mates, and representatives of clubs from all over County Galway. At the county convention later in the year, the board presented a portrait of the deceased to his brother Patrick.

1911 census – Keane family, Tobberoe, Athenry.

Head: Norah Keane (61), widow.

Children: Patrick (26), labourer,
Andrew (22)
, labourer, single, Michael (20), Mary Anne (18), Martin (15), Thomas (9).

Daniel Keane (35) Lost

Ticket number 233734. Paid £12 7s.

Boarded at Queenstown. Second Class.

From: Gallowshill, Cratloe, County Clare.

Destination: St Louis, Missouri.

One of the few Irish Second-Class passengers, Daniel Keane clearly decided to travel in comfort on his voyage to America. Indeed, he was considered rather rich in his home place and eyebrows were raised at the abandonment of a valuable bicycle, which he had grandly left behind at his sister Bridget King's house. It was not the only commodity he forswore in Ireland, for his estate subsequently amounted to £145, a large sum indeed when many of the Irish victims of the disaster left only a handful of pounds.

‘He was going to America to get a job. He had a belt around his stomach made of all sovereigns,' said his grandniece Ita Cusack. ‘The night before he left, he attended a farewell party and dance at his sister's house.'

Before he decided to seek pastures new, Keane had been living in Dublin and working as a tram conductor on the Donnybrook–Phoenix Park line. He lived in lodgings in Marlboro Road, Donnybrook, close to the terminus of the No. 59 tram. He appears in No. 4 Marlboro Road in the 1911 census, where he is described as a 34-year-old tram conductor, single, from County Clare. Keane was boarding with the Gaffney family, and his fellow tenants include a motor man, a carpenter and a lacemaker.

Dublin Passengers

It is stated that there were four Second-Class passengers booked from Dublin at Messrs Cook's offices. Two women who called at noon yesterday to make enquiries bore marked traces of the grief and anxiety that they were suffering.

One of the four passengers booked from Dublin was Daniel Kane [
sic
], who, up to the time of his leaving Ireland, was employed as a tramway car conductor on the Donnybrook line.