Irish Aboard Titanic (21 page)

We expect to sail ought at a bout tin on tomorrow morning. I am sending a ring to Maria and one to C Fallon hoping ye will get them alright. Write today or tomorrow and let me know how ye got home.

To J wife.

We have great fun all dancing I will finish now. Excuse the writing. For I am in a great hurry. Goodby, yours faithfully

T. Kilgannon.

The worry over expense can be readily understood when it is realised that the Kilgannons were among the poorest of the emigrants, ‘living on the dirt under their fingernails' as the local phrase has it. They had just a five-acre holding with a tiny cottage distinguished by its dunghill in the front garden. The large pile of manure, built up of household waste, was used as compost fertiliser on their meagre plots.

Tom must have saved up for many years to buy his passage, which he eventually managed at Ryan's travel agency in the town of Ballygar, a little distance from his home. Not that his precarious finances made him parsimonious. The parting gifts to his older sister Maria and Miss Fallon, a girl from his neighbourhood, disclosed in the above letter, show how kind-hearted Tom Kilgannon was – kindness that even found expression in the midst of horror in mid Atlantic.

The reference ‘To J wife' tells his family to write to his brother John's wife in America, his destination, to let him know how they got home from seeing him off at Athlone railway station.

Thomas Joseph Kilgannon was last seen kneeling on the deck of the
Titanic
, saying the Rosary with two Galway companions, Martin Gallagher and Thomas Smith. The trio were watched by Helen Mockler – to whom a courageous Kilgannon had earlier given his Aran sweater, seeing that she was shivering – as she descended in what may have been lifeboat No. 16 on the aft port side of the
Titanic.
For her countrymen left behind it seemed there were no more boats.

Kilgannon was one of five Galway people who formed their own distinct group on the
Titanic,
made up of the three young men and two women from the same parish, the latter pair being Mockler and Margaret Mannion. All five made their way to the
Titanic'
s open decks after the young men apparently came to the women's room at the stern to escort them to the upper decks during the evacuation. The quintet reached the open air and saw the distress rockets streak up to an empty sky. When Miss Mockler was suddenly seized by a desire to return to her room for a forgotten bag, it may have been Tom Kilgannon who told her frankly: ‘Forget about your bag. If you save yourself, you'll be lucky.'

Mockler was referring to Kilgannon when she told a New York newspaper after the tragedy:

A young man who was in steerage with us helped me into the boat. It was cold and I had no wrap. Taking off the shirt he was wearing, he put it around my shoulders and the suspenders to keep it from blowing undone, and then stepped back into the crowd.

Helen Mockler later returned to Ireland and presented the sweater given to her by Kilgannon to his elderly mother, Mary. It must have been an emotion-charged moment. Mrs Kilgannon was a widow. After the
Titanic
tragedy
, she was left with three hungry mouths in the form of two young daughters and a boy. Local lore tells that Mrs Kilgannon learned of the loss of her son in a cablegram delivered to her home from the post office in Ballinamore Bridge on 17 April 1912. The cable was put into her hand as the sky darkened and the sun was blotted out. It may sound portentous, but in fact there was an eclipse of the sun on 17 April 1912, visible all over Ireland and the British Isles, which lasted from 11 a.m. until 1.30 p.m. For Mrs Kilgannon, the astral blackness meant the loss of her son's life.

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

No. 242. (Irish.) A farmer, 21 years of age, was lost, leaving a dependent mother in Ireland. The case was referred to the English Committee, and emergent relief was given. The English Committee gave £50.

Tom had been travelling over to join his brother John, a tram driver in Queens, New York. After the drowning, Tom's elder sister Maria emigrated to the United States, but Mrs Kilgannon refused to let her last remaining boy take a boat to the new land.

Instead William joined the Royal Irish Constabulary, serving during the worst years of the Irish troubles until 1922, when he left the force after nine years. His membership continued to cause the family many years of bitterness and division within their local community – whereas police work in America would have been a badge of pride for any Irish clan.

A lock of Thomas Kilgannon's hair is all that survives of the ill-educated but selfless man who went down in the North Atlantic. The family has preserved the blond cuttings in an oval frame, knitted to a linen garment that might have been his christening gown, surrounded by prayer cards and surmounted by the plain word ‘Thomas'.

1911 census – Kilgannon, Currafarry, County Galway.

Michael (80), farmer, widower. His daughter-in-law Mary (60), widow.

Her children Maria (23),
Thomas (21)
, William (18).

John James Lamb (30) Lost

Ticket number 240261. Paid £10 14s 2d.

Boarded at Queenstown. Second Class.

From: Old Boleys, Wicklow.

Destination: Providence, Rhode Island.

John James Lamb appears to have worked in the world of theatre. He had emigrated from relatively wealthy origins in Ireland. He was from Old Boleys, County Wicklow, and was 30 years old. John James was the eldest son of prosperous farmer Martin Lamb, who was aged 70 by the time of the 1901 census. But the old man still had plenty of life in him – his wife, Catherine, John's mother, was three decades his junior and had borne him several children.

Catherine (41) was mother to five other children besides John, who was already in America by 1901. That year's census shows the other offspring at home in Ireland to be Martin (17), Edward (15), Catherine (12), Theresa (8) and Mary Anne (6).

Providence, R.I., April 16 – Four Providence residents are known to have been passengers on the ill-fated
Titanic
.
They include … James Lamb, a theatrical man, who had been returning from a three-month tour abroad …

(
Brooklyn Daily Eagle,
16 April 1912)

John James Lamb was born in 1881, had been living with his sister Catherine in Providence, Rhode Island, and was returning to the US after a visit home.

Patrick Lane (16) Lost

Ticket number 7935. Paid £7 15s.

Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

From: 8 Clare Street, Limerick city.

Destination: West 45th Street, New York city.

‘Poor Paddy Lane,' murmured the girl after a pause. ‘He was a fine young fellow, a little younger than I am, and when we were leaving the other side, his folks asked me to please look after poor Paddy in America. When the boats were being lowered, Paddy knelt on the deck and prayed. Then he began to run around calling for the priest. And he started for the other side of the ship. I never saw him again. Paddy went down with the ship,' said survivor Nellie O'Dwyer, also from Limerick city, in an interview with the
Brooklyn Daily Times
in May 1912.

Paddy was the eldest son in a family of six children. He had been working as an assistant in a marine store and perhaps it was constant contact with affairs of the sea that drew him to consider crossing the Atlantic to seek his fortune. However, he was listed as an agricultural labourer aboard the
Titanic,
with a given age of 17. Nellie O'Dwyer was 23, but with cabins for single men and women at opposite ends of the 882-foot ship, there was a limit to how much she could look after the young man.

Feared loss of Limerick passenger

We have received, this evening, a communication from Messrs M.P. Riordan & Co., George Street, White Star Agents, stating: ‘It is our painful duty to inform you that we have just received an official telegram that poor Patrick Lane of Clare Street, the young fellow whom we booked on SS
Titanic,
has to be definitely considered as lost.'

(
Limerick Chronicle
, 23 April 1912)

1911 census – Lane, Clare Street, Limerick.

Parents James (46), factory labourer, Margaret (38).

Children Bridget (18),
Patrick (15)
, Michael (12), Mary Kate (10), Theresa (4), James (1).

Denis Lennon (20) Lost

Mary Mullin (18) Lost

Joint ticket number 370371. Paid £15 10s.

Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

From: Lennon was from Curraghcreagan, Ballymahon, County Longford; Mullin was from Clarinbridge, County Galway.

Destination: New York city.

Denis and Mary are the star-crossed lovers of the Irish
Titanic
story. They ran away to sea together, an elopement that offended both families. When Mary's brother found out, he chased them with a loaded gun, but failed to catch the couple at the quayside. The lovers' satisfaction was short-lived, however, and they died together when the ship went down.

In their own minds, they were already married. They worshipped each other even though they knew their love would be frowned upon, and it must have been mostly as a sign of commitment – although perhaps partly in jest and partly for secrecy or mystery – that they signed aboard the
Titanic
as ‘Denis and Mary Lennon'. There was no Mary Lennon. Her real name was Mary Mullin and she was the daughter of the family who ran the prosperous pub and thriving general store in Clarinbridge, County Galway, where Denis Lennon – from Longford – was working in 1912.

The first indication that all was not well was when Mary Mullin, aged 18, failed to disembark from a train in Dublin after the Easter holidays at home in Galway. Brother Bart had been due to meet her, ready to take her to Loreto Abbey boarding school in Rathfarnham.

Frantic communication with Clarinbridge subsequently revealed that Mary had left at the appointed hour, but now the barman was also missing. Her sister Bridget later gave this account: ‘[We] went up in the trap to Oranmore. At the station I saw a lad on the train, his name was Lennon, looking at me. Then later we got a wire from the school saying she had not arrived.'

It turned out that Mary had indeed gone to the station, but had caught a train for Cork in the company of the barman. They were eloping.

For years the mystery as to the identity of Mary Lennon was unsolved. Denis Lennon's origins were established: he was born in Longford on 9 December 1891, but had left the family home. He had no sisters called Mary. In 1901, nine-year-old Denis was living at Currycreaghan, Doory, with his parents. Father William was a 55-year-old farmer, with mother Bridget considerably younger at 38. Denis was the third eldest of six children, a seventh child having died in infancy.

Ten years later, Denis had left the three-room, three-window house, which was always severely cramped by the number of inhabitants. By 1912 he had made his way to the
Titanic
with a mystery woman, declaring himself a 21-year-old labourer, with ‘Mary Lennon' stating that she was a 20-year-old spinster. For years, researchers pondered whether they were really man and wife, or somehow related. The answer lay in a single news paragraph from
The Connacht Tribune
, 27 April 1912:

There were on board many Galway people, including a few from Ballymoe, and (sad to tell) an eloping couple from Clarinbridge. It is thought that the lady was saved while her lover perished.

It was pure conjecture whether Denis Lennon could have migrated from his home place of Longford to travel well over 100 miles in a south-westerly direction across Ireland to the famous oyster festival village of Clarinbridge, outside Galway. But that is exactly what happened, as a search through the 1911 census returns for Clarinbridge established the presence of Denis Lennon at a public house in the village.

1911 census – Hillpark, Clarinbridge, County Galway.

Head of household – Delia Mullin (49), widow, publican. Husband Redmond deceased.

Children Owen Mullin (22), shopkeeper; Joseph Mullin (25), bookkeeper; Bridget Mullin (19), spinster.

Other occupants –
Denis Lennon (19)
, shop assistant, born in County Longford. Thomas Fleming (18), shop assistant, Galway; Margaret Killian (22), servant and cook, Galway.

There it was – but no sign of Mary. Careful inquiry in Clarinbridge yielded up the folk memory that there was indeed a Mary Mullin who had run away with a store-hand on the
Titanic
. She had been away in boarding school when the census was taken. She appears in the 1911 census as a pupil in Loreto Abbey, Rathfarnham.

Her quick-tempered brother Joseph was a carter on the Galway run for Guinness, and a regular inspector of the product in his off hours. The horse would be left between the shafts for hours as sessions developed – and folklore to this day tells of Joe coming out of pubs at night to throw his spare change in the air, just to enjoy the spectacle of an undignified scramble for the coins among the locals.

Such impulsiveness ran in the family: Joe's father and uncle split their wealthy inheritance in the previous century by tossing a coin to decide which got the pub and which one the farm. Yet the staff of the tavern had been considerably whittled down by 1912, and it must have been a whirlwind romance that Easter holiday with handsome Denis from the exotic location of Longford. But love took its course and the young couple stole away from home:

A young couple who were attached to each other from early youth and who came to Queenstown by appointment and secured tickets in the name of brother and sister, intending to marry in America, are both apparently gone.

(
The Cork Examiner,
19 April 1912)

They were actually booked to travel to America on the White Star Liner,
Cymric.
Its cancellation was merely paradise postponed – for the couple managed to embark four days later, and this time to their delighted self-congratulation, they were travelling on the largest and most luxurious steamer in the world.