Irish Aboard Titanic (24 page)

‘I then left the room, and on going out I met a man from Dungarvan who took me up to the Second-Class deck where they were putting out the boats. I was put into one boat, but was taken out again as it was too full.

‘I was in the last boat to leave the ship and was the second last person put into it. This was a short time before the ship went down. We were only just out of the way when the ship split in two and sank.

‘We remained in the boat all night until near eight o'clock the following morning when we were rescued by the
Carpathia
. Our boat was so full I thought it would go down every moment and one of the boats capsized when we were leaving the sinking ship.

‘I did not however feel at all frightened and did not fully realise the danger and the full nature of the awful tragedy until I was safe on board the
Carpathia
. When we were put on board the
Carpathia
, we were immediately given restoratives and put to bed.

‘I slept for an hour and then got up, feeling all right. When we landed in New York on Thursday night at eleven o'clock we were met by a number of Sisters of Charity nurses who took us up to St Vincent's Hospital where we were treated with the greatest kindness.'

(
The Cork Examiner,
Saturday, 11 May 1912)

Patrick McCarthy, who had been waiting in New York for the
Carpathia
to dock, wired home a telegram received on 19 April. It declared with economy: ‘Katie is saved'.

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

No. 276. (Irish.) Unmarried woman, 23 years old, coming to live with her sister in New Jersey, was severely injured. ($50)

According to the US Senate inquiry report, Katie had been due to stay at the rooming house of Mrs P. J. Murray at 231 East 50th Street in New York before continuing on to New Jersey. She told US immigration she was a 23-year-old domestic.

Soon after arriving in New York, Katie met a man, John Croke, from her home place of Bansha, County Tipperary, and they were married on 2 September 1914, at St Francis de Chantal Church. She was 26, while the groom, whose occupation was given as a watchman, was aged 30. Katie and John stayed a further seven years in America. In 1921 they decided to return home, and lived quietly in Tipperary for many years afterwards, running a shop in the village of Dundrum. They had no children.

Kate McCarthy Croke died at home on 12 November 1948. Cause of death was cited as ‘essential hypertension with some coronary thrombosis and cerebral thrombosis':

Mrs Catherine Croke, whose death occurred at her residence on 12th inst., was wife of Mr John Croke, farmer and merchant, Ballintemple, Dundrum.

A descendant of a fine old Tipperary family, the McCarthys of Springhouse, she was a very kindly lady, held in affectionate regard in the district, where her passing, after three months' illness, is sincerely mourned.

She was one of the survivors – believed to be the last in Ireland – of the ill-fated liner
Titanic
, wrecked by an iceberg in 1912.

The remains were removed on 13th inst. to Donaskeigh Parish church and interment took place on Sunday in St Michael's Cemetery, Tipperary, in the presence of a very large assemblage.

(
The Nationalist
, Clonmel, 20 November 1948)

1901 census – McCarthy, Ballygurteen, County Tipperary.

Parents Patrick (54), farmer; wife deceased. (Née Mary Boyle)

Children Patrick (23), John (21), Michael (17), Johanna (19),
Katie (14)
.

Thomas McCormack (19) Saved

Ticket number 367228. Paid £7 15s.

Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

From: Glenmore, Ballinamuck, County Longford.

Destination: 36 West 20th Street, Bayonne, New Jersey.

Thomas Joseph McCormack was 19, and in Third-Class passage to New York, returning to New Jersey after a visit home to his parents. He and Bernard McCoy – whose story follows immediately – alleged they were beaten off when they tried to clamber on board lifeboats as they struggled in the sea.

Extract from the British inquiry:

Lord Mersey to W.D. Harbinson:
‘Who are the people you want to represent here?'

Harbinson:
‘One is Thomas McCormack, who alleges in a statement –'

Mersey:
‘Never mind what he alleges.'

Harbinson:
‘ … the other person is Bernard McCoy.'

Mersey:
‘Where are they now?'

Harbinson:
‘America.'

Mersey:
‘Are they coming here?'

Harbinson:
‘No, but if your Lordship permits it, we propose to have their evidence taken on commission.'

Mersey:
‘I think we are very unlikely to do that.'

Mr J. P. Farrell, MP for Longford, home county of both McCormack and McCoy, then stood up and mentioned the fact that he and his lordship were former colleagues in the House of Commons (he was then accorded some breathing space):

Farrell:
‘Thomas McCormack alleges that when swimming in the sea after leaving the
Titanic
and while endeavouring to board two boats, he was struck in the head and hands and pushed back into the sea and an endeavour was made to drown him.'

Mersey
: ‘The man who did it may be guilty of manslaughter for all I know.'

Farrell
: ‘No my Lord, for McCormack was saved.'

Mersey
: ‘Well he may be guilty of an attempt to commit manslaughter, and I cannot try that issue.'

Farrell
: ‘Is it not a matter for investigation by this court? The same charge is made by McCoy.'

Mersey
: ‘I do not think it comes within my jurisdiction. This is an issue which must be tried by somebody else.'

Farrell
: ‘We have gone to a great deal of expense with the view of having it investigated.'

Lord Mersey told Mr Farrell to confine himself to what were proper issues.

McCormack had been working as a bartender in Bayonne when he decided to return home to visit to his parents, Bernard and Maria of Glenmore. In New Jersey, young McCormack lived with his sister, Mrs Catherine Evers, who was five years older. ‘He jumped from the ship as it was sinking and was twice repulsed by lifeboats,' said the
Irish Independent
on 4 May 1912. ‘Thomas McCormick [
sic
], one of the four male survivors,' added the
Irish World
of New York the same day, ‘jumped overboard just as the ship was sinking and swam to a life raft.'

Mr McCormack often recalled that he was asleep in his compartment below decks when the mishap occurred. He was awakened after the collision by two cousins who died in the disaster. After dressing, he made his way to the main deck and jumped into the ocean. He was taken aboard a lifeboat an hour later.

(
Daily Journal
, New Jersey, 4 November 1975)

According to the
Western Nationalist
,
27 April 1912:

Thomas McCormick [
sic
], who was rescued from the
Titanic
as he was returning from a visit to his parents in Ireland, is now in hospital suffering from shock and exposure, in addition to bruises on the head, which he declares he received at the hands of officers of the
Titanic.
He was accompanied on his voyage by two cousins, John and Philip Kieran [
sic
], who were lost. McCormick says that when the ship was sinking, he jumped and swam. He got his hands on the gunwale of one lifeboat when members of the crew of the
Titanic
struck him on the head and tore his hands loose from the boat.

After repeated efforts to enter the boat he swam to another boat and met with the same reception.

Finally however, two sisters in the boat, Mary and Kate Murphy, pulled him on board in spite of the crew's attempts to keep him out.

McCormack told the
Jersey Journal,
23 April 1912:

After being beaten severely by sailors with oars I managed to get into one of the lifeboats … After a while one of the sailors saw my legs protruding, and seizing them asked me ‘what in ___ I was doing in the boat'. He dragged me out and tried to throw me into the water. I grabbed him by the throat and said if I went overboard I would take him with me. When he saw that he could not throw me over he finally desisted and I was allowed to remain.

T
he
New York Herald,
22 April 1912 noted:

Girls saved youth

Thomas McCormick [
sic
], nineteen years old, of No. 36 West Twentieth Street, Bayonne, N.J., who was a passenger on the
Titanic
, and is a patient in St Vincent's Hospital, this city, suffering from exposure, says that his life was saved by two sisters, Kate and Mary Murphy, who picked him up from the water, dragging him into a lifeboat and sitting on him after sailors manning the boat had struck him on the head and tried to drive him from clinging to the sides of the boat.

A body of opinion considers McCormack to have been saved not by the Murphy sisters, but by the McCoys, who were also from the same locality. McCormack himself named Alice and Kate McCoy in his early
Jersey Journal
account.

The
New Jersey News
recorded:

Memories of a
Titanic
night – he recalls sinking 62 years ago

The Easter season is never a completely happy time for Tom McCormack of Elizabeth, N.J. It always brings memories of his frantic, leaping escape from the sinking
Titanic
, which went down in the freezing Atlantic sixty-two years ago today.

McCormack is one of only thirty living survivors of one of the worst sea disasters in history, and throughout his life he has had nightmares about that night when more than 1,500 people died as the supposedly unsinkable ship hit an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage.

‘I try not to think about that night, but I can't help it,' McCormack said yesterday. ‘It's a memory I'll always have with me.'

The 81-year old man has lived in retirement in a small apartment at 120 Madison Ave., Elizabeth, for 16 years. He is bedridden, but remains in generally good spirits under the care of his nephew, Barney Evers.

Sixty-two years ago, McCormack was a 19-year old with the same sense of adventure that drew the other passengers to the
Titanic'
s trip. McCormack was returning to America with two cousins from a visit to his native Ireland.

Just before midnight, 15 April 1912, the indestructible sailing fortress smashed into an iceberg and began to sink. ‘I was sound asleep at the time,' McCormack said. ‘I jumped out of bed and ran into the hall with my two cousins when we hit. Everyone was crazy and running, screaming. My cousins and I separated in the confusion. They eventually drowned. I kept running toward the deck.'

When he got on deck, there were thousands of people pushing and shoving each other. ‘They were crying, yelling. I didn't know what was going on. I panicked and ran to the rail. I never stopped to look how far from the water I was. I just jumped over. It felt like a mile down to the ocean, and it was freezing water. All I had was my lifejacket,' he said.

McCormack spent 80 minutes in the water before one of the
Titanic
's lifeboats picked him up. He spent another three hours in the lifeboat before he and the other survivors were picked up by the rescue ship
Carpathia
.

‘The
Titanic
sank into the ocean while I watched from the lifeboat. It was a terrible sight … all those people screaming and moaning on the decks as it went under the waves …' McCormack said.

The young McCormack was brought to New York and spent four days recuperating at St Vincent's Hospital from exposure. Then he went to Bayonne, N.J., where he bought a tavern and operated it for fourteen years. Then he spent many years as a guard at a Bayonne factory before his retirement.

The sinking of the
Titanic
has always had some effect on his life. Afterward, he was afraid of sailing, and the only other ship he ever boarded was the troopship that carried him to the shores of France to fight in the First World War. McCormack had nightmares for years, and almost all of his conversations would somehow get around to the
Titanic
.

‘When I was running up to the deck in the confusion that night, I did not think I was going to live. Maybe if I didn't jump into the ocean right away I would have died. I owe my life to God's kindness, nothing else,' McCormack said.

(
New Jersey News,
15 April 1974)

He later filed a claim for his losses against the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company through Broadway solicitors Hunt, Hill & Betts:

1 blue suit – $25; 1 grey suit – £25; 1 brown suit – $25; 2 pair of cuff links – $5; shirts and underwear – $15; collars and neckties – $7; golf scarf-pin – $5; gold watch and fob – $35; 3 pairs of shoes – $15; 12 pair of socks and one sweater – $8; 1 leather bag – $12; penknives, razors and pipes – $10; 3 hats (1 soft hat, 1 derby and 1 cap) – $6; Money £18 Sterling (at $4.85 @ lb) – $87.30. Total – $280.30.

McCormack later married a Mary Donovan in New Jersey, who predeceased him by thirteen years. Born on 11 December 1892, Thomas died in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on 4 November 1975 aged 82. He was buried in the Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City.

1901 census – McCormack. Glenmore, County Longford.

Parents Bernard (55), farmer, Maria (50), née McKenna.

Children John (20), Catherine (13),
Thomas (8).

Agnes McCoy (29) Saved

Alice McCoy (26) Saved