Read Online Irish Aboard Titanic by Senan Molony - Free Book Online Page B

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.
    Destination: 942 Kent Avenue, Brooklyn, New York city.
    Mary Delia Burns could have been killed by her own kindness. It was reported from one source that the teenager chose to attend Kate Hargadon on board the Titanic as the latter was suffering from nausea and was unable to climb a ladder to the boats.
    Mary, known as Delia by her family, had been rooming in the single women’s quarters at the stern of the vessel with fellow Sligowoman Kate and her own near-neighbour Margaret Devaney. They were in compartment Q-138 on E deck.
    The Irish World published Margaret Devaney’s account of what happened to the trio in its edition of 4 May 1912:
    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.
    Seventeen-year-old Mary thought she was used to the sea. She lived in a tiny two-storey home less than 100 yards from the beach at the end of a narrow boreen that gives onto Ballysadare Bay. Mary had often helped carry seaweed up to the parcel of land they called a farm to act as fertiliser for the soil.
    In the 1911 census, her age appears correctly as 16, with a brother Joseph, aged 12. Her parents, Thomas, a labourer, and Mary, née Monaghan, were aged 43 and 37 respectively. Mary’s date of birth was 15 November 1894.
    Like many another young girl, she hoped to become a housemaid for a wealthy family in New York and was travelling to the home of her aunt, Mary Sheridan, where she had been promised room and board.
    As with the overwhelming number of Irish victims, her body was never recovered. ‘Her death was never spoken about in the house afterwards because it was so sad,’ said a younger sister, still alive at the century’s end, who asked not to be identified.
    The Cork Examiner of Saturday 20 April 1912, noted:
    There are two names of Mary Burns and Ellen Shine on the passenger list of the Titanic, while on the list of those saved, the names Burns without a Christian name and Axel Shine appear and probably mean the same. There is therefore some doubt about these passengers.
    Ellen Shine was indeed rescued, but about the fate of Mary Burns there was no doubt at all – she drowned in the North Atlantic.
    Mansion House Titanic Relief Fund, 1913 Report: Case No. 446. Burns, parents, £25.
    Mary Canavan (23) Lost
    Ticket number 364846. Paid £7 15s.
    Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
    From: Tonacrick, Addergoole, County Mayo.
    Destination: 236 East 53rd Street, New York city.
    Patrick Canavan (21) Lost
    Ticket number 364858. Paid £7 15s.
    Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
    From: Knockmaria, Nephin, County Mayo.
    Destination: 1512 Diamond Street, Philadelphia.
    Patrick and Mary Canavan were first cousins. They were