by Senan Molony
The American Red Cross nonetheless had to step in to assist other relatives left in the lurch by the loss of Mr Dooley. The details vary in this description, but there is little doubt that he is the person concerned since that organisation alphabetised its caseload:
Report of the American Red Cross (Titanic Disaster) 1913:
No. 87. (Irish.) A motorman, 34 years old, was drowned while returning from a visit to his parents in Ireland. A widowed sister and four children were dependent upon him for support, and his brother and wife and two children had also been helped by him.
The appropriation made will be administered by the local charity organisation Society for the benefit of the dependent sister and her family. ($468)
The occupation described here is likely to be most accurate, whereas ‘labourer’ was almost a generic term for ‘Irishman’ when it came to filling out legal papers. As regards age differentials, Patrick Dooley claimed to be 32 when signing aboard the Titanic, while posthumous legal papers put him six years older.
What is known is that Pat Dooley had planned to stay with his brother Richard (37) at East 31st Street, New York. They had only met once during Pat’s near-decade in the USA. Their widowed father, Edmond, still farming, was into his seventies by 1912. It may have been intended that Pat would take over running the farm.
Patrick also had a sister Mary (41), and brothers Michael (39) and John (33). Many of these lives would not have been so damaged had the Cymric sailed as scheduled, four days before the Titanic, on Easter Sunday, 7 April.
Elizabeth Doyle (26) Lost
Ticket number 368702. Paid £7 15s.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: Bree, Enniscorthy, County Wexford.
Destination: 123 West 80th Street, New York city, for onward to Chicago.
There was strong optimism that ‘bright, sunny’ Lizzie Doyle had been saved because she had convinced her home people of her intent to buy a Second-Class ticket for the Titanic. It would have cost her around £10 10s. The news that large numbers of Second-Class women had been saved (84 per cent, against 55 per cent for Third-Class women by final White Star figures) led to neighbours competing to discover the good news of her survival in the latest newspapers.
But devoted daughter Lizzie – who had rushed home from America the previous year to nurse her widowed father in his final illness – may have felt uneasy about lavishing such a high standard of care on herself. She finally opted to save around £2 15s, and bought a Third-Class ticket, and she drowned with most of steerage.
Lizzie was travelling to Chicago from her home in Bree, Enniscorthy, County Wexford. She booked on the Titanic through a New Ross agent and was travelling in the company of her cousin Robert Mernagh, also lost. The pair may have finalised their travel intentions at the funeral of Robert’s aunt Margaret Murphy, who died on the last day of February 1912, six weeks before the sailing.
Lizzie was listed as due to stay with Bridget Fox at West 80th Street, New York city. Bridget was a relative of Patrick Fox, another Irish Titanic passenger. Both Lizzie and Robert Mernagh intended onward travel to Chicago.
Titanic victims: Miss Lizzie Doyle, Bree, and Mr Robert Mernagh, Ballyleigh, Ballywilliam.
Sincere and widespread regret was felt in Bree and the surrounding district when on Saturday week last it became known that Miss Lizzie Doyle, who was one of the passengers on the ill-fated Titanic, was not amongst the survivors.
Poor ‘Lil’, as she was familiarly called by her most intimate friends, was youngest daughter of the late Mr Martin Doyle, Bree, and was one of the most talented and popular young ladies in the district; her charming manners and bright, sunny disposition won for her the respect and admiration of all, and the untimely ending of her young life, so full of hope and promise, has cast a gloom over the whole district.
She had been in Philadelphia two years previously, and only returned home last June in time to be present at the deathbed of her late lamented father. Having recovered somewhat from the shock occasioned by that sad event, she decided to return once more to America, and on the 10th April last she said good-bye to her host of friends in Bree, and in company with her cousin, Mr Robert Mernagh, Ballyleigh, Ballywilliam, set out for Chicago.
But alas for human hopes and aspirations, they were destined never to reach their journey’s end. From the first, little hope was entertained of the safety of Mr Mernagh, but being Second Class passengers, a large percentage of the women of which were reported to be saved, the friends of Miss Doyle had great hopes for her safety, and from the moment the first news of the disaster reached Bree the newspapers were eagerly scanned day after day by anxious friends, all eager to be the first to find the good news, but without success, and on Saturday week their fond hope was dashed to the ground when the news came to her sorrowing relatives that neither she nor her cousin were amongst the survivors.
On the following Sunday morning, when at 8 o’clock Mass Canon Sheil asked the prayers of the congregation for the repose of their souls, a pin might be heard falling in the church, so deep were the feelings of those present. The deepest sympathy is felt with their heartbroken relatives, and the church was thronged with sorrowing friends, all anxious to pay the last tribute to the memory of one who will not soon be forgotten.
(Enniscorthy Echo, 18 May 1912)
Margaret Doyle had a vision of her sister Lizzie, according to a tale in the district, when she was putting out washing a few days after the departure. She saw the wraith and came into the house as white as any sheet she had just hung on the line.
A letter written by Elizabeth Doyle survives from 1909 and shows something of her character. It was written on 12 December that year from an address at 1244 Snyder Avenue, Philadelphia:
My dear Aunt,
No doubt you will think that when I left dear old Ireland I forgot all my relatives, but you will see that I still have a corner in my heart for you all still.
Of course you have heard long since of my safe arrival etc., so I won’t waste time and paper telling you again. I am feeling splendid and as happy as a king here. Mr and Mrs O’Brien are awfully good and kind to me. How are you and uncle keeping since, or have you been over to Bree lately? Maggie is quite busy now with the tradesmen and all, so I know she won’t have much time for going about …
This is a grand country, aunt, and the weather has been beautiful up to now, but it’s getting much colder tho’ still nice and fine. There is no twilight here. The night falls all of a sudden. But it’s never dark as all electric lights are on all night …
Now dear aunt, as this is the last day for Christmas Irish mails and I have a few more to write, I hope you will forgive me for this hurried note and accept my best wishes for a Happy Christmas and a glad New Year.
With lots of love to uncle and your own dear self,
Your loving niece,
Lizzie Doyle.
Her estate came to just £10, granted to her brother Jeremiah on 12 March 1913. Legal papers noted that Lizzie ‘died at sea in an accident to the steamship “Titanic’’.’
She is named on a family tombstone in Davidstown Cemetery, near Enniscorthy.
Bridget Driscoll (27) Saved
Ticket number 14311. Paid £7 15s.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: Letter, Ballydehob, County Cork.
Destination: 522 Grove Street, Jersey city, New Jersey.
Bridget Driscoll was a dutiful child who had returned to Ireland to nurse her mother in her final illness. But Mrs Kate Driscoll had died and been buried by the time her daughter arrived – and Bridget soon faced the imminent prospect of joining her in the next world.
She was rescued in collapsible D, the last boat to be lowered from the davits. It went off around 2 a.m., when Titanic had short minutes to live. Her forecastle was under water, so too the forward well deck, and the water was climbing steadily to the boat deck. Women were put to the oars and collapsible D was about 100 yards off when the queen of
the seas made her final plunge.
Bridget later told how she helped ‘another lady from Ballydehob’ – it could only have been Annie Jermyn – into collapsible D, which had been ready to lower earlier until more women were found at the last moment.
Bridget and Annie had travelled with Mary Kelly on successive tickets issued in Ballydehob. She initially indicated on official forms that she would be staying with cousins in New York, but later told US immigration that she was a 24-year-old domestic and would be staying with her cousin Mrs Minnie Fenn in Jersey city. In fact, Bridget had been born on 18 January 1885, but it was common for women of all ages to be grudging in their acknowledgement of the march of time.
Census records show that Bridget’s parents had been married for thirty-six years. They had seven children, one of whom died in infancy. By 1911, Kate and John Driscoll were recorded as aged 59 and 63 respectively, with son Eugene (35) having taken over the farm, yet the 1901 census had stated parents John and Kate to be 54 and 52 respectively, and children Eugene (24), Timothy (16), Bridget (16), Mary (14), and John (6).
Bridget and Timothy were twins, and he later became a policeman in Canada with the RCMP. Bridget herself married a man named Dominic Joseph Carney in the United States. They ran a grocery store at City Island, New York. She went on to have four children – Cathy, Joe, Patsy and Bill. Their first, Cathleen, was born six years after the disaster, on 19 September 1918. After her husband died in 1963, Bridget moved to Houston, Texas, to stay with her daughter Cathy at 5918 Yarwell.
Bridget Driscoll died in the Bellaire Hospital from acute renal failure on 28 December 1976, aged 91. She had survived more than sixty-four years since escaping the sinking of the Titanic.
Frank Dwan (67) Lost
Ticket number 336439. Paid £7 15s.
Joined at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: Knockmahon, Bunmahon, County Waterford.
Destination: Morris Plains, New Jersey.
It is the last chance you will get in your life! That was the advice that sent the oldest Irish passenger aboard the Titanic to sea.
The last chance in question for 67-year-old Frank Dwan was the opportunity to visit his children, all of whom had emigrated to the United States. They had been begging him to come over, had sent him the passage money, and had finally persuaded his wife, Bridget, to scold him into going.
Heavily bearded Frank had enjoyed the prospect of a trip in the big ship. A fisherman for much of his life, he had an abiding love of the sea, and his enjoyment of the dawning adventure can be seen in a startling photograph taken on board the tender Ireland, on 11 April 1912. The little boat is about to cast out from the quay to ferry the passengers to the 882-foot leviathan now lying at anchor off Roche’s Point. A photographer from The Cork Examiner, capturing the moment from the tender America alongside, finds Frank Dwan in his lens, smiling happily in conversation with Eugene Daly, who has his back to the rail.
Yet there is evidence that on the night before he sailed, Frank Dwan had a premonition of disaster and even spoke of the liner sinking to fellow passengers. Nonetheless he spurned an offer to take another ship and boarded the pride of the White Star fleet.
Frank had been married for forty-five years when he took his journey into fate. He and Bridget, his senior by four years, had had eight children, four of whom remained alive. One, Daniel, then aged 29, was one of the offspring who were all working as orderlies and porters in Morris Plains Insane Asylum in New Jersey. Two sons later became chauffeurs for the Rockefeller family and became rich themselves by the standards of the emigrant Irish.
Frank’s name was misspelled ‘Dewan’ in the official White Star passenger list. He had been described on embarkation records as an agricultural labourer, and in the 1901 census had termed himself a general labourer. By 1911 he had reverted to the calling of fisherman. Frank wore his ‘lucky’ Norwegian fishing cap as he boarded the Titanic. His death effectively robbed his widow, who had urged him to travel, of all family companionship. His body, like so many others, was never found.
The Cork Examiner reported on Frank Dwan’s short stay in Queenstown in its coverage of the disaster on 17 April 1912, in a piece filed by their local correspondent:
I heard many pathetic stories of those Irish travellers who were here for a day or so before they sailed on the ill-fated ship, but there was one old man amongst the many who came here on last Wednesday night. He was a hale old fellow, from Bunmahon, County Waterford. He asked the lodging house keeper on arrival if he knew him, and the reply was no. ‘Well then,’ he replied (his name was Duane [sic]), ‘every child of mine that went to America stayed in this house, and I’m going out now to stay with them for a bit. My wife was out lately, and it’s my turn to have a spell now, but I’m coming back again as soon as I stay a bit with my children.’
He thought £8 1s, the steerage passage money, high, and was told that if he waited for the Celtic till next morning he’d get his ticket for £7 16s, but he wouldn’t have it, as every hour was too long until he’d meet the children, and they’d be waiting for him, and he wired his wife for some additional money, which she sent, and he booked his passage full of high hopes that ere a full week elapsed he’d meet his children on American soil.
Strangely enough, on that Wednesday night, the eve of his departure, he and many other travellers booked by the Titanic, commenced discussing the big crowd the Titanic would be taking, and Duane remarked what an awful thing it would be if she were sunk with all her passengers. It surely was a strange remark. The feelings of Duane’s children, looking forward to a meeting they had longed for years can easily be imagined. They had been pressing him for years to go out, but he refused all along, until finally the inducements of wife and children made him go, and possibly he now lies numbered amongst the dead.
Frank Dwan is commemorated by a plaque and sculpture of his face at Saleen Church in his birthplace of Bunmahon, where he had married Bridget Walsh in 1867.
James Farrell (25) Lost
Ticket number 367232. Paid £7 15s.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: Clonee, Killoe, County Longford.
Destination: 420 East 80th Street, New York city.
He helped to save others, but for James Farrell there was no escape. His body was recovered from the sea, still clutching Rosary beads. It was sealed in canvas and weighted, given a brief religious service, and reconsigned to the deep.
Katie Gilnagh, an Irish Titanic survivor, recounted to author Walter Lord that a seaman at a barrier had blocked her, Kate Mullins and Kate Murphy:
Suddenly steerage passenger Jim Farrell, a strapping Irishman from the girls’ home county, barged up. ‘Great God, man!’ he roared. ‘Open the gate and let the girls through!’ It was a superb demonstration of sheer voice-power. To the girls’ astonishment, the sailor meekly complied.
Walter Lord, A Night to Remember
In a letter to her father, Katie Gilnagh stated that James Farrell of Clonee was very kind to her and another girl. As they were leaving the ill-fated vessel, he gave her his cap to cover her head, and shouted ‘Good-bye for ever.’
(Irish Independent, 15 May 1912)
The story of the thrown cap is widespread in Longford, and Miss Gilnagh kept it for many years.
Farrell certainly appears to have been a very gregarious man. His body was later recovered, and from the list of effects it seems he may have swopped a coin for some souvenir kronor with one of the Scandinavian steerage passengers. Making conversation in the linguistic melting-pot below decks must have been interesting.
The following report comes from the Halifax coroner’s office, which would have received details of the deceased as well as their effects from the search boat:
No. 68. Male. Estimated age 40. Hair dark. Moustache light.
Clothing – Dark suit; black boots; grey socks.
Effects – Silver watch; two purses (one empty), the other with $10.00,
3s. 2 and a half d., and 10 k
ronor; two studs; cameo; beads, left on body.
Name on Third Class ticket No. B67233 [sic] – James Farrell, Longford.
The corpse was recovered eight days after the sinking. The MacKay-Bennett recovery vessel had a policy of not returning heavily decomposed or crushed bodies to port, at least bodies identifiable as being from Third Class. Passenger bodies of other classes were packed in ice and placed in storage, while there were caskets aboard for First-Class corpses. James Farrell was buried at sea on 24 April 1912. He had been due to join a brother, Michael, in New York.
1901 census – Clonee, County Longford.
Parents John (40), farmer; Ellen (36). Children: Catherine (17), Michael (15), James (14), John (12), Mary (11), Edward (9), Thomas (7).
Honora Fleming (22) Lost
Ticket number 364859. Paid £7 15s.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: Carrowskehine, Addergoole, County Mayo.
Destination: 542 West 112th Street, New York city.
It was Honora’s twenty-second birthday the night the Titanic sank. She would likely not have remained long in her chair in steerage as a succession of young men used a heaven-sent excuse to request a dance with this beaming, if bashful, birthday girl. Many are the accounts of gaiety throughout Third Class on that fateful Sunday night, and it is likely that celebrations for the young Mayo girl occupied one small part of the general festivities.
Listed aboard as ‘Nora’, she was a housemaid, as was her sister Catherine (25), who had previously emigrated to New York city. Catherine Fleming Wynne sent money home to enable her younger sibling to come to America in 1911, but family legend says it was spent on a cow. Then she sent money again, and her sister was finally on her way.