by Senan Molony
The examining physician, recognising the symptoms of anthrax, had Kennedy immediately taken to the Base Hospital where a spear was taken from the pus and sent to the University Hospital for analysis. The answer came back positive. The disease started on the right cheek of the deceased and is believed to have been communicated by a shaving brush. It is known that bacillus anthrax has survived from 10 to 12 years on dry hair.
The remains of Private Kennedy were forwarded from the R. E. Elliott funeral home Monday afternoon, the casket being hermetically sealed, and sent to the home of Michael Kennedy, the only living relative, at No. 7, Fourth Place, Brooklyn, NY.
(Augusta Chronicle, 11 June 1918)
1911 census – Kennedy.
Thomas (63) labourer; wife May (61).
Married 42 years, 13 children, five alive.
John (23), shop porter. Ellen (19), domestic servant.
John Kiernan (25) Lost
Phillip Kiernan (22) Lost
Ticket numbers 367227 and 367229. Paid £7 15s each.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: Fostragh, Aughnacliffe, County Longford.
Destination: Grove Street, Jersey city, New Jersey.
Brothers John and Phillip went down to their deaths together – their loss all the more poignant because John had returned from America to bring Phillip to a new life across the sea. John Kiernan was an attractive personality, good-looking and charming. He had prospered in New Jersey, having originally crossed the Atlantic to work as a bar tender in a premises run by his uncle, Phillip Kelleher, a beer distributor in Jersey city. He lived at an address at the junction of Grove and 20th Streets.
Among a number of Kiernan children already in America was John’s older sister Margaret, who was three years his senior, and the natural progression of their young sibling Phillip to his own beginnings in the ‘Land of the Free’ seemed assured. Indeed John Kiernan had returned to Ireland in the spring of 1912 with the express intention of ‘bringing the young lad over’.
John’s magnetic personality made him an object of female fascination in the tight-knit locality. He had apparently been courting a neighbouring girl, Margaret Murphy, for some time before he emigrated, and certainly saw her again on his return home. He may only have been indulging in renewing an old flame, but unbeknownst to him, Margaret had her own plans. She hoped to marry John and intended to travel with him back to America – bringing her sister Kate as well.
On the night of the Kiernan brothers’ American wake, the Murphy girls came to the going-away party. At some stage, Maggie confided her real purpose and in her account of John’s reaction, she told how he ‘reluctantly agreed’ that she and her sister could join them on the long journey the next morning. He may not have known that the Murphy family knew nothing of the planned disappearance of both their daughters.
Also in the emigrant party was Thomas McCormack, aged 19, another bar trade worker. A cousin, Thomas, roomed with the brothers on board the mighty vessel, while the Murphy sisters occupied a cabin at the other end of the ship for single women. McCormack told the Jersey Journal of 23 April 1912:
When the Titanic first struck the iceberg I was in my stateroom preparing to retire. I heard the crash as the ship struck the ice and at once hurriedly dressed and ran on deck, followed by my cousin, Phillip Kiernan, of Jersey City.
It was brotherly love that cost Phil his life. As he was hurrying toward the deck his brother John called to him to go on, that he would be there in a minute. As we reached the stairs Phillip looked around, and not seeing his brother, started to return to look for him. I kept on and did not see either of them again.
An Irish World account of 4 May 1912, discloses Maggie Murphy’s description of the last moments of the Kiernan brothers, with all the emphasis on her favourite, John:
I was trying to get to a lifeboat when John shouted to me and came running up. ‘Here, take my lifebelt,’ he said, seeing I did not have one. He made me put it on and put me in a boat. He and his brother Phillip were drowned.
John’s chivalry at the time of his own imminent demise is indeed admirable, but the next account shows that he was also beaten by sailors, who believed his delivery of the lifejacket to be a ploy to allow him near to the boats. The Murphys are believed to have been saved in either boat No. 14 or boat No. 16, all the way aft on the port side. Note, however, in this extract that Margaret Murphy goes on to make specific charges against members of the crew:
A Brave Irish Youth
Having related how a brave young Irishman, John Kiernan, who was lost, gave her his lifebelt, she said –
‘A crowd of men were trying to get up to a higher deck and were fighting the sailors; all striking and scuffling and swearing. Women and some children were there, praying and crying.’
‘Then the sailors fastened down the hatchways leading to the Third-Class section. They said they wanted to keep the air down there so the vessel would stay up longer. It meant all hope was gone for those still down there.’
John Kiernan, she said, helped her into the boat and said ‘Goodbye’ – as he had said it a hundred times at the door of her father’s store. She knew he did not intend to get in himself, but the sailors drove him away. She added – ‘Just as the davits were being swung outward, a Chinaman pushed a woman out of the boat and took her place. Sailors grabbed him and handed him back to the deck. Then some one shot him and his body tumbled into the water. It was terrible.’
(Irish Independent, 9 May 1912)
Margaret’s account is similar to other descriptions of shootings in this left-rear quadrant of the Titanic’s boat deck – whereas the official inquiries were only told that warning shots were fired to dissuade jumpers as the boats were lowered. Fifth Officer Harold Lowe admitted that he shouted at passengers that he would shoot the first leaper ‘like a dog’. Lowe also said he both heard shots and fired them.
J. P. Farrell, MP for Longford, tried to raise the ‘Brave Irish Youth’ newspaper report with Lord Mersey, chairman of the British inquiry which called no steerage passengers to testify during its proceedings. Lord Mersey rejected the application and asked Mr Farrell to confine himself to what were ‘proper issues’.
It appears that John Kiernan may have become separated from Phillip during the sinking, since the latter receives scant mention in eyewitness reports. Local folklore in Fostra is that John went on deck while Phillip was asleep – and was later unable to retrace his steps to find his brother because the steerage passengers were kept back and he couldn’t breach the cordon.
Margaret Murphy referred in one interview immediately after the sinking to a crowd fighting with sailors for access to the boat deck. She added: ‘John Kiernan and the other lads grabbed some chairs and piled them on top of each other so they made a sort of a scaffold. They helped us girls on top of the chairs so that we were above the crowd fighting all around us and not in such danger of being hurt.’
The Jersey Advocate printed a tribute to John Kiernan soon after the sinking:
Two of the Longford boys lost on the Titanic – the brothers John and Philip Kiernan
Several readers of the Advocate in Jersey city and natives of County Longford wish to send their deepest sympathy to the relatives and friends of the two brave youths, John Joseph and Philip Kiernan, who, it seems, lost their lives by trying to save others. I have heard that some of the survivors say that they owe their lives to them. I have known John Joseph since he first came to this country about seven years ago. He was then a mere boy … Well may the saying be applied to him, no one saw him but to respect him, or knew him but to love him. On 12 August 1911, he sailed for Ireland to visit his parents and friends there. On the eve of his departure, he was given a grand send-off party by his friends and acquaintances, and was presented with a solid gold signet ring and many other presents, and it was a most unusual sight to see the number of people, men and women, and even different nationalities, that accompanied him to the pier on the morning of his departure, and
all stood with heavy hearts and streaming eyes watching the boat that bore him away as long as a glimpse of it could be seen – as if they all knew he would never return. Everyone was watching and waiting for him to return when the sad news came that he was on the fatal ship, the Titanic. He had his younger brother, Philip, with him whom he was bringing back to this country. They had acted like heroes and went down with the doomed ship and to their eternal reward.
1901 census:
Parents John Kiernan (60), farmer, wife Catherine (50).
Children Bernard (20), Margaret (17), John (14), Phillip (11), Ellen (6).
Thomas Kilgannon (22) Lost
Ticket number 36865. Paid £7 14s 9d.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: Currafarry, Caltra, County Galway.
Destination: 444 West 59th Street, New York city.
Tom Kilgannon wrote a letter to his widowed mother, Mary, on his last day in Queenstown. He boarded the Titanic the next day after a long journey from his home place, via Ballinasloe and a train from Athlone. He complains about the extortionate charges for bed and breakfast accommodation in Cork and possibly mirrored by Queenstown’s twenty lodging houses for intending emigrants.
His punctuation has been changed for clarity, but his original spelling remains:
Queenstown
April 10, 1912
My Dear Mother
Just a few lyons to let you know how we got on we did not get in here untill half past tin this moring. We had to stay in Cork last knight and we reached that about half past twelve and our knight stay was seven and six on us apeace.
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.