by Senan Molony
1901 census – O’Connell, Kingwilliamstown.
Parents: Denis (42) and Hanna (42).
Children: Mary Anne (12), Timothy (10), Hannah (8), Patrick (7), Catherine (5), Julia (3).
Maurice O’Connor (16) Lost
Ticket number 371060. Paid £7 15s.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: Ballinloughane, County Limerick.
Destination: 539 East 72nd Street, New York city.
Maurice O’Connor was painfully young to die. He was travelling to New York to live with Michael O’Connor, who might have been a brother two years older who went by the name of ‘Murt’ to distinguish him from his father, also Michael O’Connor.
Maurice O’Connor was one of those who were transferred to the Titanic after the withdrawal of the Cymric’s intended transatlantic passage of 7 April.
1901 census – O’Connor, Ballinloughane.
Parents Michael (50), farm labourer; Kate (41).
Wife’s child from a previous marriage: Margaret Regan (14).
Joint children: John (8), Murt (7), Maurice (5), Ellen (3).
Patrick O’Connor (23) Lost
Ticket number 366713. Paid £7 15s.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: Tureenavoscane, Boherbue, County Cork.
Destination: New York city.
Pat was the oldest among the group of men from the Duhallow area of Cork who roomed together on the Titanic. As such, his might have been the mocking voice that told the youngest occupant of their compartment, Daniel Buckley, when the latter reported something wrong with the ship: ‘Get into bed. You are not in Ireland now.’
When O’Connor and the others – Michael Linehan and Patie D. O’Connell – were finally alerted to the danger of the situation, they sprang out of the bunks in their narrow cabin, located right at the bows where the ship had struck. To make room for them as they jumped into their clothes and hunted for lifebelts, Dannie Buckley stepped out into the corridor. He declared that he never again saw Michael and the two Pats, one of whom had uttered the laughing put-down.
It appears Pat O’Connor did make it to the upper decks, however. One of the party travelling from Kingwilliamstown was his cousin Hannah Riordan, who survived. She told her own children years afterwards that her cousin was one of the men left on board as her boat was lowered.
She added that he had called out to her, and others with her, as their lifeboat pulled away: ‘Goodbye, girls. I’ll see you in New York.’ Self-assured and confident to the last, Pat O’Connor may have convinced himself that twinkling lights of a mystery ship seen off the port bow represented sure-fire rescue. His cockiness, if such it was, could not have lasted long.
Patrick O’Connor had been one of only two children left behind at the family homestead from a brood of eight surviving children born to his parents. It must have been unusual for him to find himself the oldest among his Titanic cabin companions because he had always been the baby at home, the very youngest of all. This was a likely factor in his emigration. The family farm was due to be inherited by his older brother Michael.
Duhallow men amongst the missing
Our Duhallow correspondent writes – There now appears to be little doubt that three young men of the farming class from the Boherbee and Williamstown districts have perished in the Titanic disaster.
Their names are Patrick Connell, Kingwilliamstown, and Michael Lenihan and Patrick Connors, Boherbee … The deepest sympathy is felt for the friends and relatives of the young men who left the green shores of Ireland only to meet with such a tragic end.
(The Cork Examiner, 25 April 1912)
Patrick O’Connor seems to be the person referred to mysteriously as ‘Jim Connor, Hugh’s son, from Tureenavonacane’ by Buckley, the only survivor of this group, in a letter home composed on the Carpathia. Buckley had a neighbour named Hugh Connor who had a son named Jim, but this man had remained at home. Buckley was certainly still in shock when writing the letter and also recording that there was no account of his companions and that he hoped they were ‘taken into some other ship’. But there was no hope for Patrick O’Connor.
What is clear are the Board of Trade records for this passenger, which show him to be a 24-year-old farmer named Pat O’Connor. This surname also accords with his baptismal records and the census returns, so there is no room for doubt. Patrick O’Connor was due to sail on the Cymric, four days before Titanic, but was transferred to the latter.
He was born on 30 May 1888, in ‘Tureenavuskane’, and was a just over month short of his 24th birthday when he died. His nephew, also named Pat O’Connor, later emigrated to the United States and became a famous boxer in the 1940s and 1950s.
Mansion House Titanic Relief Fund Booklet, March 1913:
Case number 494. O’Connor, P., parents. Grant £20.
1911 census – Tureenavoscane, County Cork.
Parents: James (69) and Abina (65). Married 41 years, eleven children born, eight alive. John (28), farmer’s son, Patrick (23), farmer’s son.
William O’Doherty (22) Lost
Ticket number 330877. Paid £6 19s 2d.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: 12 Old Market Place, Cork city.
Destination: c/o G. P. McDonough, Ellis Island, New York city.
William O’Doherty died in another man’s stead. O’Doherty’s name does not appear on the official passenger list. Instead it is certain that he died under another name, as O’Doherty had purchased his passage from one James Moran, and embarked and was lost under this name. (A James Moran from Annabrack, County Offaly, aged 20, emigrated to the USA on the Titanic’s sister ship Olympic in September 1912.) As William O’Doherty was a barman, the transaction might even have taken place in a pub, the slip passing over the counter in exchange for a discount price.
Fate of a young Corkman
The first name on the list of passengers represents a young Corkman who travelled under the name of James Moran. The real name is William Doherty [sic], a young man, aged 22 years and nine months, whose relations live at the Old Market Place, Blarney Street.
Mr Doherty was, up to the eve of his sailing, employed at Mr W. O’Callaghan’s (vintner), Daunt’s Square. In an interview with the father, he stated that his son had purchased the ticket off an acquaintance some time since.
He had very little hope as to his son’s safety, for he had failed to get any information. The fate of the young man caused the greatest anxiety, not only among his relations, but also among his acquaintances.
(Cork Free Press, 17 April 1912)
The 1911 census reveals that William John O’Doherty was a 21-year-old barman, living at home with his father, William Snr, 55, a retired RIC officer, railway policeman and grocer, and his mother, Anne (53). Among other children in the family were Thomas Peter (23), railway porter, Annie (18); John James (16), another barman; and Bartholomew (15). The family had lived in Cross Lane, Rosscarbery, in 1901.
James Moran, Cork, sold his ticket to Willie Doherty, Cork, who was lost under name ‘James Moran’.
(Irish World, New York, 11 May 1912)
There is no ‘James Moran’ of any age in either Cork city or county in the 1911 census. And despite references to Doherty, the name used in census returns, descendants today are adamant the name was O’Doherty.
A number of newspaper reports indicated that O’Doherty could have been on board the Titanic in the company of another barman, Timothy O’Brien. But O’Brien’s name does not appear on the passenger list.
O’Doherty’s niece says William’s mother, Anne, gave her son £5 towards his passage, despite her husband not wanting him to go. In a family memoir Philomena Cobley wrote that the mother ‘was suicidal and racked with grief and had to be locked in her room for three days when confirmation came there were no more survivors. I can just imagine the suspenseful vigil that they endured and the torment at their loss.’
According to folklore, the family of his mot
her (née Golden, of Donoughmore, Co. Cork) was blighted by a disgruntled tenant with a piseóg. Drowning would dog the family, the curse vowed. And so it turned out. A brother and a nephew of Anne’s were later drowned, along with three of her own children, including William.
Peter Crowley, William’s grandnephew takes up the story:
When William bought his Titanic ticket he would join the list of those cursed to die by water. William’s uncle James had drowned in a stream having fallen from a horse. Of William’s five siblings, Michael had already drowned in a cauldron of hot water on the family farm, aged three, when supposed to be under the supervision of Anne’s sister Mary.
There is a certain amount of mystery concerning William’s decision to travel to America. The story is that William was going with a girl of whom his mother disapproved. So, to break the relationship, she opted to pack her son off to America where her brother William, and sisters Teresa and Frances, would look after him.
The family believe the vital ticket, counterfoil number 330877, was sold because Moran was ill. It was snapped up for £5 – a bargain, since the original cost was nearly £7.
Nellie O’Dwyer (26) Saved
Ticket number 330959. Paid £7 12s 7d, plus 5s extra.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.
From: 33 High Street, Limerick city.
Destination: 13th & East 3rd Street, Brooklyn, New York city.
Limerick girl’s thrilling narrative
The Brooklyn Daily Times contains an interview by one of its representatives with Miss Nellie O’Dwyer, High Street, Limerick, who was a passenger on board the ill-fated Titanic, having booked her passage with Mr Ludlow, emigration agent, Glentworth street. Miss O’Dwyer had been six years residing in Brooklyn, ever since she came from her native city. She was returning to New York after a visit to her father. The interview proceeds to say –
‘I was about dozing off to sleep when the big ship seemed to jar,’ she began. ‘I was not frightened; but got up to ask the other girls what made the vessel act so. Then it was still. You know, all day and all night there was a whirr of machinery and then when it stopped it was queer. For the longest while, none of us could find out what was the matter, but then some young men who were on the vessel with us from Queenstown, told us to go back to sleep, it was nothing.
‘“Ye foolish girls, go back to your beds,” they said to us; “sure the ship struck an iceberg, but it would take a power of icebergs to harm her.” So we – well, most of us – started to go back, but the boys said they were going up on deck to see the berg, for the Captain was going to bring it aboard. Of course, ’twas fooling us they were. Some time later we could hear folks running around above, and we went up the stairway to the upper steerage deck. Something was wrong, we could see that, but we were not frightened, really.
‘But then we heard them shouting to get the lifebelts. We knew then something must be wrong. We girls and some of the women with us knelt down on the deck and said the Rosary. Some ladies and gentlemen passed us from cabins and they looked at us curiously. Boats were being lowered and people were being helped into them. Some were almost thrown in.
‘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 when the ship sunk.
‘Then there was a sweet little boy. Oh! the grandest and most beautiful prayers that one could hear from a child, do you know. I think he was lost, for I don’t remember seeing him the next morning in any of the boats.
‘The captain treated everyone alike, whether they were from the first cabin or the steerage. He acted angry only towards the men that were rushing forward. He kept us from the panic, so he did. The Italian men were the worst. There was a poor fellow near where I was, and they could not get him back, and an officer shot him and he fell at my feet. I never heard the ship’s band playing louder. Men were shouting, women were crying for their husbands and children to stay with them. I don’t know how I got to the cabin above.
‘I was among the last, and there was only one boat left. Yes, it is true about the old couple. I could hear her husband bidding her to get into the boat, and the last I heard her say was “No, no, no!” As we came along, the last thing I saw was the priest, waving his hand towards us, like as if it might have been absolving all. The poor man was going towards the steerage.’
Afraid to go into the boats
‘Do you know, we still had no notion the ship was going down? We were a little afraid about going into the boats. That is, all of them, men or women, were afraid, except the stewards. There was a queer look on their faces as they helped us along. I didn’t understand then – none of us did. Now we who were saved know what that look meant.
‘There was some trouble with the nurses [stewardesses]. They were supposed to place lifebelts on the people. A few of them tried to escape. But the officers shouted at them, and they came back to their work.
‘The poor girl that was to go into the boat just before me was afraid. She jumped and missed the boat, all but one ankle, and a man at the oars grabbed her. She slipped from his hold and was drowned. I got afraid and an officer lifted me. Some one said “Careful there”, and I was dropped into the boat. She pulled away, and I sat up to look at the big ship. It could not have been more than seven minutes before there was a terrible explosion. O God, be merciful to us all! The cries that came from the ship I’ll never forget. I could see before the explosion just dimly the face of a woman who had six children with her on board. I think none of the little ones got up soon enough to be saved. The poor mother never left the ship.
‘Then those in charge began to give orders, keeping the boats a little apart. A little while after, we could see one boat with a green light on it. Some man was giving orders in it. In our boat was a tall man with a moustache, and he seemed to have some giving of orders. We had sixty-five in the boat, and they started taking people out and putting them in boats that had very few in them.
‘Five or six Chinamen were found in the bottom of one boat. The way they were saved was by fixing their hair down their backs, and putting their blankets about them. They were taken for women when the boats were leaving the ship. When they took some of the people from our boat we had a sailor and an Italian stoker to row us. It was awful, so it was. The Italian knew no English, and he didn’t seem to understand the sailors telling him to “back water”. There was no other man now. So, to try and save the people, I took the oar from the Italian and the sailor and I rowed about as best we could. Sometimes the green light I told you about on the boat made me think now and then a ship was coming, and we were afraid it would run us down before we could be saved. We would often mistake a bright star, do you know, for the top light of the vessel.
‘Towards morning we rowed over the place where the Titanic went down, but there were only pieces of wreckage floating, except the new lifebelts that poor souls had adjusted the wrong way before they left the ship.’
There have been varying accounts as to the air that the ship’s band played as the vessel was sinking, but Nellie O’Dwyer declares without hesitation that it was ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’. She declares that her boat was equipped with neither water nor provisions of any kind. She knew the names of none of the persons in her boat.
The awful period of sorrow aboard the Carpathia was relieved by Nellie O’Dwyer, who was an angel of mercy. Her robust constitution had been disturbed but little by the trying privations of the night on the open sea, and she went among the suffering survivors tenderly nursing them, making tea for them, and with the characteristic buoyancy of her Celtic heart, forcing a smile and cheering the forlorn with a word of comfort.
(Limerick Chronicle, 7 May 1
912)
Nellie O’Dwyer could have been rescued in lifeboat No. 10, hanging at a gap of a yard or so from the deck because the Titanic was listing heavily to port. It also has an attested case of a woman jumper falling between the boat and the ship, but instead of plunging into the water and drowning, she was caught on the deck below and pulled in. First Officer William Murdoch was in charge of filling the lifeboat. No crewman later made any mention of shooting at this location. People were transferred from overcrowded boat No. 10, as reflected in Nellie’s account, when Fifth Officer Harold Lowe formed a flotilla of lifeboats. The woman who had six children on board appears to have been Margaret Rice, who had five sons – one of whom may have been the child who was praying so beautifully.
Dining room steward William Burke put a man he believed to be an Italian at an oar after the transfer of seamen from boat No. 10 to boat No. 14, the latter craft going back to the wreck site to search for survivors. But the Italian confided he was actually Armenian when Burke tried to talk to him.
Nellie O’Dwyer was treated in hospital on landing, and later went to the home of her brother John at East 3rd Street in Brooklyn, where she gave her newspaper interview. She later attempted to get work as a domestic servant. Nellie was aided by the American Red Cross in case number 351, with a grant of fifty dollars.
List of personal property lost by Miss Nellie O’Dwyer, 138 East 3rd St., Brooklyn, NY: 2 ostrich plumes – $10; 2 sets of dishes – $15; 2 suits – $30; Irish lace – $25; 2 hats – $8; watch and chain – $50; set of furs – $20; 4 pictures – $10; white shawl – $5; silver mesh bag – $3.50; 2 pair shoes – $5; coat – $10; ring – $10; silk skirt – $8; underwear – $20; 2 Irish linen table cloths – $15; house dresses & aprons – $15; white dress – $10; music book, stockings, ties – $4; trunk – $10; suit case – $5. Total: $288.50.
Patrick O’Keeffe (30) Saved
Ticket number 368402. Paid £7 15s.
Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.