Irish Aboard Titanic

by Senan Molony

  It wasn’t as if Margaret didn’t have it hard enough herself. Aged 39, she had been widowed almost two years earlier when her engineer husband, William, was killed in a locomotive tragedy in America in late 1910. Originally from Athlone and home on a visit, she was returning to Spokane, Washington, with her five sons – Albert, George, Eric, Arthur and the baby, baptised Eugene, but whom she called Frank. All were drowned, and the destruction of the family is commemorated in the Cobh (Queenstown) memorial to the Irish passengers lost, which was unveiled in July 1998.

  Mrs Rice’s body was recovered, indicating that she managed to get on deck with her children – but the delay in organising them all probably cost the family a place in the boats. She was identified by a pill box she had on her person, which was dispensed to her by a chemist in Church Street, Athlone, two days before boarding. She is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia – on the opposite side of a continent to her husband.

  Irish Passengers missing: some pathetic incidents Queenstown, Friday

  As far as we can make out from the list of survivors to hand here so far, about one third of the 123 passengers who joined the Titanic at Queenstown on Thursday last have been saved. The percentage is not as long as was originally believed.

  There are many pathetic incidents connected with those Irish passengers. We have turned in vain to every list for some trace of Mrs Rice and her fine young family of five children, with whom she had been in Athlone on a brief holiday, or what was more a rest after a great affliction, she having lost her husband recently.

  Mrs Rice’s fine handsome children evoked all round admiration. Two were quite young ones in arms and all seem to have perished.

  (The Cork Examiner, 19 April 1912)

  Nellie O’Dwyer from Limerick may have witnessed the last moments of Margaret Rice and her offspring:

  The cries that came from that ship I’ll never forget. I could see just 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.

  (Irish Independent, 7 May 1912)

  Nellie also spoke of ‘a sweet little boy’ and of hearing ‘the grandest prayers that one could hear from a child’, before adding: ‘I think he was lost. I don’t remember seeing him next morning in any of the boats.’

  Meanwhile Bertha Mulvihill also saw the Rices on the port side. She said she saw Mrs Rice with one child in her arms and the others clutching at her skirts, just before the end. Speaking on the forty-fourth anniversary of the sinking in 1956, she declared:

  ‘I don’t know where they get all that women and children first business. I never saw it! I’ll tell you what I saw. I saw a mother and her five children standing there on the ship. When the ship split in half, I saw the mother and five children drown.’

  Mrs Rice and her children are pictured in the Irish Independent of 19 April 1912. The caption reported: ‘Mrs Rice and her five sons, who were returning to their home at Spokane, Washington. Mrs Rice is an Athlone woman. Her husband, who was an engineer, was killed last year on one of the American railways. She had been paying a visit to her uncle, Mr John Norton, Mardyke Street, Athlone.’

  A short distance away from that address was Fleming’s chemist on Church Street, where Margaret bought pills just before she left Athlone to bring her sons to Queenstown. The tablets were in a numbered container that was later to provide the identification of her body. It also declared: ‘Two every four hours if pain severe.’ The coroner’s report recorded:

  Body number twelve – Female. Estimated age 40. Hair, dark.

  Clothing – black velvet coat; jacket and skirt; blue cardigan; black apron; black boots and stockings. Effects – Wedding ring, keeper, and another gold; locket and photo; one jet, one bead necklace; gold brooch in bag; £3 in gold; £4 in Irish notes; gold brooch; plain gold wag earrings; charm around neck, B.V. M.; False teeth in upper jaw; £10 note; box pills. Probably Third Class.

  The White Star Line in New York later sent home a gold locket taken from Margaret’s body in Halifax (where it was buried), which contained ‘photo and hair’, believed to be from her deceased spouse. Accompanying it on the Oceanic in August 1912 was a letter noting that her remains had been interred without taking off the rings. The ‘bead necklace’ and ‘charm’ in her effects were clarified as a Rosary and Blessed Virgin Mary scapular. None of her children’s bodies was ever found.

  Athlone Victims

  Mrs Rice (née Norton) and her five children were returning to their home in Montana. Mrs Rice, who was a native of Athlone, was a widow. A little over two years ago her husband was killed near their home in the States and in her great bereavement she came home to Athlone, bringing her five children with her.

  She remained here just two years. She had intended to return in May, but the fact that other passengers were going from Athlone induced her to start earlier. Her husband left her ample means and a beautiful home, but in this disaster, apparently the whole family is wiped out. The eldest child was only eight years of age, and the youngest three. The home which Mrs Rice was returning to has been closed since her husband’s death.

  The Rice family – which was completely wiped out in the Titanic disaster – appears to have been dogged by tragedy. Mrs Rice’s first baby was choked by a ‘comforter’ teat, her husband was killed, and now she and the remaining five children are buried in the ocean.

  (Westmeath Independent, 27 April 1912)

  Margaret Rice, the daughter of James Norton and Mary Garty, was baptised on 6 October 1872, in St Mary’s Church, Athlone. Almost twenty-six years later, she was married in the same church to William Rice, an Englishman, whose family, like her own, was involved in the railways. The couple wed on 18 June 1898. By this time Margaret’s was already a family steeped in tragedy. Both of her parents were dead. Her mother had died in 1885 following complications of childbirth and her heartbroken father had opted to emigrate alone to America in 1891. From the middle of 1892 his letters stopped and the family became convinced that he had died. Thus it represented a new beginning and an end to despair for Margaret Norton when she married William Rice in the church of her childhood. They shared dreams of a better life, and a short time later they were off to the United States themselves to seek their fortunes, with William quickly finding work in Montreal with the Grand Trunk Railroad, whose president, Charles M. Hays, later died in the Titanic’s foundering. William initially worked as a shipping clerk, but itched to get back to what he knew best – driving trains.

  Two of the couple’s children were born in Montreal – George Hugh on 30 November 1903, and Frederick (Eric) Thomas on 19 January 1908.

  By 1910, William had broken free of the bonds of deskwork and was out on the rails. His work took the family to Spokane, Washington. Their last child, Eugene Francis, was born on 13 October 1909. Albert and Arthur completed the impressive five-son line-up, which always drew admiring comments when the family were out together.

  Happiness was short-lived. William was crushed to death by a locomotive on 24 January 1910. He was buried in a plot paid for by the Grand Trunk, and Margaret was awarded $6,500 in compensation. She returned to Ireland.

  She had $2,500 in bonds with her on board the Titanic when the vessel foundered. Her sister Norah Stetson and a surviving brother, Michael, eventually received only $200 each from her estate after all taxes, fees and debts were paid. Margaret had borrowed $500 against investments held in trust for her children in order to return to the United States. At that time, she was living above Bernard Finnerty’s public house in Castle Street, Athlone. The 1911 census identifies her and the children as boarders there, with Margaret describing herself as a returned American widow. All of the five sons are identified as having been born in America, and their names and ages given as follows: Albert (9), George (7), Eric (5), Arthur (4) and Frank (1).

  Living with them in these rooms was Margaret’s niece, 15-year-old Catheri
ne Norton, from County Sligo. Family folklore says Catherine journeyed to Queenstown with the Rices. It seems Margaret asked her to come over to America to help look after the children, but something prevented the teenager from taking the plunge – literally – and becoming the sixth member of one family to die.

  Hannah Riordan (22) Saved

  Ticket number 334915. Paid £7 15s.

  Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

  From: Glenalougha, Kingwilliamstown, County Cork.

  Destination: 319 Lexington Avenue, New York city.

  Hannah’s story is one of crossed wires of communication that conspired to keep the joy of her salvation from keenly sorrowing sisters. She was 22 years old and one of a group that travelled from the small hamlet of Kingwilliamstown, County Cork, and would have enjoyed the emigrants’ farewell party staged the night before the adventure began.

  It was one long party in the steerage as the Titanic sailed, and Hannah might have been in no rush to arrive in America – although New York promised to be even more exciting and enthralling. She was due to be met at the pier in Manhattan by her sister Ellie and was looking forward to exploring the metropolis with her older sibling, who lived on fashionable Lexington Avenue.

  Another sister in New York was Julia – and when she and Ellie learned of the calamity both were inconsolable. They had no expectation that a Third-Class passenger might live at a time when the American newspapers were reporting the heroic deaths of millionaires and military attachés. They forced themselves to search the columns of known survivors cabled by the Carpathia. But there was no sign of Hannah Riordan. Unknowingly, they passed over the reports of an ‘Anna Reibon’ among the escapees – garbled wireless transcriptions meaning they had missed the encrypted news that their sister had been rescued.

  They went to the pier in any case to meet the ‘Ship of Death’, as it had been luridly described in the same newspapers. And when a stunned and shivering Hannah appeared in ill-fitting clothes down the gangplank, there were no words to convey their amazement and sheer relief. Tears and hugs said it all.

  Hannah Riordan was one of the girls mentioned by Dannie Buckley of the Kingwilliamstown contingent in a letter home from the sanctuary of the Carpathia. She was later aided with a $100 gratuity dispensed by the American Red Cross. Her case was listed as number 393, and she pared her age a little to be described as a 20-year-old servant. She had in fact been born on 27 January 1890, and appeared in the 1901 census as an 11-year-old.

  Irish Titanic survivors meet

  34 Men and Women From Various Parts of the Old Country, Who Were Passengers on the Sunken Vessel, Aided by the Patriotic Pastor of the Irish Immigrant Home.

  Last Sunday afternoon, Rev Michael Henry welcomed the Irish survivors of the ill-fated Titanic at their reunion at the Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary, the Irish Girl’s Immigrant Home, 7 State Street, this city. Among the survivors present were Hannah Riordan …

  (Irish World, New York, 4 May 1912)

  Hannah returned home only once, in 1924, and told neighbours and relatives in Ireland that she really didn’t know what had happened that awful night in mid-Atlantic. She had gotten such a fright that she had blotted it all out, she said. She only knew that it was terrible.

  Returning to the United States, Hannah immediately applied to become a US citizen. The paperwork was carried out in 1925 in New York city and she was duly naturalised on 10 May 1928. The application forms indicated she was still unmarried by the age of 35.

  She insisted on her declaration papers that she was only 29. The details also show her to have been a grey-eyed brunette, still working as a maid in New York. Hannah declared: ‘I emigrated to the United States from Queenstown, Ireland, on the vessel Titanic.’ The Department of Labour decided otherwise, certifying for bureaucratic purposes that she had arrived via the Carpathia on 18 June 1912 – the date the Titanic survivors’ immigration papers were finally placed on record. Her sister Mary, then working as a cook in the city, witnessed her application.

  Hannah married Irishman John Spollen at St Anselm’s Church in the Bronx on St Patrick’s Day 1936. Her husband was 36, and Hannah signed the register as the same age – the first white lie of the marriage. She was actually a decade older, and unsurprisingly, they had no children.

  Hannah’s niece Mary Edward of Cresskill, New Jersey, said her aunt hated mention of the Titanic and ‘would even seem angry’ if the topic was brought up. Hannah Riordan Spollen died in the Bronx, New York, on 29 September 1982, aged 92. Heartbroken husband John died seven months later, aged 82.

  1901 census:

  Parents: Peter (51). Wife Mary, née O’Connor, deceased.

  Children: Ellen(13), Hannah (11), Mary (9), Norah (7), James (5), Eugene (3).

  Edward Ryan (24) Saved

  Ticket number 383162. Paid £7 15s.

  Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

  From: Ballinaveen, Emly, County Tipperary.

  Destination: Troy, New York.

  Eddie Ryan freely admitted impersonating a woman in his effort to escape the sinking. The ruse worked:

  Irish Survivor’s Experience – Tipperary Man’s Escape

  Mr Eddie Ryan, youngest son of Mr Daniel Ryan, Ballinaveen House, Emly, County Tipperary, was a passenger on the ill-fated Titanic. The following is an extract from a letter which Mr Ryan sent to his parents:

  ‘Dear Father and Mother,

  ‘I had a terrible experience. I shall never forget it. You will see all about it in the papers which I’ll send on to you. I was the last man to jump into the last boat. I stood on the Titanic and kept cool, although she was sinking fast. She had gone down about forty feet by now.

  ‘The last boat was about being lowered away when I thought in a second that if I could only pass out I’d be all right. I had a towel around my neck. I just threw this over my head and let it hang at the back. I wore my waterproof raincoat.

  ‘I then walked very stiff past the officers, who had declared they’d shoot the first man who dare pass out. They didn’t notice me. They thought I was a woman.

  ‘I grabbed a girl who was standing by in despair and jumped with her 30 feet into the boat. An Italian and myself rowed away as fast as we could, and soon after the great liner sank.

  ‘We were for seven long hours in the boat, and were nearly dead for want of a drink. I attribute my safety to Almighty God.

  ‘We were treated fine on the Carpathia and landed in New York on Thursday. I was released from St Vincent’s Hospital on Saturday, hale and hearty, even without having got a cold, and went to Troy on Sunday. I’ll tell you more of my experiences in my next letter.’

  (The Cork Examiner, 6 May 1912)

  Ryan may have been in No. 14 lifeboat, launched amid some trouble from the port side. ‘They were all women and children, bar one passenger, who was an Italian, and he sneaked in, and he was dressed like a woman,’ Fifth Officer Harold Lowe testified to the American inquiry. ‘He had a shawl over his head, and everything else; I only found out at the last moment.’ Lowe later made it clear he was referring to after the sinking, when he was transferring passengers from boat No. 14 to a small flotilla assembled of other craft, intending to use his own to go back to search for survivors.

  ‘It was at this time that I found the Italian. He came aft, and he had a shawl over his head and I suppose he had skirts. Anyhow, I pulled this shawl off his face and saw he was a man. He was in a great hurry to get into the other boat, and I caught hold of him and pitched him in – because he was not worthy of being handled better.’

  The obvious problem with this account is that Ryan was not Italian – but speaks himself of being at the oars with an Italian. Lowe seems to have used ‘Italian’ rather freely in describing unedifying characteristics among foreigners in general.

  Ryan’s admission to impersonating a woman – reported publicly in Ireland – caused him embarrassment in subsequent years. Locals to this day say he was treated with a certain distance as a result on his tri
ps home, and indeed he chose to live out his later years in England. Things had changed since the scenes that initially feted his survival:

  Mr P. J. Ryan, Croom, was one of the first to receive word of his cousin’s safety, and he lost no time in wiring the good news to his relatives in East Limerick and Tipperary. When the news reached Hospital and Emly the people of those districts were wild with joy and excitement, for Mr Eddie Ryan was a favourite with all who knew him, and that night the hills of his native district were alive with bonfires and illuminations in celebration of his Providential escape.

  The youths of the district gathered at many crossroads, and dancing and singing were kept up in honour of their favourite Eddie until the early hours of Saturday morning, for all were greatly gratified at Eddie’s safety, and the heroism he displayed shows that he is a worthy siren of the old clan O’Ryans, whose ancestry in his old home dates back for over fifteen hundred years.

  Numerous telegrams and letters of congratulation have reached the young man’s parents from all parts of Munster, but particularly from East Limerick and Tipperary, where his relatives are so numerous and well-known, with all of whom we join in our congratulations for his escape and heroism.

  (Munster News, 11 May 1912)

  Five years before he died, Ryan gave a different, rather self-serving, account of his escape that night. This time he airbrushed his earlier confession, but provided some startling new details while maintaining the assertion of a 30-foot descent in the company of a woman:

  On the Titanic’s last day at sea, a Sunday, I remember reading the last log report on the ship’s progress. It said, ‘A calm sea, 22 knots, icebergs ahead.’ We didn’t take any notice of this because none of us had ever seen an iceberg. That afternoon we had the usual games and on the Sunday night there was a concert in the dining room. About 300 people attended and I remember there were some very good turns.

  The two men in my cabin went to bed about 11 o’clock. I was still up at the time, looking for a piece of wire to free my pipe, which was stopped up. At that moment the ship struck the iceberg. Soon stewards came knocking on all the doors asking everybody to go on deck with their life jackets on. I woke up the men who shared my cabin and told them the ship had struck something, but they took no notice. I never saw them again.