The Irish Aboard "Titanic" [Paperback]

With over 500 Titanic books in the English language available, one might ask why one more? If you have an interest in the passengers, one look through this book will answer your question. It is quite simply the most exhaustive and complete work on the Irish passengers available anywhere, from the few in the upper classes, to the huddled masses who traveled in third class looking for a new life in another country.

Some of the entries, are rather skimpy, but only because so little information is available on a lot of these obscure figures. Other entries are very complete due in no small part to years worth of research and detective work on Mr. Maloney's part, with details on lives befor, during and after the sinking.

If you want to know about the Irish aboard the Titanic, who they were, who didn't survive, who did, and how their lives were changed, this is the book to have!

This volume is truly comprehensive, bringing us the stories behind all of the Irish passengers on the Titanic, both travellers and crew, as well as a few non-Irish who so happened to have embarked upon the ill-fated vessel on its final stop before heading into the Atlantic, the Irish city of Queenstown. Although there are some people with not a lot of biographical information available, most of the people covered do have a lot of great fascinating information. All of the entries for the passengers start with how much they paid for their tickets, the address they were intending to go to upon arrival, which class they travelled in, where they hailed from, where they boarded, and if they had been originally booked on the ship Cymric but changed to the Titanic. These people came from all walks of life; there are stories about people who were travelling back to America after visiting family in Ireland, coming over to marry a sweetheart, planned to become teachers, were hoping to make their fortunes in America, were running away with a forbidden love (such as 19 year old Michael McEvoy and his 34 year old girlfriend Norah Murphy; Michael was lost and Norah was saved), and those who were immigrating to America to join relatives who had already made the trip and had sent for them. We get information on their lives before, during, and (for those who survived) after this unforgettable traumatic event; these people's lives are not being exclusively defined by having been on the Titanic. This book also clears up some decades-old misinformation about some of these people and their stories, such as how some of these people's names have been incorrectly reported since 1912 (e.g., Annie Jerymin's real name was Annie Jermyn; Julian Smyth's real name was Julia Smyth).

The majority of the people profiled here were travelling in third class, and most of them were lost. There were only a small number in second class, and of the handful of passengers in first class, only one was saved. As is pointed out in the introduction, the famous "Women and children first" line was really more like "First-class British women and children first," since most of the sterrage passengers were not only not saved but also in many cases weren't even able to get up to the lifeboats, being locked below deck or kept behind barred gates. Even those relatively few Irish who were saved were mostly in the last lifeboats and collapsibles of the night to be lowered, as though the survival of the lower-classes were an afterthought. Who got a spot in a lifeboat was very much a racist and classist thing. For example, the final boat to make it off the vessel, Collapsible B, had to be cut free and pushed into the water at 2:20 at night, when the boat barely had any time left to live, with the three Irish survivors and the others who got on it having to climb onto it in its upturned state and stay balanced there until their rescue. Besides race and class, there were other factors at work in who lived and who died. There are stories of people who had to jump into boats already in the water, who gave up spots in lifeboats because they wouldn't abandon a spouse or other loved one, who almost missed the chance to be saved because they had to go back to get a prized possession, men who dressed as women to get into lifeboats, and those who had to be forced to just go empty-handed and forget saving their things (one woman, Nora Keane in second class, was actually trying to get dressed instead of going as she was, and her cabin mate had to grab her before she could start putting on her corset, unable to believe she "could put her life at risk over a foolish item of clothing at the height of a shipwreck").

All in all, this is a great book for those who are interested in history, the Irish people, the history of immigration to America, or the Titanic itself. Although it is kind of depressing to see how many names at the beginning of each entry have "Lost" instead of "Saved" next to them, their life stories are all full of life, letting us know a lot more about these people than just that they were on the Titanic. It's a shame such a wonderful book is currently out of print.

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