Titanic Local Connection

Titanic- A Local Connection.   By Margaret Carty.

On the morning of the 15th of April 1912 at 2:30 am the Titanic hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank to the bottom of the ocean with the loss of many lives. A number of those that died that night were from the West of Ireland. One of them, from County Sligo, was my grandaunt, Janie Carr, a native of Castlerock, in the parish of Kilmactigue.

Janie was born on February 11th 1867, the second youngest of eight children. Her father was Tom Carr (b circa 1820) who came from Co Fermanagh to herd sheep on the Ox Mountains in the mid 1840’s and married Bridget Goldrick (b circa 1826) of Castlerock.  

Tom and Bridget had to live in the same house as her brother, Cecil, his wife and family – many families had to share a house back then as the Government did not let them build a second house on the farm, but each family had to pay rent and rates. Even though they had only a little over 30 acres of mountain land, their rateable valuation was £3 each and if they could not pay they would have been evicted.

Under what stress they must have lived- ironically, nearly 200 years later, many Irish people are living under the stress of losing jobs and being evicted from their homes and not the fault of the landlord this time!

Tom and Bridget had eight children – they were: Catherine (b. 1855), James (b. 1858), Michael (b. 1859), Mary Marie (b. 1861), Bridget (b.1864), and Thomas (b. 1872). James married Margaret Walsh and they were my grandparents. Janie never married. They must have been a great family to have lived and reared such a large family during and after the famine years but as each child came of age he or she helped look after the sheep and to mind the younger children. They probably had a cow or two on the farm, a pig and chickens and grew all their own vegetables. There was a corn mill and a kiln in Castlerock and in quite a few of the townlands. I am sure that the Carr family grew as much corn as possible to help feed their family and animals. Later, when the nuns in Banada started the Lace School many of the local girls worked there and some made the lace in their own homes – this helped to bring extra money into the household. Some of Janie’s nieces were lace makers.

I don’t know if Janie had a chance to go to school but the school in Castlerock was built in 1846. She would have had a choice of three churches for Sunday mass, the Lake Church (built by Jack Taaffe), Tourlestrane and Kilmactigue. Of course the family Rosary plus ‘trimmings’ is what bonded their family together.

Jennie, emigrated to America in 1889, arriving in New York aboard the City of Berlin on 4th May 1889 and resided in Springfield, Massachusetts where she worked as a domestic and cook. She later worked in Hartford, Connecticut and then at the home of Dr.Sidney A. Burnap of Windsor Locks, Connecticut as a housekeeper and cook. She had numerous nieces and nephews living nearby.

Janie managed to make three trips home to see her family. Her father died aged 73 in August 1893 and her mother passed away the following year. One of her visits home was in 1906 when my Dad was born – they called him Ambrose after Janie’s boyfriend in America, it was said that she let the chance of marrying him pass in order to look after her nephews and nieces. After a visit in 1909 for her sister Marie’s wedding she said she intended to stay in Ireland and spend the rest of her life surrounded by her brothers and sisters and their families. But, as the bank was failing due to embezzlement by Dr Burnap’s brother in law, Janie made hasty plans to return to the USA to settle her affairs.

As there was great excitement over the building of the Titanic at that time. Janie decided that it would be the chance of a lifetime to return on it to America. Her niece, Margaret Carr and a cousin of Margaret’s were to go with her but, luckily for them they were not ready and missed the boat. Janie was left in to Tubbercurry station by her brothers and travelling alone took the train to Cork. She boarded the Titanic at Cobh (Queenstown) as a third class passenger. Her ticket number was 368364 for which she paid £7.15s. Janie lost her life in the disaster and her body, if recovered, was never identified. – many of the bodies were buried in Mount Oliver Cemetery there. I have a photograph of the Cemetery and would love to think that Janie is resting in peace there. I have now put her name on a plaque in Banada cemetery with her parents’ names and with other members of her family who are buried there- I want Janie to be remembered.

Yes, Janie Carr left her footprints in the sands of life in America and Ireland. On the 100th anniversary of her death, a mass was said for Janie in Kilmactigue Church. It was attended by nine of her grandnieces, by great grand -nieces and nephews, by some from the next generation and by extended family and friends. We all had different memories, some happy, some sad, but we all wanted to say thanks to Janie because in a way, she had touched all our lives by her goodness, charity and love of her family.

Group of Janie Carr’s relatives and descendents at the 100th anniversary of her death in Kilmactigue Church in April 2012

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