Facial rash saved Mayo woman from the horrors of the Titanic
By Tom Shiel
A MAYO schoolteacher has supplied Open Agenda with a piece of fascinating information about her grandmother who bought a ticket for the ill-fated Titanic in 1912 but failed to use it.
As Michael Molloy of the Addergoole Titanic Society points out, had Annie Jordan from Lack West, Turlough, not cancelled her voyage after developing a facial rash, the picture taken specially for this page of her daughter, granddaughter and beautiful grandchildren would never have been possible.
Earlier this month, Open Agenda ran a story of how two young women, both 18 years old, from Parke, bought tickets for the Titanic but failed to use them.
One was Norah Callaghan from Lack East who boarded SS Celtic the day after RMS Titanic sailed and landed safely in America on April 20, 1912. The other young lady on whom providence smiled was Annie Jordan from Lack West whose granddaughter, Caroline Berkeley, teaches history in St. Joseph's Secondary School, Castlebar. Here is Caroline Berkeley's piece of Titanic family history:
"Annie Jordan was born in October 1894. She was my grandmother on my mother's side. She intended to immigrate to America and had her ticket bought for the Titanic.
"However, shortly before the departure date she developed a rash on her face and was not allowed to travel.
I believe the authorities were quite strict back then with regard to illnesses and ailments that any immigrant might bring with them into America.
"She was to join her five brothers who were already there. It was large family of 10 - three girls and seven boys.
"However, she remained in Lack with her parents, Thomas and Anne Jordan, and married Patrick Conway, a farmer from Ballyguinn, Turlough, in 1920.
"Perhaps the thought of the tragedy and the fact that she had been so close to it made her think again. She and Patrick had six children - four girls and two boys.
"Sadly, Patrick died in 1928; she was left to raise her young family, aged one to seven, on her own.
"Annie Conway (nee Jordan) died on March 17,1970, aged seventy five, and is buried in Turlough Cemetery.
"Today, two of her children are living in Castlebar - my mum Eileen Convey (nee Conway), and my aunt Nan Conway. There is also a very large extended family of grandchildren, great grand children and even great great grandchildren, many of whom are still in Castlebar and its environs.
"I knew about the memorial in St. Patrick's Church, Addergoole, to the 14 people who boarded the Titanic, but I was amazed to see my own grandmother's name handwritten on sheet two of RMS Titanic's manifest, next to five of the 11 Addergoole passengers who perished - Mary Canavan, Mary Bourke, John Bourke, Catherine Bourke and James Flynn.
"Their story is so heart rending. Catherine and Mary Bourke were given places in lifeboat 16, but would not get in. Catherine would not leave her husband, John; Mary would not leave her brother.
"James Flynn and Pat Canavan were standing with them. Like John Bourke, they too were not allowed into the boat. Only Annie Kate Kelly from Addergoole got into that boat, lowered at 1.20 a.m., half full with 30 people. She survived and became a nun, Sister Patrick Joseph.
"Pictured (on this page) are my mother (Eileen Convey), who is Annie Jordan's daughter, myself and my two daughters, Holly and Sophie.
"My mother, who has a terrific memory, also remembers a Maria Callaghan from Lack East who married a man by the surname of Geraghty.
"Michael Molloy, coordinator of the Addergoole Titanic Society, told me the 1901 Census for the Callaghan family gives a Maria who was just four years old when her sister, Norah, boarded SS Celtic the day after RMS Titanic sailed and landed safely in America on April 20,1912.”
Open Agenda would like to express gratitude to Caroline Berkeley and her mother, Eileen, as well as Michael Molloy, for the above wonderful story.
Now that the tale of Annie Jordan, which had such a happy ending, has been told perhaps some of our readers would be able to shed some light on Norah Callaghan's life in America through relatives living in Castlebar and the surrounding areas.
How incredible her reaction must have been when she landed safely in New York on April 20, 1912 and heard the astounding news that the “ship of dreams”, the Titanic, leviathan of the ocean, had been sank by an iceberg with immense loss of life.
Connaught Telegraph 2nd February 2009