Just before eleven o’clock that same night, a number of sailors who were nominally on watch duty were overpowered by a group of about twenty men from steerage, led by Seamus Meadowes of Ballynahinch who had broken out of the First Mate’s quarters half an hour beforehand. By the time he came onto the frozen upperdeck, Meadowes was ‘raging and covered in blood’ and ‘roaring that a blow had been struck for freedom this night’. They smashed open the chains on two of the lifeboats; heaved them into the icy water and jumped in after them. One man remained in the water and began to swim. The others clambered into the smaller of the two boats and began making hard for the shore. None was an experienced boatman; panic set in quickly. The oars were soon lost and the desperate fugitives were seen trying to paddle with their hands.
Moments later, Pius Mulvey appeared on the deck in an agitated state and pleaded to be allowed to go with the second group. He was pushed away and violently abused. At that point a larger group, comprising another fifty or so, appeared from various parts of the ship. Among their number was Mary Duane.
By now some of the passengers were jumping overboard. Many found themselves in immediate difficulty; the water must have been paralysingly cold, and the majority were unable to swim. An argument seems to have begun on the deck as to which of the remaining passengers should have places in the second boat. The few women and children were accommodated first; next the husbands of the women, or their male relations or fiancés. Mary Duane, being the last woman present at the scene, was offered one of the last two places. She wavered, briefly, and then said she would take it. A very old Galwayman called Daniel Simon Grady was offered the place beside her. He was much admired among the steerage passengers, a gentle sort of old man.
Mulvey stepped forward and said he had prior claim, being a member of Mary Duane’s family.
Mary Duane replied, ‘May you rot.’
Mulvey was then heard to utter the words, ‘Have mercy on me, Mary. Don’t deny me the only chance, for pity’s sake.’
He began to weep and to clutch at her hands. He seemed absolutely convinced that his life was in danger. He kept saying that he could not leave the ship in such a way as to go through the customs station with the body of passengers, that he had strong reason to believe he would be murdered if he did. Neither could he risk being sent back to Ireland, for a similar fate awaited him there, and anyway he could not bear to face the journey.
She said it was a fate he deserved, and worse.
‘Hasn’t there been enough of torture, Mary? Enough of bloodshed? Enough by now?’
She was asked by the old Galwayman if what Mulvey was saying was correct. Was he indeed related to her? She must speak the truth. To deny one of your own family was a dreadful thing to do. Far too many in Ireland had done it before. So many had turned against their own blood now. He was not blaming anyone; it was just so cruel what had happened to the people. It would break your heart to see it happen. Neighbour against neighbour. Family against family. For a man to turn his back on his brother was the blackest sin. But men were weak. So often they were afraid. For a woman to do it could never be forgiven.
‘Is your name Duane, love?’ the old man asked her.
She said it was.
‘Of over by Carna?’
She nodded.
‘That name is a wealth to you. Your people were great.’
When she made no answer she was asked again would she leave one of her own family behind to suffer. Perhaps to die. Was that truly what a Duane would do? The old man said he could not take the place in such a circumstance. No blessing could come from such an action; nor would any be merited. He was only here himself because of natural family love; his children in Boston had sent him the fare. They had little enough but they had scraped every penny to do it. Often they themselves had gone hungry just to save him. There was no need for them to do it, only simple human mercy. ‘The only thing that makes our lives here bearable.’ He could not disgrace their name by standing in the way of family. His wife in Heaven would weep for his honour if he did.
‘Come into the boat,’ Mary Duane said to the old Galwayman.
Sleet began falling. He put his hand on her shoulder. ‘I have nothing left,’ he reportedly said. And some say he briefly continued, in Irish: ‘Nothing in the world. Only my name.’
Again Mulvey came forward and pleaded to be given a chance. Again she accused him of deserving none. He had been spat on by now and his clothes were torn. He seemed almost impervious to the kicks and punches being thrown at him. Reportedly he was quaking with fear or pain but he did not raise a hand to shield himself.
‘Is there no doubt in you, Mary? Not an ounce itself of doubt? Is this what Nicholas would have wanted, are you saying? Can any of it mend the wrong? Will it turn back the times? I’ll die if you want it. I am already dead.’
I think I know the answer I myself would have given. I believe I know even the words I would have used, every curse, every spite, every last denunciation. I have heard the anathema I would have rained on Pius Mulvey. I have seen my dagger stab into his betrayer’s heart; the dizzying exhilaration of white-hot hatred I would have felt. Or perhaps I would have said simply: ‘I do not know you.’ I have never seen you. You are no part of me.
But it is not the answer that Mary Duane gave.
It is almost seventy years since the events of that night and not a day has passed in those seven long decades – I mean literally not one single day – without my searching my mind for some explanation of what happened next. I have spoken to every living person who witnessed the occurrence: every man, every woman, every child and every sailor. I have discussed it with philosophers, doctors of the mind. Priests. Ministers. Mothers. Wives. For many of those years I saw it in dreams; sometimes, still, I see it even now. And I believe when my own time comes, I will see it again; an event I never saw, but only heard reported. Pius Mulvey on his knees, begging for his life. Mary Duane above him, shaking with tears; for she wept that night on the Star of the Sea, as perhaps only the mother of a murdered child can weep. Nobody ever drew Alice-Mary Duane, whose ruined father snuffed out her agonised life. Her mother wept as she uttered her name. ‘Like a prayer’, as many of the witnesses said.
And as the name was uttered, some began to pray; and others began to weep in sympathy. And others again who had lost children of their own began to utter their children’s names. As though the act of saying their names – the act of saying they ever had names – was to speak the only prayer that can ever begin to matter in a world that turns its eyes from the hungry and the dying. They were real. They existed. They were held in these arms. They were born, and they lived, and they died. And I see myself on the deck in a scream of vengeance; as though it was my own spouse who had been scourged to despair; my own helpless child so cruelly destroyed.
Was it forgiveness? Gullibility? Power? Loss? Some dark aggregation of all these things, or something else more dark again? Perhaps even Mulvey would not have known the answer. Perhaps Mary Duane did not know it herself.
If it was mercy – and I simply cannot say what it was – whatever made Mary Duane show it may only be guessed. Wherever she found it can never be known. But she did show it. She did find it. When the moment of retribution rolled up out of history and presented itself like an executioner’s sword, she turned away and did not seize it.
Instead, still weeping and now being helped to stand, she confirmed that Pius Mulvey of Ardnagreevagh was the brother of her late husband; her only living relation in three thousand miles.
She was asked if she wanted to remain on the ship, to take her chances of being sent back to Ireland alongside him. She hesitated for a moment and then said no, she did not.
They entered the second lifeboat together, taking up the last two places, and were last seen drifting in the direction of the dock.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE DISCOVERY
The thirty-first day out of Cove
LONG: 74°.02′W. LAT: 40°.42′N. ACT
UAL GREENWICH STANDARD TIME: 00.58 a.m. (9 December). LOCAL TIME: 7.58 p.m. PRECIPITATION & REMARKS: New York Harbour. Low tide.
On this eighth day of December, in the year of Our Lord, Eighteen hundred and Forty-Seven, it is my grievous duty to record the news of the heinous murder of Lord Kingscourt of Carna, our friend David Merridith, the ninth Earl. His body was discovered by Countess Kingscourt this morning, just after dawn in the First-Class quarters. Surgeon Mangan attended immediately but pronounced death to have occurred at about eleven o’clock last night. The cause was seven deep stabs to the upper back, and one to the back of the skull. Yet more horrifically, the throat had been so severely cut that the head was almost completely separated from the body.
No weapon was found and the search for one continues. His Lordship must have been most horribly surprised, for there were no defence wounds to the hands or arms, nor were any cries heard from his cabin.
Full searches were made of the First-Class quarters, a strange note being found torn up into pieces, in the wastage-disposal canister on the Main Lower Landing, as though a kind of blackmail letter. It has been preserved and will be handed to the police at New York.
As Master all responsibility for the security of the vessel weighs exclusively upon myself; and accordingly I hereby tender my resignation from command of this ship, also from the employment of the Silver Star Shipping Line & Co., to be effective from debarkation and unloading at New York.
I sent a boat in to the wharf and explained the frightful happening and asked in the circumstances to be allowed to come in; but permission was strongly denied by the authorities. A large party of police officers and immigration officials came out and took-down testimonies from a great number of steerage passengers and others. It was confirmed that Shaymus Meadowes, formerly of Ballynahinch, County Galway, one of those who fled the ship last night, had indeed threatened extreme violence towards Lord Kingscourt and other landowners of Ireland in the past, and so must be deemed the principal suspect, or at very least, the ringleader of the evil. Mister Mulvey was not alone in thinking him a danger. He was believed by many passengers to be a member of the ‘Liable Men’ of Galway, and apparently had often himself claimed so to be; on several occasions boasting that he knew for a certitude Lord Kingscourt would never leave the ship alive.
The First-Class passengers may be allowed to land in a few days; but those in steerage shall have to delay until all are questioned and examined and cleared for disease.
I explained to Captain Daniel O’Dowd of the New York Police that we had a number of human remains in the hold, with the inevitable consequences which must attend, and I was anxious regarding the health of those in my charge. I suggested that perhaps a large quantity of rat poison might be supplied but was told that such would not be possible, at least not for the moment, but arrangements would be made for disposal of the bodies.
Two barges came alongside shortly before noon, and the remains we had below were loaded upon them, including those of Lord Kingscourt. We had no colours with which to enshroud him so we lowered the Union pennant from the mainmast and used that. To the great distress of Lady Kingscourt and her sons, a small number of passengers were heard to cheer as the colours were lowered. I appealed to them to have a care for the simple respect of the dead and they desisted. They said it was not the deceased they were jeering, but only the flag. When I said it was the flag under which he had once served his country, one man said many an Irishman had served it too, and had no flag of his own in which he might be buried, as did none of those who had died on the Star. No flag nor fuss for them, he said. The very day he had boarded the Star of the Sea, nine hundred bodies of those who had starved had been shovelled into a pit in his home town of Bantry. No cross. No stone. No coffin. No flag. I answered that I understood his feelings on the matter, as indeed I do, but this was not the time for such a discussion, since the grief of any widow must surely be the same, as must be the sadness of any little child bereft of his father. We shook hands and he removed his hat as Lord Kingscourt’s body was lowered down, though others were seen to turn their backs.
The barge being small, there was little room for mourners. Places were allowed to Lady Kingscourt and her children, to Mr G. Dixon as friend of the family, to Minister Deedes and to myself as Master of the vessel. The steerage passengers who had lost loved ones were greatly upset but the Pilot said he simply had not the capacity on board. Mr Dixon said he would be willing to give up his place but the two little boys seemed very distressed and pleaded with him to remain. The Pilot made to bear off but was affected by the crying of the bereaved on board. He was a kindly man, a Hebridean Scotsman, and one could see he had sympathy for the people. Finally he said he would take one more mourner as representative for all the others, if a choice could be made quickly. They drew lots to decide their representative, and Rose English, a married woman of Roscommon was selected, her husband being among the dead.
We were towed back out a few miles through Gedney’s Channel, a short distance west of Sydney’s Beacon; and further out past the Verazano Narrows into Lower Bay. There we were ordered to wait for the rising tide. At seven minutes to one, the Pilot gave us the signal. Mrs English asked if we might delay another very few short minutes. The poor lady was by now very distressed but trying to speak calmly. At one o’clock in New York it would be six in the evening at home, she said. The bells would be tolling all over Ireland for the Angelus. The Pilot agreed that we could wait until then.
Mrs English, a Roman Catholic, began quietly to recite the Rosary in Latin and was joined by the Pilot’s mate, an Italian man of Naples. The rest of us stood together in silent prayer for a time and added an amen at the end. The two boys were attempting to be brave, but how could they be in such terrible circumstances? Lady Kingscourt began to weep; and I noticed Mrs English, also weeping, take her by the hand.
At the signal from the Pilot for one o’clock, we committed David Merridith’s remains to the deep, also those of nine men, women and children of Ireland, and those of our gentle comrade, William Gunn of Manchester. With the assent of Mrs English, Reverend Deedes read quietly from the Book of Common Prayer: that we look for the Resurrection of the body (when the sea shall give up her dead), and the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who at His coming shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto His glorious body; according to the mighty working whereby He is able to subdue all things to Himself.
May God almighty grant him peace. He leaves a wife, Lady Laura, and two small sons: Robert and Jonathan, the tenth Earl. It is believed they will stay at Albany, New York, for a time, at the home of a married sister of Mr Grantley Dixon.
The names of the others of our lost companions, on whose souls we ask the mercy of the Saviour this day:
Michael English, a farmer; Peter Joyce, a farmer; James Halloran, a farmer’s infant child; Rose Flaherty, a seamstress; John O’Lea, a smith’s apprentice; Edward Dunne, smallholder; Michael O’Malley, itinerant labourer; Winnifred Costello, married woman; and Daniel Simon Grady, an elderly man of Galway, who died in steerage early this morning, having intended to go to his children at Boston. The total who died on the voyage is ninety-five.
The compleat register of those who fled the ship last night has not yet been compiled, but their number includes Shaymus Meadowes, Grace Coggen, Francis Whelan, Fintan Mounrance, Thomas Boland, Patk. Balfe, Wilm. Hannon, Josephine Lawless, Bridget Duignan, Mary Farrell, Honor Larkin, and between twenty-five and fifty others – also Pius Mulvey the unfortunate cripple and Mary Duane, nanny of the Merridith family.
The debris clogging the harbour being most severe, both lifeboats were lost some time last night. Most of the bodies were recovered from Gravesend Bay near dawn; but some must be lying on the harbour-bed still. Others may well have drifted back out to open sea. A full report has been made to the Police at New York but little hope if any may be entertained for survivors, the currents in these waters being pitiless strong.
As
for myself, I will nevermore to sea. For many years, I had been less than content with this life and torn at by thoughts of what might replace it, knowing only two things for most of those years: that a great sinner am I; but Christ a great Saviour. Now, by His oftentimes terrible grace, I know more.
Upon my return home to Dover I mean to devote the remainder of my days to some endeavour which will assist the suffering poor of some place, be it Ireland or England or some other nation. What it can be, I know not; but I must do something. The country of the poor can be abandoned no longer.
For I dread what is growing in that country now. I fear we shall reap a venomous crop.
CHAPTER XXXIX
FROM
A MISCELLANY OF THE ANCIENT SONGS OF IRELAND
(Boston, 1904)
Preface by Captain Francis O’Neill of the Chicago Police Department. Author of the following text unknown.
NUMBER THREE HUNDRED AND SEVEN
“The Grinding Stones” or “Revenge for Connemara”
(Sung to the air of “Skibbereen”)
Here is another glittering jewel of Ireland’s antique minstrelsy. Like the greater number of those comprising the present anthology, the following was first written down on a vessel journeying here to the United States of Liberty from that green but mournful land across the ocean where freedom, alas, is yet but a reverie. It was heard by a man by the noble name of John Kennedy of Ballyjamesduff, County Cavan, nearly six decades ago now, on his twentieth birthday; the third of December in the year of 1847. The name of the coffin-ship was the Star of the Oceans.