Irish Aboard Titanic Read Free Page A

this purpose. Another, the aforementioned Daniel Buckley, had womanhood thrust upon him in the shape of a shawl placed over his head by a sympathetic lady as other men who had entered a boat were ordered out. Officer Lowe, our everyman for the attitudes of the day, told of discovering a man wearing a shawl when transferring passengers prior to going back for survivors. He ‘pitched him in’ to the stand-by boat because he was ‘not worth being treated better’. And his nationality? ‘Italian.’ Meanwhile, one Irish survivor, Nellie O’Dwyer, recounted hearing of five or six Chinese who had escaped by fixing their hair down their backs and wrapping blankets about them in order to be taken for women. She parroted the line that ‘the Italians were the worst’.
    Even having been left behind, and in the hopeless effort of trying to swim to a lifeboat, one could be up against more than just the perishing cold, according to fireman Charles Judd, saved in collapsible A and quoted in the Daily Herald soon after arriving home in Plymouth. He was never called to an inquiry:
    I learned from other members of the crew why more Third-Class passengers were not saved. It is because somebody among the officers started the cry ‘British first’. This, of course, did not discriminate against Americans, but it encouraged forcing back into the water Portuguese (even the women), Italians, and other foreigners to save people who cried for help in English.
    â€˜A British life above all others’, was the word passed round, said a seaman to me. There was no command as far as I know to get the steerage people up onto the decks ready for the boats. There were many babies on the deck during the last moments. One Portuguese woman had three. God knows where they all went to, but we’re all pledged to tell all we know, no matter who suffers.
    This book must examine the role of race because it is perforce the story of one ethnic group, the Irish, who made up part of the Titanic ’ s multicultural mosaic. In many ways race was quite simply synonymous with status. ‘Foreigners’ of all nationalities were regarded as a threat to the existing way – therefore they were not just excluded from decision-making but relegated to a subordinate position when it came to the evacuation, lest they jeopardise operations. Deep-seated attitudes and assumptions were at work.
    John Edward Hart, a steward, admitted that the steerage passengers were falsely reassured and kept below decks until 1.15 a.m., when most of the boats were already gone. Clearly large numbers of crew had been delegated to this task – that of restraint. It has to be assumed that a policy of containment was decided upon at the most senior level, that of the bridge, since it was a truism that did not need to be enunciated that foreigners were hot-tempered, impervious to discipline and could be relied upon for nothing except panic. They would rock the boat.
    So it was that for reasons of order, discipline, efficiency etc., most of the boats were loaded with those who were on the scene and queuing patiently, meaning First and Second Class. And there is absolutely no question that determined efforts were made to keep the steerage below decks and that at least some gates were locked to this end and hatches fastened.
    Seaman John Poingdestre took a crazy risk, three-quarters of an hour after the collision, in returning to his quarters for a pair of boots. A Third-Class bulkhead burst on E deck and he was buffeted by a torrent of freezing water up to his waist. He climbed to the forward well deck and saw a hundred Third-Class men who had already evacuated, waiting with their baggage beside the only means of escape – a single ladder to Second Class. The same rules were in force at that time as always, he testified. They were not allowed up, and ‘no doubt’ they would have been kept back if they attempted to rise. At this point