Tag: eugene daly

Titanic had two stopovers after leaving Southampton: the first in Cherbourg, France, on April 10, and the last in Queenstown, Ireland, on April 11. 

And as Titanic turned away from Ireland toward the open sea,  Eugene Daly played “Erin’s Lament” on his uilleann pipes.

Eugene was from Athlone, Co. Westmeath, Ireland, and was 29 years old when he boarded Titanic.

Per census records circa 1911, Eugene was living with his widowed mother and two siblings. Eugene, as the eldest son, was the unmarried head of household, and was noted as a wool “heaver”. In addition, he supplemented his income by taking jobs as a mechanic.

And of course, Eugene also belonged to the Clan Ulseach War Pipers’ Band and the Irish National Foresters Band, as well as hid local chapter of the Gaelic League.

But Eugene decided to break free and try out a new life for himself in the United States. So he saved for a few years and purchased steerage passage on Titanic. He boarded at Queenstown, in the company of his cousin Maggie and their friend, Bertha. Like all steerage accommodation, he had a shared cabin. Per Eugene’s accounts, he was bunked with two other lads in C23.

The days in steerage seem to have been pleasant and minimally structured. Lawrence Beesley, a survivor from Second Class, shared his observations. And he seems to have spotted Eugene among the jollity, although he mistook his nationality.

It appears that Eugene played often for his fellows. Even on the night of the sinking, he played his pipes at infamous dance/party held in Third Class.

When Titanic struck the iceberg later that night, Eugene was nearly thrown out of his bed. He dressed in his trousers and shoes and went out to the gangway, but was assured by a steward that nothing serious had occurred and that he should just go back to bed.

Eugene did just that, if only for a little while. But commotion made him go back up on deck, where he saw a lot of people panicked and running around. So he rushed down to steerage to retrieve Maggie and Bertha.

The group went to the stern to procure lifejackets, and Eugene reported that he had a “scuffle” with a man for one, which ended up being given to Maggie.

After he saw Maggie and Bertha safely off, Eugene went to find another boat that would let him on. And that is when he bore partial witness to one of the Great Mysteries of Titanic: an officer shooting two male passengers, before committing suicide.

In May of 1912, Eugene reported to the Daily Sketch that he saw an officer shoot two passengers who were fighting to break through the crowd to board a lifeboat.

Unable to find a ready lifeboat and with water rushing the deck, Eugene clamored to a “sort of canvas craft,” which may have been Collapsible lifeboat A or B. He worked frantically with a group of other men to free it from “a wire stay which ran up to the mast.”

But when the canvas lifeboat was washed off the deck, there was no choice for Eugene Daly but to dive into the ocean. And so he did.

Eugene swam for the same lifeboat that he believed he had been attempting to cut loose. The boat he found was Collapsible B, which had floated away upside down as Titanic submerged. Eugene climbed on top of it; he estimated that over a dozen men followed. Together, they watched Titanic groan and vanish.

Eugene Daly survived the night balancing on the back of Collapsible B, alongside many other men, including Second Officer Charles Lightoller, 17-year-old Jack Thayer, Colonel Archibald Gracie, and Junior Marconi Officer Harold Bride. He often credited his survival to the heavy coat he wore, and he held onto his “lucky coat” for the rest of his life.

Eugene's daughter, Marion Joyce, wrote the following about her dad's lucky coat.

When Eugene was brought on board Carpathia, he blacked out and was carried to the cabin of a passenger named Dr. Frank Blackmarr, who worked to revive Eugene with hot drinks and unspecified “stimulants.” And then Dr. Blackmarr transcribed Eugene’s account, word for word.

Eugene was hospitalized along with other survivors at St. Vincent’s in New York, and from there, he sent the following letter to his mother.

Soon thereafter, he filed a claim with White Star for the loss of his beloved pipes, and was compensated $50. He was very pleased with the sum, thinking it more than that pipes had been worth.

Eugene was celebrated as a hero, especially back home in Ireland. "The Westmeath Independent" commented that "the courage credited to Eugene Daly in the foregoing will not surprise his fellow townsmen, who knew him as a man of principle and pluck. In the present deplorable disaster, he appears to have upheld the traditions of the Gael."

He went on to become a machinist for the Otis Elevator Company, and that led him to meet his future wife: the sister of his coworker Jimmy, an English woman named Lillian who owned silk mills in the neighboring state of Connecticut. They married in 1917, and the couple appears to have begun life in New York but eventually moved back to Ireland. Quite by accident and due to his trauma, according to Eugene's daughter.

Once they arrived in Ireland, Eugene refused to sail again. He did not return to the United States until he was widowed in 1961--and only then because flight was a travel option.

In his later years, Eugene was noted as a devout parishioner and quite musical, although he was also described as “very loud.” But people seem to have forgiven him this, as he was probably somewhat deafened from years of working in the mills.

Eugene Daly died on Halloween, 1965, in New York City. He was 82 years old.

In recent years, a curious artifact was salvaged from the wreck site: an instrument with undeniable similarities to uilleann pipes.