People on board

BRANNICK, Delia

Delia Brannick was born on 23rd October 1890 to Patrick Brannick and Catherine Murphy. The family lived in Scardane (Scardaun) in the parish of Crossboyne, south of Claremorris, Co. Mayo, where Patrick was a farmer. Patrick and Catherine married in November 1880 and they had eight children, two of whom died young. Delia was the sixth child and the second of four daughters. Patrick died in March 1901 aged forty-nine and in the census the following month his widow was described as the ‘Landholder’. The eldest living son, William, then aged seventeen, was described as a ‘Farmer’.

By the time of the 1911 census the other son, Michael, had emigrated to the US in 1909, and the eldest daughter, Mary Ellen, had married locally. Delia, then aged twenty, gave her occupation as ‘National (School) Teacher’. She was working in the local Seefin school in 1918 when she decided to give up teaching and work as a nurse instead. She was reportedly on her way to a hospital in Leeds to take up a position as a probationer, when she travelled on RMS Leinster on 10th October.

Delia did not survive the sinking, nor was her body recovered. A report in the Western People on 26th October said that contact had been made with the hotel in Dublin where she had stayed the previous night, and that they said that she had left on the mailboat. There was also communication from Leeds to the effect that she had not arrived.

Delia’s younger sister, Katie, also married locally in 1921 to Patrick Delaney. Among their children was Monsignor John Delaney of Fort Lauderdale in Florida, and the noted Irish sculptor Edward Delaney.