People on board

CONNOLLY, Philip

Philip Connolly was born in 1869 in Mulgrave St., Kingstown to John Connolly and Mary Joye. The baptismal record for his sister Mary Anne in 1875 specified Dignam’s Court, which was at the rear of Mulgrave St.  John’s occupation was a Porter and he died in 1891.

Philip & Christina Connolly

When Philip married Christina Lawless in 1899 they gave the addresses of 5 and 6 Northumberland Place, and they were in Mulgrave St. in the 1901 census. At that stage Philip was a Van Driver, but on the birth certificate of their second child, Tom, in 1902, Philip’s occupation was given as stoker on the RMS Connaught. Philip and Christina had six children, Tom being second eldest.

On the 10th October 1918 Philip Connolly was working as a Greaser on RMS Leinster and his sixteen-year-old son, Tom, was an Under Steward or Cabin Boy, a post he had only held for a few months.

Tom was helping with breakfasts when the torpedo struck the ship. Philip Connolly helped to launch one of the lifeboats and Tom also got into the same boat, eventually being rescued by H.M.S. Lively. They were met on the shore by a relieved Christina.

Philip died at 22 Tivoli Terrace East in 1948 at the age of seventy-eight and was buried in Deansgrange Cemetery. Amongst those acknowledged in the newspaper were the ‘staff of the L.M.S. at Dun Laoghaire Pier’, which suggests that Philip may have stayed working on the Mailboats.