People on board

GALVIN, Lena

Ellen Margaret Galvin, known as Lena, was born 24 February 1892 in Tralee to Garrett Galvin and Ellen Coughlan. Garrett from Abbeyfeale in County Limerick and Ellen from County Cork were married in Dunmanway in 1888. He had been a Constable in the Royal Irish Constabulary since 1881 and was then stationed in Tralee, where he would stay until he retired in 1907. Lena was the second of eleven children, two of whom died young. The family lived in James Street in Tralee until moving to Perry Buildings on Strand Street in 1895. There they had a second class house with four rooms for the family of eleven persons.

In the 1911 census James, the eldest, was an Accountant in a Hardware Store and Lena was an Assistant Teacher. Unfortunately there is nothing in the newspaper reports of the deaths of Lena and her sister Nora on 10 October 1918 aboard RMS Leinster to indicate their occupations or why they were travelling to Holyhead. Neither sister survived the sinking, nor was Lena’s body ever recovered. Her name (Ellen) is recorded on the family grave in Rath cemetery in Tralee.