People on board

HOGAN, Michael

Michael Patrick Hogan was born on 10 April 1876 to William Hogan and Catherine Dunne. William was a farmer in Brogala (Brogherla) outside Clonaslee in Queen’s County, now Co Laois, where he held fifteen acres jointly with a Bryan Hogan in the 1850s Griffith’s Valuation. Michael was one of at least eight children, three of whom were single and living at home with their widowed father in the 1911 census.

In the 1901 census Michael, aged twenty five, was a Clerk in the G.P.O. and was living as a Boarder with a Scottish family in Jones’s Road on the north side of Dublin. Jones’s Road was the headquarters of the Gaelic Athletic Association, and Michael was very involved with the Davis Hurling Club, which had close links with the Post Office Workers. In fact, two other Post office Workers who played with this club, Peter Paul Daly and Tom Bolster, were also on RMS Leinster on 10 October 1918. Michael Hogan played both hurling and football with the club, and had captained the senior team.

In November 1905 Michael married Mary Agnes Poole from Rosenallis, near Clonaslee, and they had four children, Leo 1909, Mary 1911, Kathleen 1913 and Michael in 1914. The family lived at various numbers on North Leinster Road, Phibsborough, an area where several Post Office workers lived.

There were twenty-two post office workers, including their Superintendent, detailed to sort the post on the Mailboat en route to Holyhead. They travelled out from the General Post Office in Dublin by train to Kingstown with the sacks of mail, and supervised the loading on to the ship. There was a specially dedicated section deep in the boat for the Post Office, accessible by only one ladder. When the torpedo hit the ship it went straight through this compartment, completely wrecking it and allowing it to fill with water. Only three of the twenty two escaped and only one survived. Michael Hogan did not, nor was his body recovered.

His name, along with those of his co-workers, is commemorated on plaques in the G.P.O. in Dublin and in the Post Office in Dun Laoghaire.