People on board

HYNES, Clare

Clare Hynes was born in Salford, Manchester in 1893, the second youngest of seven children. Her father, James Hynes, had been born in Tulla, County Clare, where the family had a drapery business on the Main Street. Her mother, Mary Halloran, was born in London of Irish parents and she had married James Hynes in 1879 in Manchester. In 1880 they had emigrated to Boston with their infant child, Aloysius, but within five years, and after the birth of a daughter, Ellen, they had returned to Manchester. There, Teresa was born in 1885, Bernard in 1889 and Joseph in 1890. In the 1891 census James’s occupation was given as ‘Grocer’s Agent’. Clare was then born in 1893 and John, known as Oswald, in 1894. In 1901 Ellen, then fifteen, was with her uncle Patrick and Aunt Mary in their Draper’s shop in Tulla. Bernard, Joseph, Clare and Oswald were with their parents in Manchester, while Aloysius and Teresa were missing. James gave his occupation this time as ‘Draper’s Traveller’ and Mary’s was ‘Dressmaker’.

In January 1909 Clare’s eldest sister Ellen entered the convent of the Irish Sisters of Charity, taking the name Sister Bruno, and for most of the rest of her life taught in the school attached to Cappagh Hospital in Dublin. She died there in 1954.  In 1911 only Oswald was in Manchester where James’s occupation was given as ‘Watchman’ while Mary’s was ‘Dressmaker’. Aloysius, then calling himself Louis, and Bernard were both in Dublin, both Medical Students, while Teresa and Clare were with their aunt in Tulla, and Joseph was a Bank Official in Nenagh, Co Tipperary. Oswald later also became a doctor.

James, then aged sixty-three, and Clare, aged twenty-five were presumably returning to Manchester from visiting their family in Ireland when they travelled on RMS Leinster on 10 October 1918. They did not survive the sinking and neither body was found. A High Mass was celebrated in Tulla parish church for the repose of their souls. Their names are inscribed on the Clare WW1 Memorial in the Ennis Peace Park.