People on board

McMULLAN, Robert James

Robert James McMullan was born on the 18th of June 1877 in Ballygunaghan, in the parish of Donaghcloney, Co Down. His father was also Robert James and his mother was Isabella McAreavey. Little is known of his early life, or if he had siblings. At some stage he enlisted with the Royal Irish Rifles where his service number was 730.

In July 1905 he married Isabella Cairns and they had three children in 1907, 1908 and 1910, Andrew, Robert and Samuel. His occupation on all the certificates was ‘Labourer’. In the 1911 census the family was living in Ballygunaghan, and the household included his widowed mother. By 1913 when the next child, William, was born they had moved a short distance to Dromore, where David was born in 1915.

In July 1916 he wrote his “Soldier’s Will” (witnessed at Clandeboye Camp, Co. Down) giving his unit as 18th (Res.) Bttn, Royal Irish Rifles. Sometime after the war broke out Robert Cairns had been drafted into the Labour Corps, where his service number was 223596. He was presumably returning to his position in England after leave at home when he travelled on RMS Leinster on the 10th of October 1918. He did not survive the sinking of the ship, nor was his body recovered. His name is inscribed on the Hollybrook Memorial in Southampton and on the War Memorial in Donaghcloney.

His widow Isabella returned to her family home in Drumlough where she gave birth to their sixth child, Thomas, on the 29th July 1919, just nine months after Robert McMullan had been home on leave. Tragically, aged only thirty-eight, Isabella died on 11th August 1919 from post-birth complications, leaving six young orphans.

In 1943 Thomas McMullan, then Lance-Corporal in the 6th Battalion of the Inniskilling Fusiliers, died in Tunisia, North Africa, and was buried in the war cemetery in Medjez-El-Bab.