The Sinking of the R.M.S. Leinster
 

People on board

James Nyhan

NYHAN, James

James Nyhan was born on the 29th of July 1884 at Mountain Common, near Clonakilty, Co Cork, the fourth of the eleven children of Daniel Nyhan and Mary Sutton. James was an ‘Engine Driver’ in a Barytes Mine, probably the Lady’s Well Mine, in nearby Dunmore. In the 1901 census the eldest son was also working in the Barytes Mine while the next two were ‘Labourers in Mill’, possibly the Clonakilty Linen Mill. So, despite there being local employment, James joined the Royal Navy in 1904. By the time of the 1911 census the family had moved a short distance to Muckross and only six of the children were still at home, one having died.


James Nyhan
     WW1 Penny  James Nyhan

James Nyhan was still in the Navy fourteen years later, with the rating of ‘Stoker Petty Officer’, and had fought in the Battle of Jutland in 1916. In October 1918 he was serving on HMS Prince. His younger brother, Daniel, had joined the Royal Munster Fusiliers and was killed in action in France in May 1915. The Cork Examiner reported that James was returning to Glasgow to rejoin his ship after having leave at home, when he travelled on RMS Leinster on the 10th of October. His sisters travelled to Dublin and searched the hospitals and morgue for his body, but finding none, had to accept that he was one of the casualties.

His name is recorded on the Plymouth Naval Memorial to the Missing.

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