People on board

O’GRADY, Margaret

Margaret O’Grady was born 9 July 1889, the third of the twelve children of Francis (Frank) O’Grady and Mary Kitson. The family lived in the townland of Mausnarylann, also known as Mause, in the parish of Tomfinlough, near Quin in County Clare, where Frank was a farmer. His father, also Frank, appears to have moved to the area in the late 1850s and there was at least one other related O’Grady family close by in the early twentieth century. When Frank O’Grady married Mary Kitson in 1883 his address was Granahan, while hers was Mause, so he may have moved into her family farm.

In 1910 the eldest girl, Katie, emigrated to the US giving her uncle Michael in Connecticut as her contact. The following year she was followed by the eldest of the family, John Joseph, who sailed to Boston, giving his sister Katie’s name as his contact. Another brother, Francis, was recorded in the US in 1938.  Others in the family may have also emigrated but they have not been traced.

It is not known when Margaret and her younger sister Mary Teresa, known as May, went to England but in October 1918 they were reported as returning there after a holiday at home in Mause. They were both nurses and Margaret was working in the Isolation Hospital at Mitcham in south London. There is no information about where May was working. Neither sister survived the sinking of RMS Leinster but Margaret’s body was recovered and identified by her passport found in her pocket. She was laid to rest at Quin Abbey. May’s body was not recovered. Both sisters’ names are inscribed on the Clare WW1 Memorial in the Ennis Peace Park. A motion of sympathy with Michael and Patrick O’Grady and the family was passed by the Ballycar Hurling Club.