People on board

TYRRELL, Henry

Henry Tyrrell was born in Arklow about 1860 to Michael and Elizabeth Tyrrell. Nothing has been found to date about his early life or his family. The National Archives shipping records show him in 1876, at the age of fifteen, working on the Golden Dream out of Kingstown as a Cook at a wage of £1 10s a month. He worked on a variety of boats out of Dublin as a Seaman through the early 1880s. In 1885 he first appeared working for the City of Dublin Steam Packet Co as a Seaman on RMS Connaught and though there is a gap in his records until 1900 this is probably due to missing records. He was on board RMS Ulster in Holyhead on the night of the 1891 census, as a Seaman. Also, on the ship that night, as a 2nd Stewardess, was Bridget Blanch, who he would later marry.

Henry Tyrrell has not been found in the 1901 census, but Bridget Blanch, with a declared age of thirty-seven, was living in Eden Terrace in Glasthule and that night had an eleven-year-old visitor with her. She gave her occupation as ‘Stewardess on Mailboat’. In 1910 she and Henry Tyrrell married in Holyhead and in the following year’s census they were living in Jane Villa, Tivoli Road, Kingstown. She had no declared occupation, suggesting she was no longer working on the Mailboats.

It is not known when Henry Tyrrell was promoted to Quartermaster, responsible for steering the ship, but he was the junior of the two Quartermasters on board RMS Leinster on the 10th of October 1918. He did not survive the sinking but his body was recovered and landed in Kingstown on the Friday night. He was buried in Deansgrange cemetery. He was awarded the Mercantile Marine and British War Medals.