Tag Archives: Ireland

Reputation ruined: Bruce Ismay and the Titanic disaster

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Everyone’s heard of the loss of Titanic in April 1912, the world’s most famous peacetime shipping disaster. It lives on thanks to the scale of the human tragedy and a sense of hubris: the supposedly unsinkable ship that ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic.

One man’s reputation was ruined on that deadly night. J Bruce Ismay was on board as the chief executive of Titanic’s owner, the White Star Line. As the great ship set out on its maiden voyage he seemed to have it all: wealth, power and prestige. He had succeeded his late father in 1899 as head of White Star but within three years sold the company to JP Morgan’s new shipping conglomerate, International Merchant Marine (IMM). Ismay became president of IMM and masterminded the building of Titanic and its sister leviathans Olympic and Britannic, believing that these giant luxury ships would give White Star a competitive advantage over rival lines such as Cunard. (Their size also made them ideal for the thousands of people emigrating from Europe to the United States; those travelling steerage did so in greater comfort than on most rival liners.)

There are countless books and online stories about the Titanic’s fatal encounter with the iceberg, so here I’ll focus on Bruce Ismay’s dramatic fall from grace.

Titanic’s collapsible D lifeboat, similar to Ismay’s collapsible C

In the early hours of Monday 15 April 1912, Ismay stepped into starboard collapsible lifeboat C, and into infamy. He made it clear to the American Senate inquiry into the disaster that no one ordered him into the lifeboat, giving the following reason for his entering the boat:

‘Because there was room in the boat. She was being lowered away. I felt the ship was going down, and I got into the boat.’

According to most of the accounts of that tragic night, Ismay helped load the lifeboats, calling out for any remaining women to get in. He himself recalled complete calmness: no panic and no crowds of desperate passengers fearing for their lives as the last lifeboats were lowered. In reality, Titanic’s final hour was chaotic. The crew were nervous about filling the boats to capacity. So, although Titanic’s boats could carry 1,100 or the 2,340 people on board, only 705 were actually saved. Ismay’s own lifeboat had room for a few more to board, so he wasn’t condemning anyone to a freezing cold death by getting in. The White Star line boss couldn’t look as his great ship sank below the waves, accompanied by the shocking screams of those condemned to freeze to death in the ice-cold waters of the April ocean.

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Memories of McGuirk’s tea rooms, Wicklow Mountains

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McGuirk’s tea rooms, 1996

Little did I know when I popped into McGuirk’s tea rooms on a 1996 cycling tour from Dublin to Rosslare that I was entering an Irish institution.

I was intrigued by the old-fashioned sign, and the Morris Minor parked outside. (I’ve always had a soft spot for the classic 1948 car.) I enjoyed a pot of tea and snack before continuing over the old military road (the R115) towards Laragh and Glendalough via the intriguingly named Sally Gap.

The route was opened in the early 19th century to enable the British army to subdue any future insurrections after the Irish rebellion of 1798. I cycled from Dublin, climbing out of the city on my audax bike. I was very lucky with the August weather – warm and sunny – but sensed that it would be a wild ride in a storm, especially as the summit is the highest paved public road in Ireland at 523 metres (1,715 feet).

I was following a scenic route to Rosslare in Brendan Walsh’s Irish Cycling Guide, and found it a delight. I hoped to stay in historic Glendalough, just off the military road, but couldn’t get a room there, and stayed at Laragh instead. By coincidence I bumped into people I worked with at the pub that evening.

Over the following days, I enjoyed making my way down the coast to Rosslare, staying at Courtown and then getting the ferry back to Wales. I carried on my bike the colours of Wexford’s hurling team, who were about to win the all-Ireland hurling championship. Wexford was en-fête when I stayed there on my way up to Dublin to start my cycle tour, and I got into the party spirit. I even bought a t-shirt with the legend What’s the Glory, Martin Storey?, twisting the title of that year’s Oasis hit with the name of Wexford’s captain.

But back to McGuirk’s tea rooms. It obviously made an impression on me as I still remember the name 28 years on. Sadly, it has long since closed down, but an internet search shows what a legendary place it was. A new book, Tales from a Wicklow Tea Room 1898 – 1960 by Michael Fewer explains how the author found eight volumes of the cafe’s visitor book, which featured signatures and comments by many influential Irish people, including the founder of Sinn Féin Arthur Griffith, playwright JM Synge, and the journalist and politician Conor Cruise O’Brien. This lonely building had become a famed meeting place for writers, poets, artists, politicians and lawyers.

Judging from this Google Maps image, the old team rooms are now a private house. For such a legendary place it’s curious that there’s so little about it online, apart from Michael Fewer’s recent book. I wonder if the residents are aware that their home once hosted some of the most famous names in 20th century Irish society?

Liverpool Street’s war memorial and the Irish assassins

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The war memorial that proved a death knell for Henry Wilson

How many of the thousands of commuters who file through Liverpool Street station every day spare a glance for the magnificent Great Easter Railway war memorial?

The memorial to Henry Wilson

Even fewer will look at the small memorial below it to Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, above. Yet it hints at a terrorist atrocity that shocked Britain 90 years ago this year.

Wilson was a distinguished soldier who became Chief of the Imperial General Staff in the closing stages of the Great War. He was the natural choice to unveil a memorial to the railway workers who lost their lives in the first world war. Yet within two hours of the ceremony, he was assassinated by IRA terrorists as he returned to his home in Eaton Square. He was the first British MP to be murdered since prime minister Spencer Percival in 1812, and the last before Airey Neave in 1979.

The field marshal was an obvious target for Irish republican terrorists. He was a silent supporter of army mutineers against the British government’s plans for Irish Home Rule (the Curragh incident of 1914). He represented the enemy in the eyes of the republicans. Yet his death came after Lloyd George’s government signed a treaty with Michael Collins ending the Irish war of independence. The greatest irony is that while Irish-born Wilson was killed by fellow Irishmen on 22 June 1922, Collins himself was assassinated by his countrymen exactly two months later, on 22 August 1922.

Wilson’s murder shows that terrorism is far from a modern phenomenon. Just before the second world war, the IRA was killing unsuspecting people in London and Coventry. Happily, the people of Britain and Ireland have put such hatred behind them.

PS: I was shocked to see police officers at Liverpool Street station today wielding guns. A classic case of the kind of macho policing that is totally out of place at a railway station.

The Queen in Ireland – friends again

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This week's visit to Ireland by Queen Elizabeth II was remarkable. It was the first visit by a British monarch to the republic since Irish independence. It marked the transformation in relationships in these islands since the peace process started in the 1990s. But above all, it was a triumph for the Queen – and for another remarkable woman, Ireland's president, Mary McAleese. 

Symbols matter in British-Irish relations, and the Queen played on this to huge effect. She wore Ireland's colour, green, when she arrived on Tuesday. She spoke in Irish at a banquet at Dublin castle (once the heart of British rule in Ireland). And Britain's queen bowed her head in respect to the garden of remembrance to Ireland's freedom fighters. 

By most accounts, Ireland was impressed. That shouldn't be a surprise: relations between Britain and Ireland are as good as they've ever been. We live together, work together and no longer fear republican or loyalist bombs. The people of these islands have been quicker than the politicians to embrace each other. True, Sinn Féin and the DUP have gained ascendancy over more moderate rivals in the north. But they're also in government together – an idea as unthinkable even 10 years ago as the Queen's visit to the republic. 

Sinn Féin was opposed to the Queen's visit – hardly a surprise, as the party relies on antipathy to Britain. Its president, Gerry Adams, insisted in defying accuracy by calling Elizabeth II 'England's Queen'. (There's no such thing as a 'queen of England'.) But the success of the visit put Adams on the back foot. Comically, he told a BBC interviewer that "I'm not a monarchist, in fact I'm a republican". Good of him to solve that mystery… 

The Queen's visit prompts us to ponder the complicated relationship between the various countries in Great Britain and Ireland. In school in Wales in the 1970s, as the Troubles were killing thousands of innocent people on both sides of the Irish Sea, I studied the failure of 19th century British Liberal Governments to give 'home rule' to Ireland. I was convinced that the story of Britain and Ireland would have been very different had the English establishment not stupidly blocked home rule in 1886 and after. By the time a home rule act was passed by the British parliament in 1914, the combination of a treasonous rebellion by Ulster's unionists and the great war killed any chance of a sensible compromise. Fast forward to the present, and home rule (or devolution as it's now called) is established in Great Britain. No one knows if it will lead to the break up of Britain. I doubt it – but at least change is now through the ballot box rather than the bullet and bomb. 

A final thought. The Queen who visited the republic this week isn't just Britain's Queen. She's Queen of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and 13 other territories. It's an extraordinary legacy of the past that Britain's head of state performs the same role for so many other countries. Ireland understandably decided in 1949 that it wanted its own head of state. Its most recent presidents, Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, have been hugely popular and successful role models for a republican system, unlike Ireland's recent taoisigh (prime ministers). But Queen Elizabeth this week reminded us that constitutional monarchs can also achieve remarkable things.