Doctor Joseph Garry was born in Shanahea, Kildysart, County Clare, Ireland, on the 3rd February 1890, the son of Patrick and Mary Garry, (née Murphy). His father was a farmer and Justice of the Peace. His brother, Michael, also a doctor, was a well known international rugby player and was in charge of a tuberculosis sanatorium in County Clare. Joseph Garry took the M.B. and B.Ch. of the National University of Ireland, in 1914.
Having qualified as a medical doctor, Joseph Garry crossed the Irish Sea where he found work in Manchester and Bolton before securing a position with the Cunard Steam Ship Company as a ship’s doctor. He was residing at Albert Terrace, Garstang Road, Preston, Lancashire, England.
He was appointed as the Assistant Surgeon to Doctor J.F. McDermott in the Deck Department of the Lusitania. He signed on at Liverpool for what proved to be the Lusitania's final voyage on the morning of her departure for New York, the 17th April
1915, at a daily rate of pay of £0-15s.-0d, (£0.75p).
He was killed when the liner was sunk, three weeks later, six days out of New York and only hours away from Liverpool. He was aged 25 years.
In an article in The British Medical Journal of the 23rd October 1915 it was stated: -
An order was recently granted by the King's Bench Division, Dublin, to presume the death of Dr. Joseph Garry, assistant surgeon to the Lusitania. ..... According to the affidavit of the steward who acted as his servant, Dr. Garry, on being handed a lifebelt, immediately gave it to a lady, and he was last seen about the wreckage.
His body was not recovered and identified afterwards and as a result, his name is embossed on the Mercantile Marine War Memorial at Tower Hill, London.
It is believed that Dr. Garry intended to leave the Lusitania when she docked in Liverpool and take up a commission in the Royal Army Medical Corps, where he was to be posted to Serbia to treat typhus victims.
Administration of his estate was granted to his father at Dublin on the 18th May 1915 and his effects amounted to £101-0s.-0d.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1901 Census of Ireland, 1911 Census of Ireland, Cunard Records, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Cork Examiner, Irish Independent, Liverpool Echo, British Medical Journal, Probate Records, PRO BT 334, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, James Maggs, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.
Revised & Updated – 29th November 2023.