Mary Anne Murray was born on the family farm at Moherreagh, in the parish of Templeport, near the village of Bawnboy, County Cavan, Ireland, on the 10th March 1887, the daughter of Philip and Margaret Murray (née Reilly). She had at least two siblings, who were named Alice and Brigid.
Her father died when she was quite young, and her mother remarried. Her step-father was a farmer named James Tubman.
On the 16th May 1903, at the age of 16 years, she arrived in New York on board the S.S. Germanic, having boarded this liner in Liverpool. Her step-uncle, William Tubman, was awaiting her arrival, and no doubt assisted her in finding employment and settling in to her new surroundings.
By the spring of 1915, she had been working as a cook in Cuba, Allegany County, in New York State, when according to family lore; she decided to return to Ireland at the behest of her mother to marry a local man.
Consequently, she booked third class passage for herself from New York to Liverpool on the Lusitania and with ticket numbered 133593; she joined the vessel at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York port on the morning of 1st May 1915. She had her last sight of her adopted state as the liner eventually left there in the early afternoon. Her delayed sailing was caused because she had to wait to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the Anchor Liner the S.S. Cameronia which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for war se
Six days later, Mary Murray probably sighted her native land as the Cunarder steamed past the coast of southern Ireland, before being struck by a single torpedo fired from Kapitänleutnant Schwieger’s submarine the U-20, but she would never set foot on it, as she as killed as a result of this action. At that time the Lusitania was only hours away from her Liverpool destination.
As Mary Murray’s body was never recovered and identified afterwards, she has no known grave.
Cunard Records indicated that Mary Murray was married when she boarded the Lusitania, but this was erroneous, and most likely arose from an assumption that correspondence from her family, giving their surname as being Tubman, meant that Murray was her married name.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1901 Census of Ireland, 1911 Census of Ireland, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, PRO BT 100/345, Graham Maddocks, Eamonn T. McKiernan, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.