Kate “Kitty” McDonnell was born at her family home at 25. Prosperity Square, Cork City, County Cork, Ireland, on the 18th January 1890, the daughter of Eugene and Ellen Mc Donnell (née O’Callaghan). She had four brothers and a sister. Her father was a plasterer by trade, as were all male members of his family at that time. All four of her brothers also became plasterers.
On the 30th March 1911, she boarded the S.S. Majestic at Queenstown with her friend, Mae Barrett, who was also from Cork City, and they disembarked in New York City on the 6th April. Kitty resided at 436. West 110th Street, New York City, and may have become a naturalized citizen of the United States of America. She decided to return to Ireland in early 1915, and along with her life-long friend from Cork, Mae Barrett, she booked passage on the May sailing of the Cunard Liner, RMS Lusitania.
They arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York harbour on the 1st May in time for the liner’s scheduled 10.00a.m. They had booked Second Cabin passage.
The sailing was delayed until the afternoon as she had to embark passengers, crew, and cargo from the Anchor Lines vessel, the S.S. Cameronia. This vessel had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for service as a troop ship at the end of April. The Lusitania finally left port just after mid-day, and just six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May, she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20, twelve miles off the southern coast of Ireland, and only about twenty five miles from Kitty’s home in Cork City.
Kitty and Mae Barrett were having lunch when the vessel was struck by the torpedo and they were assisted in putting on their life jackets by a man named “Joe”, who came from Dublin or Belfast. Kitty jumped over the side, but Mae was thrown over the side by “Joe” as she refused to jump. Both Kitty and Mae Barrett were taken on board the same lifeboat. They were eventually brought to Queenstown on a fishing trawler which had taken them from the lifeboat. When they had recovered sufficiently from their ordeal, they continued on to their homes in Cork City.
When interview by a journalist from the Cork Free Press about her rescue from the sea, Kitty was quoted as saying: -
‘I heard someone say “Oh, the poor girl is dead”, and they began to pull away from me. I had just strength enough to raise my hand, and they returned and pulled me on board. It was nearly midnight when we got to Queenstown’.
Once home, Kitty McDonnell applied to The Lusitania Relief Fund, for financial help. This fund had been set up immediately after the liner had gone down, by The Lord Mayor of Liverpool and other local businessmen to provide help to second and third class passenger survivors and the relatives of those who had perished and who had come upon hard times as a result. It was thought that saloon class passengers were wealthy enough not to need help.
In August 1915, the awards committee granted Miss McDonnell the relatively small sum of £3-0s-0d and its records, some of which survive in the archives of the Liverpool Record Office state: -
Referred to Sec. of State for Foreign Affairs
Why this comment was made is not known, after the passage of so many years. The Committee of the Lusitania Relief Fund made a further award of £1-0s-0d to her in December 1915, as a Christmas gift.
On the 4th October 1919, Kitty McDonnell married Patrick Fitzgerald, a seaman, at the South Parish Church in Cork City.
On the 27th August 1920 Kathleen Fitzgerald, described as a housewife, 5’ 3” in height, aged 30 years, fair complexion, brown hair and hazel eyes, arrived in New York on board the S.S. Baltic from Queenstown. She gave her intended address as being with her husband at 853. Bergen Avenue, Jersey City, New Jersey.
The couple had one son, James Joseph Fitzgerald, born in New York City in 1920, and Kitty’s husband worked as captain or barges and lighters.
Kitty Fitzgerald is believed to have died in Kankakee, Illinois, on the 18th July 1963, aged 73 years.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, U.S. Social Security Death Index 1935 – 2014, 1901 Census of Ireland, 1911 Census of Ireland, 1930 U.S. Federal Census, 1940 U.S. Federal Census, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Cork Examiner, Cork Free Press, New York Times, Liverpool Record Office, UniLiv D92/2/11, Graham Maddocks, Sean Keegan, Brendan Dunne, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.