Anne “Annie” Doyle was born in Killaskillen, Kinnegad, County Meath, Ireland, on the 13th January 1883, the daughter of Thomas and Mary Doyle (née Duffy). Her father was a blacksmith, and Annie had an older brother, named Patrick, who was born in 1880. Her parents had married and lived in the nearby town of Mullingar, County Westmeath, before her birth, and returned to live in the town after Annie was born.
On the 11th December 1885, Annie’s mother died after a three month illness, aged 27 years, and Annie and her brother were sent to live with their maternal grandparents, who also lived in Mullingar. Meanwhile, their father moved to Ballinasloe, County Galway, where he remarried in 1894. He later moved back to Mullingar with his second wife and the couple went on to have three children. He became a coach builder with the firm of P.J. Carey’s, Harbour Street, Mullingar.
Annie Doyle began her working life in her middle teenage years, most likely as a domestic servant, before she moved to Dublin, where she worked as a shop assistant.
On the 29th March 1906, Annie boarded the Baltic at Queenstown as a third class passenger. She was accompanied by her cousin, Anne Duffy, also from Mullingar, and when the couple disembarked in New York City on the 6th April, they went to the home of their aunt, Kate McEvoy, at 473. Lexington Avenue, New York City.
Nothing more is known about her life once she arrived in New York City, but it is believed that she became a nurse or a nanny to the children of a wealthy family.
In the spring of 1915, she decided to return home, although it is not known whether or not she was returning permanently or for a holiday, and she consequently bought a third class ticket for herself from New York to Liverpool on the
Lusitania and joined the vessel at Pier 54, on the morning of 1st May 1915 in time for her scheduled 10.00 a.m. sailing. This was then delayed because she had to wait to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the liner Anchor Liner
Cameronia which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for war service at the end of April.
Six days out of New York on the afternoon of 7th May, and within sight of the coast of southern Ireland, the
Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20. At that time, she was only about 250 miles away from her Liverpool destination. Annie Doyle was killed as a result of this action. As her body was never recovered and identified afterwards, she has no known grave. She was aged 32 years.
Within an hour of hearing about the sinking, her father also learned that his son, Patrick, serving with the British Army on the Western Front, had been hospitalised having suffered injuries in a poison gas attack.
Following Annie’s death, her father applied for help to The Lusitania Relief Fund set up by The Lord Mayor of Liverpool and other local businessmen to give aid to those survivors or relatives of the dead from second or third class, who were experiencing financial difficulties as a result of the sinking. It was thought at the time that saloon class passengers did not need this help. The awards committee made them a single payment of a mere £5-0s-0d., in respect of their daughter's loss. At that time, he was reported to be living in County Kerry.
The war was to claim Annie’s brother also, as 7275 Private Patrick Doyle, 1st Bn. Royal Dublin Fusiliers, having survived a poison gas attack on the 4th May 1915, died at a casualty clearing station near Dozinghem, Belgium, of shrapnel wounds to his right thigh and forearm on the 4th October 1917, and is interred in Dozinghem Military Cemetery.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Westmeath Examiner, Liverpool Record Office, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Sean Harrington, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.