Thomas McCormack was born in Robertstown, County Kildare, Ireland, on the 31st August 1882, the son of Michael and Mary McCormack (née Walsh). His father was a canal boatman.
In 1907, he started working with the Grand Canal Company, working on barges moving goods along the Grand Canal in Ireland. Then, in 1913, he immigrated to the United States of America, on board the Franconia, settling in Nashua, New Hampshire, and finding work as a labourer.
In the spring of 1915, he had decided to return home to Robertstown, whether permanently or for a holiday, is unknown.
As a consequence, he booked as a third class passenger on the Lusitania and joined her at New York, before she sailed from there on 1st May 1915.
He managed to survive the torpedoing of the liner, six days later, and after being rescued from the sea, he was landed at Queenstown from where he was able to make it back to County Kildare.
On the 29th May 1915, a lengthy article appeared in the Kildare Observer newspaper in which Thomas McCormick recounted his experiences. The article stated: -
Amongst the survivors of the Lusitania disaster was a young man named Thomas McCormack, a native of Robertstown, who arrived at Cooleragh, near Blackwood last week, where he now resides with his relatives, and is showing little sign of the terrible ordeal he had passed through. When I called on him to hear his story on Tuesday, writes our representative, I found him engaged in carting turf from the bog of his uncle.
Starting with his narrative, Mr. McCormack said he had been about two years in the United States and decided to come home, booking on the Lusitania, as in ordinary times. Before leaving he was not aware of any threat on the part of the Germans to sink the ship. He saw no placards in New York, and although he had seen the daily papers for a week before he left, he noticed no published warning.
The first he heard of submarines was on the Wednesday preceding the disaster, when he saw the ship’s lifeboats hung over the side. He inquired of a sailor the reason for this and was told it was done so as to be prepared for attacks coming near England, and also that there was no cause for alarm as it was done on all trips then.
Coming to the eventful day, he said they sighted land about 11a.m., and they were beginning to consider themselves safe. He was walking on the main deck about 2 o’clock when he heard the two bangs. They were not very much, he added, and he did not know what was wrong till he noticed the ship keeling over to starboard and saw a bit of a panic with people tumbling over one another running for lifebelts.
He also went to procure his belt, but he was travelling third-class, his berth was situated three flights of stairs below, and before he had descended more than halfway he found himself knee-deep in water. He returned to the deck to find the ship was almost on its side, with the bow dipped low and the stern high in the air.
The boats were being lowered and large numbers of people were standing around. No life belt was available, but he decided to jump. Jumping from the side on which the deck was nearest the water, he said, meant certain death, because it was becoming a howling mass of human beings clinging to one another in groups, ‘and you know,’ he added. ‘If a drowning person catches hold of you and you have no lifebelt, it is all up.’ Continuing, he said he had no friend or chum with him. He knew no one on board, and made no acquaintances. It was merely up to him to devise a plan to save his own life, and he was powerless to do more.
He scrambled up towards the stern, the deck being now almost perpendicular, with the stern towering upwards of 40 feet in the air. Divesting himself of coat, vest, and boots, he made the fateful jump, diving to an awful depth. On rising to the surface he started swimming away from the ship, and got to a distance of about four or five perches when she disappeared. Then came the explosion, which was dreadful, water and wreckage being hurled high in the air.
After a short time he came upon something like a trunk, but this capsized and was near drowning him. He kept afloat for about an hour and a quarter, when he saw about a dozen lifebelts floating about, and donning one of these survived the ordeal till rescued about 6p.m. by a trawler, called, he thought, the Indian Empire.
He pulled himself on to the trawler by means of a rope, his hands still showing traces of the injuries thus received. On reaching the deck he fell, having temporarily lost the power of his legs. This boat, he said, picked up a large number of people wearing lifebelts, but many of them died before reaching Queenstown. While in the water he also saw many dead bodies of children floating about.
On arriving at Queenstown, he said, the survivors were very kindly treated. Questioned, he said he learned to swim when a child in the canal, and then spent most of his time in the water in the summer months. While employed as a boatman later with the Canal Co. he once succeeded in swimming across the Shannon. As to his loss, he said, £75 in notes and all his belongings, including a new suit of clothes and a valuable watch, went to the bottom of the sea.
He had saved a good sum while working on the canal before emigrating, that which he had lost representing a portion of his total savings, the remainder being safely banked in Boston. An interesting fact which transpired in further conversation with Mr. McCormack was that he was one of the crew of a string of boats off one of which a Robertstown man
named Weir lost his life in the Shannon a few years ago, the boats drifting 40 perches before they could be stopped. He also stated that on the trip from America he saw people throwing wreaths and flowers into the sea, and on asking the reason was told that they were passing over the Titanic.
Later in the year, he applied to The Lusitania Relief Fund for financial help to make up some of the losses he had incurred through the sinking. This fund had been set up by The Lord Mayor of Liverpool and other local dignitaries, to help survivors and distressed relatives of the sinking and it awarded him a ‘one off’ payment of £5-0s-0d., because of the deterioration of his health after the sinking. His injuries, however, could not have been too severe as, when interviewed by the newspaper correspondent, he was in the process of carting turf for his uncle, a tough, manual, task!
The official passenger list published by Cunard states that Thomas McCormack’s family name to be McCormick, but this is clearly an error.
On the 23rd October 1918, he married Sarah Connolly at the Roman Catholic Parish Church in Carbury, Co. Kildare. The couple had nine children, and Thomas eventually bought and operated his own boat or barge, which he operated on the Grand Canal.
He retired to live with his wife, and some of their children at Killina, Carbury, County Kildare, where he died on the 20th March 1957, aged 74 years. He was buried in his wife’s family grave in the cemetery adjoining Derrinturn Church.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Ireland Select Catholic Birth and Baptism Registers 1763 – 1917, 1901 Census of Ireland, Ireland Petty Session Court Registers 1818 – 1919, Massachusetts Passenger Lists 1820 – 1963, Cunard Records, Kildare Observer, Heritage Boat Association, Irish Independent, Liverpool Record Office, PRO BT 100/345, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.