Miss MAY BARRETT,
Second Cabin Passenger
[No Picture Provided]
May Barrett, 25, was of 120 Barrack Street, Cork City, Ireland.
In April 1911, May and a friend Kate
McDonnell emigrated to the
United States on the White Star Liner Majestic.
Their address in New York City was 263 9th Avenue. In the spring
of
1915 they took a holiday together to go back to Ireland and booked
passage on the Lusitania.
On Friday, 7 May, May and Kate had just finished lunch and were sitting
in the second cabin dining saloon when she heard the sound of something
like "the smashing of big dishes."
This was quickly followed by a larger, second crash. May and Kate
made for the stairs, but the crowd got in their way. The
ship then stopped moving and Kate and May got up to the boat deck where
the sailors were working at the falls. There was no panic at the
time. May went to get lifebelts for Kate and herself, but a man
told
them, "If you go into the cabin again, you will never get up again."
The man went down and came back with lifebelts for the two women who
put them on. At this time the list to starboard was so strong
that
they lost their footing. Kate and May scrambled to the side of
the
ship and mumbled a prayer. She saw the falls from a nearby
lifeboat. She thought that she could jump toward the ropes and
climb down to the water, and so she jumped -- and missed. She
landed in the water and did not lose consciousness, but lost track of
Kate, and May feared that she would never see her friend again.
May did not see anyone around her said that she must have lost
consciousness because she couldn't remember anything until a lifeboat
picked her up. At the time, the boat was pulling on board another
woman, and a man on the boat shouted to May, "You hold on a little
longer." After the boat picked her up, she lost consciousness
again until evening and the boat picked up twenty more survivors.
The survivors were transferred to a trawler at a quarter to six and it
was half past nine when they reached Queenstown.
May's friend Kate had also survived was reunited with her
father. Two weeks later, the All-for-Ireland Club passed a
"sincere vote
of congratulation" to both May and Kate.
Contributors:
Senan Molony
References:
Cork Free Press, 10
May 1915, p. 5.
New York Times,
10 May 1915, page 2.
"All-for-Ireland Club Vote of Condolence to Lusitania Survivor," Cork Free Press, 21 May
1915, p. 5.
Molony, Senan. Lusitania: An Irish Tragedy.
Mercier Press, 2004.
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