White Star chairman J Bruce Ismay finds peace in the west

On that terrible cold night of April 14 1912, in the North Atlantic, the Titanic was sinking head first into a freezing, calm sea. It had struck an iceberg 400 miles south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. And was fatally wounded. The incessant bip bip bip SOS call for help from the wireless telegraphist Jack Phillips and his assistant Harold Bride was interspersed with more dramatic calls for help: “We are putting passengers off in small boats. Women and children in boats, cannot last much longer”.

Helping first class passengers into one of those small boats was the chairman of the White Star Line, and the man who conceived the concept of ocean travel on a grand scale, J Bruce Ismay. When the small boat, known as Collapsible Lifeboat C, had been loaded with all the women and children present, and as there was no one else in the immediate vicinity, Ismay and another first class passenger, William Carter, climbed in, and were lowered to the sea. As they pulled away from the stricken liner, Ismay was unable to look at the great ship in its death throes. The Titanic had dramatically lifted its stern out of the water, hovering directly perpendicular to the sea, before, amid a great noise as its boilers crashed through the ship, slipping away from sight. It must have been the most terrifying scene imaginable. One thousand five hundred and fourteen people were drowned that night.

A German sees Galway through rose-coloured glasses?

Week III

On a wet winter’s day in 1858 Julius Rodenberg stood inside the Royal Hotel in Limerick waiting for the Bianconi ‘Royal Coach’ to Galway. It is the same Julius that I mentioned last week, who was so miserable on a Bianconi coach to Clifden. Between the years 1855 and 1862 he travelled extensively throughout Europe, and wrote numerous travel books. Despite some misgivings at the beginning of his visit to Ireland, he ended up thoroughly enjoying the hardship and its people, writing a successful book: The Island of saints - a Pilgrimage through Ireland, which was immediately translated into English*.

He learned, however, that humour and the whiskey bottle were his best allies on his Irish travels, and these probably helped him endure the dreadful transport service of the time. That morning in Limerick it was lashing down with rain. Despite the fact that the Bianconi coaches offered no comfort whatsoever, it was the only public transport system in pre-railway Ireland. There must be something about the Irish ability to endure punishment, because the Bianconi service continued for a few decades even after the coming of the railways.

Characteristics of a ‘half-civilized’ people

In the late 18th and mid 19th centuries, at least 28 German travel writers wrote extensively about Ireland. I’ll tell some of what a few of them had to say in the weeks ahead, but by far the most colourful was Prince Hermann Ludwig Heinrich von Puckler-Muskau. He lived his 86 years to the full. As a dashing cavalry officer he fought against Napoleon until he inherited Muskau Park near Berlin to which he added brilliant landscapes and gardens. He searched for the source of the Nile, and fought off bandits in the deserts of North Africa. He walked through much of Europe, taking notes of his observations all of which were eventually published. In 1814 he visited England and delighted the dandy Prince of Wales by introducing the rectangular monocle. His struggle with the English language caused laughter in high society, and generally he was a source of amusement; but he seemed to have enjoyed himself immensely.*

As well as his reputation as a witty writer, artist, traveller, landscape designer, bon vivant, he was a notorious womaniser. He employed Germany’s fastest sprinter, Ernst Mensen, to bring love messages to society ladies of Berlin. He created a sensation when he arrived at the fashionable Café Kranzler on the Unter den Linden, in a carriage drawn by four stags. He caused gasps when he leapt over the parapet of the Elbe bridge on horseback, the animal and its rider falling eight metres into the water below. All these shenanigans cost a great deal of money. Puckler, no doubt heartened by his reception on his previous visit, returned to England in 1826 seeking a wealthy wife. Having examined all possible candidates in London, and finding none suitable to his tastes, he travelled to Ireland because, as he wrote to his mother, he considered Ireland rather than England to be the country for finding the hoped-for prize.

More Galway Diary

• A German sees Galway through rose-coloured glasses?
• Characteristics of a ‘half-civilized’ people
• Oscar Wilde believed that Balfour did WS Blunt a favour
• The Legend of the Christmas Robin
• My daughter
• A blind poet’s love for Mary Hynes
• Raftery's Praise of Mary Hynes
• Christmas in the White House, December, 1941 - a meeting that saved Europe
• Dick Martin’s reputation as a duellist struck terror into his creditor
• Galway enjoyed an unusual breach of promise marriage case
• Brave little Otto humbly meets his Maker
• The knocking ceremony
• The strange story of the virgin birth and Kinvara’s great huntswoman
• Best Christmas gift guide ever
• Europe never tasted so good
• Firing squads bring Civil War to a close
• Civil War - British gunboat sent to Clifden
• Galway 1910 - 1923, the changing years
• ‘A degree of darkness in the mind’
• The ‘savage’ Irish peasant unfit for Home Rule
• ‘Amongst Hottentots one would not expect to hear of such an occurrence’
• Galway’s ‘splendid human spirit’
• Old postcards from Connemara
• Teaching Irish in Connemara 1907
• What hope has a kitten in a town full of dogs?
• Fish - Not regarded as real food during the Great Famine
• Hundreds of thousands starved while the sea teemed with fish
• Mary Kate Danaher: ‘ I feel the same way about it myself’...
• ‘All about a man trying to get a woman into bed.’
• We can be proud of our military heritage