Name
Lifeboat from Titanic
Lifeboat to Carpathia
Confidence Level
Mannion, Miss Margaret
13 13 4.00

 


Miss Mannion was featured on Ireland’s Telefis Eireann’s live broadcast in 1963.
    “I was just going asleep on the third night when there was a thud and the engines stopped. Panic set in, and as we tried to run down the corridors sailors were firing shots into the air. Lifeboats were lowered as the waters rushed in as children and women were helped onto the boats. Some men tried to get on but were stopped by the sailors. It was pure mayhem….”

George Behe's  paraphrasing of the rest of the interview:
     As Margaret managed to get into the second to the last lifeboat she looked up and saw her betrothed saying the rosary, and minutes later the ship sank. …. After twelve bitterly cold hours at sea, Margaret and other survivors were taken on board the Carpathia, and it was only then she saw her friend, Ellen Mockler, safe and well on board.

Senan Molony's book The Irish Aboard Titanic claims Mannion was in lifeboat #16 without providing any documentation. This is odd, because the second to last aft port boat to be launched would have been boat #12 instead of boat #16. The only thing that suggests she took an aft port boat was that shots were fired at boat #14, but she said the shots were fired in a corridor, not on the deck, although that could be a misquote since she also says the shots were fired in the air. Men not being allowed in the boats suggests the port side, although some men were turned away on the aft starboard side while women were still present. She could have been talking about a forward boat too, where we have alternating stories of shots and panic at collapsible C, contrasted with the accounts saying nobody or no women were around it when it lowered.

Mary Glynn received an almost universal vote from us of 4.89 for boat #13. In the Washington Times for April 22, 1912 Mary heaped praise on Martin Gallagher for helping herself and other girls into her boat and then gallantly refusing to board it himself. Surely one of those other girls in that group would have been his fiancée, Margaret Mannion. And did not Margaret mention the second to last boat? That description applies to lifeboat #13.

In the following article on page 22, Mannion calls Gallagher her "fiancé," the quote coming directly from the radio interview where she said he was the man she hoped to marry. She also says it was the next to last lifeboat, which could certainly be #13.
http://www.ballinasloeenterprisecentre.ie/magazine/issue6/BsloeLifeIss6.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1DGxIaGWgxugGoFVgxACXJrfJXG_kho01tkXv946-ZMZdr_SEKtECSnpc