Memorial

[BI Pirate]

Remembering 15 souls from a small Irish island community who perished at sea this day in 1935, in what many of us know and remember as the Arranmore Island Boating Tragedy.

[Marie LaFreniere]

BI Pirate...Actually it was 19 souls who perished that night in the Arranmore Disaster of 1935.

70813273_1754485458015320_6877470769614422016_n.jpg (69.82 KiB) Viewed 1510 times

[BI Pirate]

Marie, You are absolutely correct, maybe. It is assumed that there were 20 or more on board and every soul who lost their life should be memorialized for eternity. If you take 20, less one survivor, the total loss of life was 19, 15 of which were from our beloved Arranmore Island in my original post above. Paddy Gallagher, son of Edward, was the only survivor. It was Edward Gallagher's (father) boat and his family suffered the majority of casualties ( 5 children). His wife was not onboard and had hoped her children had not made the trip but instead remained in Scotland. They were in Scotland labouring the harvest in order to make money to survive the harsh winter on the island. Seventeen bodies were recovered, all buried together in a common grave. At Paddy's passing, he was buried with the previous buried victims en masse of the tragedy. As to whether there were the 15 known islanders plus 4 or more other souls, it continues to remain a question. However, all should be remembered on this the blackest of days for Arranmore.

[BI Pirate]

Anonymous, I will honor your Private Message request to remain anonymous but will address your question for everyone to read. You are correct that there were 13 Gallaghers who perished. The ones I refer to were the 5 children of Edward Gallagher, all of one direct family. This is as it has been passed down in family and other conversations and I can not find anything to substantiate otherwise. It would be appreciated if anyone else has more detailed information on the tragedy and the names of the victims. I do know there were also 2 O'Donnell victims. I do not believe that there is any relationship to the victims and Beaver Island families but that would also be an interesting question to have answered if anyone knows.

[E T]

You might find the attached link interesting http://donegalgenealogy.com/arranmoretragedy.htm

[jflanagan]

You might also find this TV report interesting: https://www.rte.ie/archives/2015/1106/7 ... -disaster/

Jim

[BI Pirate]

Gentlemen and Marie, Thank you very much for the links that you shared for readers to see if interested in the tragedy. The pictures alone chronicle the magnitude of the suffering that this disaster caused for all on Arranmore Island. Lest we ever forget.