WHEN Margaret McNamee of Convoy speaks about Neal and Eileen McNamee, she does so with the quiet authority of a woman who has carried this story her whole married life.
Margaret, wife of the late Tommy McNamee and her family are the guardians of one of Donegal’s most remarkable connections to the Titanic disaster.
Tommy’s uncle, Neal McNamee, is believed to have been the only Donegal man aboard the doomed liner when she sank on the night of April 14, 1912.
The tragedy claimed more than 1,500 lives.
Margaret recalled from her house in Kiltole how Neal had left the townland of Ruskey in Convoy to work for the Lipton Tea company in Salisbury in the very early 1900’s.
It was there that Neal met Eileen O’Leary who also worked for Liptons.
The portrait inscription of Neal and Eileen McNamee lost in the Atlantic in 1912.
Margaret said: “They got married in the month of February, and they decided they would go on their honeymoon on the Titanic, because he got a job in New York for Lipton’s — to start up Lipton’s in New York.”
The young couple had set out from Salisbury in hope for a new life in America.
When the ship struck ice, Eileen was offered a place in a lifeboat. She refused to go.
“She had a chance of being saved, but she didn’t want to leave him. She stayed with him,” she said.
The couple perished together. Eileen’s body was identified momentarily in the scramble in the sea.
Margaret said: “The only reason they knew who she was, you see, was that she had her hand clenched, and in it was a wee purse. And when they opened the purse, wasn’t her name inside it.”
Unfortunately that was the last time she was seen. She was lost to the depths along with her husband.
More than a century on, their story remains deeply rooted in local memory. Photographs, portraits and keepsakes have been preserved by the McNamee family, including links to Titanic survivor – the late Millvina Dean from England (1912 – 2009). Millvina was the last living survivor of the Titanic disaster.
The McNamee family of Convoy met with Millvina in Salisbury to memorialise Neal and Eileen with a park bench and tree planting.
“I got at least two lovely letters that I have from her, thanking me for coming over,” she said.
Letters from survivors that made contact with one that lost family years after the Titanic disaster
A photograph of Millvina at the memorial tree and park bench also forms part of the family archive, underlining the enduring connection between Donegal and the Titanic story.
Despite the passing of time, the legacy of Neal and Eileen McNamee still resonates in Convoy.
Today, Margaret McNamee is surrounded by nine children, 26 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren – a dynasty Neal and Eileen McNamee never had the chance to begin.