Titanic Decision

17th Apr 2012

Corkman and Titanic boiler room man John Coffey was considered the luckiest man alive when news of the big ship’s sinking emerged 100 years ago this week.

If he hadn’t been from the Rebel County would he have been as motivated to jump ship when it went to anchor off Roches Point on the morning of April 11^th 1911? We doubt it very much.

Not only was the Cobh native lucky to be alive but he was lucky to be in Cork and from Cork too.

The nimble 23 year old hid under a bunch of mail sacks brought ashore from Titanic by a tender, then did a legger when it pulled up in Cobh unbeknown to its crew. Minutes later he was with family and friends regaling them with stories of how bad things get once you leave Cork.

He said afterwards that he had a sense of foreboding about the giant vessel as it set off on its maiden transatlantic voyage. He had to say that and maybe it was partially true but only Corkonians can truly understand his thinking as they fully understand the magnetic-like draw on the soul that biggest and most beautiful county in Ireland can have on natives who go abroad.  
 

Titanic sets sail from Roches Point on April 11th 1911. John Coffey had just completed his legger ashore.

Imagine being stranded on a ship just a few miles from the motherland, the place where you sported and played - where your family and dearest friends were probably having the craic while you slaved for ‘the man’ in a dark hellish pit of toil deep in the bowels of a ship magnate’s dream:

The smell of burning coal and oil and dankness.
The dreary dull light from oil lamps.
Men with English accents barking orders at you.
Men with Dublin accents beside you.

Most poignantly, in Coffey’s mind it was probably the men, women and children with Cork accents just a few miles away on shore that he really wanted to hear and not the drone of foreign voices.

Without the pull of Cork on his mind Coffey would have ended up here with his employer

The notion of any guilt for giving up a job or lack of loyalty to his employer shouldn’t have come into it. As it shouldn’t for any other Corkonian living outside the county bounds.

John Coffey’s memory serves as a firm reminder to every Corkonian exile whether they are in London, Dublin, New York or Saipan – it’s never too late to throw your hat at it and come back home to the warm fireplace of Cork. 

The quay where John Coffey arrived after abandoning the Titanic in Cobh

We all have a sense of foreboding about the world outside the borders of the People’s Republic,  and a reservation about anything non-Corkonian. Some even flaunt the fact that they haven’t left the Rebel County in years but for All-Ireland’s and the obligatory annual Santa Ponza jaunt.

As Corkonians we have been proven to be right time and time again and so was John Coffey that morning when he made the decision to jump ship.

The motherland must be awarded credit: if it wasn’t for the alluring aura of Cork that day John Coffey would have ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic.