Margaret Devaney

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Margaret Devaney was a third-class passenger on RMS Titanic, and one of the 706 survivors.

RMS <i>Titanic</i> British transatlantic passenger liner, launched and foundered in 1912

RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in 1912, after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died, making it one of modern history's deadliest commercial marine disasters during peacetime. RMS Titanic was the largest ship afloat at the time she entered service and was the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line. She was built by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. Thomas Andrews, chief naval architect of the shipyard at the time, died in the disaster.

Contents

Early life

Margaret Devaney was born on May 3, 1892 on Kilmacowen, Ireland.

Ireland Island in north-west Europe, 20th largest in world, politically divided into the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland (a part of the UK)

Ireland is an island in the North Atlantic. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth.

RMS Titanic

Margaret boarded RMS Titanic as a third-class passenger with her friends Mary Burns and Catherine "Kate" Hargadon at Queenstown, Ireland.

Cobh Town in Munster, Ireland

Cobh, known from 1849 until 1920 as Queenstown, is a tourist seaport town on the south coast of County Cork, Ireland. Cobh is on the south side of Great Island in Cork Harbour and is home to Ireland's only dedicated cruise terminal. Tourism in the area draws on the maritime and emigration legacy of the town. It was associated with the RMS Titanic, which was built in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

When the Titanic hit an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912, Margaret, Mary and Catherine climbed a ladder from the Aft Well deck to a deck of the second-class. One of Margaret's friends suffered from seasickness and stopped, along with the other friend. Margaret intended to come back for them when she found a lifeboat. However, once in the crowd, she found herself near Collapsible C and was pushed in. While Collapsible C was being lowered, it got caught on the Titanic's rivets. The crew had trouble loosening the falls to free the lifeboat. Margaret took a pocketknife and gave it to the crewman. The crewman managed to free Collapsible C.

Iceberg A large piece of freshwater ice broken off a glacier or ice shelf and floating in open water

An iceberg is a large piece of freshwater ice that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open (salt) water. Another name for iceberg is "ice mountain". Small bits of disintegrating icebergs are called "growlers" or "bergy bits".

Mary and Catherine perished. Their bodies, if recovered, were never identified.

Margaret saved three mementos from the Titanic and these relics are still treasured by her descendants. The first was her third class ticket (which she had in her sweater pocket when she left the Titanic). The second is the actual knife that the crewmen used to cut the ropes that tied the oars together. The third is a lifeboat iron emblam flag that was removed from a lifeboat and given to Margaret while on the Carpathia. The man who gave the flag to Margaret was in charge of the boat told her that she was responsible for the lifeboat escaping the Titanic by having the knife. As a token of his appreciation, he presented her with it. Margaret's ticket was conserved at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia, PA by conservator Morgan Zinsmeister prior to its inclusion in "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition" hosted by the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in 2005.

Later life

Margaret married John Joseph O'Neill in 1919 in New York. They had 6 children. She moved to Clifton, New Jersey after her husband's death.

New York City Largest city in the United States

The City of New York, usually called either New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.

Clifton, New Jersey City in Passaic County, New Jersey, U.S.

Clifton is a city in Passaic County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 84,136, retaining its position as the state's 11th-largest municipality, as the population increased by 5,464 (+6.9%) from the 78,672 counted in the 2000 Census, which had in turn increased by 6,930 (+9.7%) from the 71,742 counted in the 1990 Census.

New Jersey State of the United States of America

New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is located on a peninsula, bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, particularly along the extent of the length of New York City on its western edge; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware River and Pennsylvania; and on the southwest by the Delaware Bay and Delaware. New Jersey is the fourth-smallest state by area but the 11th-most populous, with 9 million residents as of 2017, and the most densely populated of the 50 U.S. states; its biggest city is Newark. New Jersey lies completely within the combined statistical areas of New York City and Philadelphia. New Jersey was the second-wealthiest U.S. state by median household income as of 2017.

Death

She was 82 when she died on June 12, 1974. She was buried at Holy Name Cemetery, New Jersey.

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