seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Titanic


by Leave a comment

Birth of Maria Josephine Doyle Kennedy, Singer & Actress

maria-doyle-kennedy

Maria Josephine Doyle Kennedy, singer, songwriter, and television/film actress, is born in Clontarf, Dublin, on September 25, 1964. With a singing career that has spanned nearly thirty years and an acting career that has spanned twenty-five, she has established herself as one of Ireland’s most prolific artists and entertainers.

Although Doyle Kennedy exhibits a love for singing at an early age, she never considers a formal career in singing until after she graduates from Trinity College, Dublin with a joint honours degree in political science and business. She never considers becoming an actress until after she establishes herself as a singer.

Doyle Kennedy joins a band while still in college in the mid-80s, performing with Hothouse Flowers during the band’s early years. She leaves the band in order to join The Black Velvet Band with her future husband, Kieran Kennedy. The band releases their first album, When Justice Came, in 1989 which reaches number 4 on the Irish charts and is ranked among the best Irish albums of the late 1980s. Doyle Kennedy leaves the group to pursue a career in solo music and, in 2001, releases music on Mermaid Records, a label she founds herself in 2000.

After the release of her alternative folk album Mütter in 2007, Hot Press states that Doyle Kennedy “is one of the finest voices this country has ever produced.” She is subsequently nominated in the Best Irish Female category at the 2008 Meteor Awards.

Doyle Kennedy’s first experience with acting comes in 1991 when she plays Natalie Murphy in The Commitments. She continues to expand her acting platform with roles in John Boorman‘s 1998 film, The General, Alan Bleasdale‘s 1999 miniseries Oliver Twist, and the 1999 British television series Queer as Folk.

In 2007 and 2008, Doyle Kennedy receives widespread recognition for her role as Catherine of Aragon on the British historical fiction television series The Tudors. In 2011 she joins the cast of ITV‘s period drama Downton Abbey, appearing as Vera Bates, estranged wife of the Earl of Grantham’s valet, one of her most recognizable roles within the United Kingdom. In the same year, she also plays a small role as a maid in the film Albert Nobbs, alongside American actress Glenn Close.

In 2012, she plays a leading role in the ITV mini-series Titanic and also appears beside fellow Irish actress Saoirse Ronan in Neil Jordan‘s horror fantasy film Byzantium, which premieres at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. She appears in The Conjuring 2, the 2016 sequel to the supernatural horror film The Conjuring.


by Leave a comment

Sinking of the RMS Tayleur

rms-tayleurThe RMS Tayleur, a full rigged iron clipper ship, sinks on January 21, 1854 while on her maiden voyage. Many people know the fate of the RMS Titanic but history forgets that she is not the first ship of the White Star Line to sink on its maiden voyage.

With a length of 230 feet and a 40-foot beam, the Tayleur is launched in Warrington, England on the River Mersey on October 4, 1853. She is named after Charles Tayleur, founder of the Vulcan Engineering Works, Bank Quay, Warrington. The ship is chartered by White Star Line to serve the booming Australian trade routes, as transport to and from the colony is in high demand due to the discovery of gold.

On January 19, 1854 the Tayleur leaves Liverpool bound for Australia with a cargo of Irish and English immigrants totaling 652 passengers and crew. Because of a faulty compass, the crew, thinking they are sailing south, actually turn the ship to the west and head toward Ireland by mistake.

The Tayleur finds herself in a storm on January 21 and being blown towards Lambay Island off Dublin. Despite dropping both anchors as soon as the rocks are sighted, she runs aground on the east coast of the island, about five miles from Dublin Bay. Initially, attempts are made to lower the ship’s lifeboats, but when the first one is smashed on the rocks, launching further boats is deemed unsafe. Tayleur is so close to land that the crew is able to collapse a mast onto the shore, and some people aboard are able to jump onto land by clambering along the collapsed mast.

With the storm and high seas continuing, the ship is then washed into deeper water and sinks to the bottom with only the tops of her masts above the surface of the sea. Tragically, of the more than 650 aboard, only 290 survive. Hundreds of poor Irish immigrants die within sight of their native home.

The ship has been described as the “First Titanic” but is largely overlooked by history perhaps due to the lack of “prominent” members of society onboard the doomed vessel.

During the inquiry that follows the tragedy, it is determined that her crew of 71 has only 37 trained seamen amongst them, and of these, ten could not speak English. It is reported in newspaper accounts that many of the crew were seeking free passage to Australia. Most of the crew survive.