The story of the tragic maiden voyage was found timelessly powerful, tragic, and romantic in the year 1912. The girl who came home was inspired by the true events surrounding a group of fourteen Irish emigrants who left their homes in County Mayo, Ireland, to travel on Titanic to relatives in America. The group is known as the Addergoole Fourteen. When titanic sank, the loss of eleven passengers from the Addergoole group represented the largest proportional loss of life from one region. For the purposes of this novel, the names of all fourteen passengers have changed. The town of Ballysheen, although based on Lahardane in County Mayo, is fictitious.
Maggie Murphy is based on two of the youngest girls in the Addergoole group (Annie Kate Kelly and Anne McGowan), and Kathleen Dolan is based on Catherine McGowan, the woman generally credited with organizing the Addergoole group's journey, although this has never been proven.
Annie Kate Kelly reported to the Chicago Herald that she believed she was the last woman to leave Titanic, being helped into lifeboat 16 at 1:25 A.M by a steward she had befriended. Of Course. we now know that lifeboat 4 was the last to leave Titanic around 1:50 A.M., and was followed by the four collapsible lifeboats.
In her later life, Annie McGowan did indeed confess her Titanic story to her great-granddaughter.
Peggy Madden's character is based on Delia McDermott. who having gotten into a lifeboat, apparently returned to her cabin to fetch her precious new hat. Katie Kenny is also based on one of the girls from the Addergoole group, Nora Fleming, who was traveling to be reunited with her sister in New York and celebrated her twenty-fourth birthday on board Titanic on April 14, 1912.
The remaining characters in the Ballysheen group are loosely based on accounts of those who traveled in the party. With the exception of those noted below, the characters Maggie encounters on Titanic and all the events surrounding Grace and Maggie's family life in Illinois and Ireland are entirely fictitious.
The character of Vivienne Walker-Brown is loosely based on Dorothy Gibson, an actress who sailed on Titanic and went on to play herself in Saved from the Titanic, a silent movie made about disaster shortly after the event. Dorothy Gibson did indeed wear the same dress in the movie that she had worn the night the ship sank. Edmund, Vivienne's dog, although fictitious, represents several dogs belonging to first - class passengers that were kept in the staterooms and were taken into the lifeboats. In total, three of the twelve dogs on board survived the sinking.
Some of the passengers whom members of the Irish group encounter aboard Titanic are based in fact. They include Father Browne, the Jesuit priest whose black-and-white images of Titanic are known worldwide; Father Byles, who led the Mass on the morning of April 14; Eugene Daly the piper; the girl with the rash who was refused entry to the ship at Queenstown; young Douglas Spedden, the first-class boy playing with his spinning top; the Marconi radio boys, Harold Bride and Jack Phillips; and, of course, Captain Smith, Mr. Ismay, Mr. Andrews, Officer Lightoller and Mr. McElroy. Thomas Durcan was the White Star Line agent in Castlebar.
Disclosure of Material: I have received a review copy of this book by the publisher in the form of e-book. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”
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