Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from May 10, 2022

The Girl Who Came Home: A Novel of the Titanic by Hazel Gaynor {Book Review}

  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...