Ninty years on: The Arranmore Disaster of 1935, when 19 islanders died at sea

Before the sun rose on a frosty Saturday, November 9, 1935, Annie Gallagher from Torries, on Arranmore’s “far” side, had already lit the fire and was soon dressing the beds. 

The excitement was because her children were expected home later that evening from Scotland, where they had been seasonal potato picking - or ‘tatie-hoking’ as it was known.

Ten years beforehand, on January 30, 1925, Annie’s husband Edward had lost his sister Sarah and her own husband Philip Boyle in the Owencarrow Disaster. Four people died, and nine were injured, as a steam train on the Letterkenny and Burtonport Extension Railway came off the viaduct outside Creeslough during a gale.

The Owencarrow Disaster of 1925

Sarah and Philip Boyle were returning to the island from Dublin, having bought stock for their grocery and drapery shop. They had just picked up their son, Philly, 18, who had been discharged from the hospital in Letterkenny after having had three fingers amputated following an accident whilst working as a relief lighthouse keeper on the island. He survived the trainwreck.

Although poor weather had meant the tatie-hoking season lasted a little longer than usual in 1935, Annie was comforted that crisp morning as she looked towards the mainland and could only see a stillness in the sea. 

Later that evening, after darkness fell at about 5:45pm, 20 people boarded a yawl in Burtonport to make their way home. Seven had made their way from Arranmore that afternoon to meet those who were returning from five months in Scotland. Only one of the 20 would set foot on Arranmore alive. 

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The migrants had boarded the Burns and Laird at 7pm on Friday from Broomielaw in Glasgow and had an exhaustive overnight crossing, although one that passed quickly with plenty of dancing as the accordion played. The passengers finally disembarked tiredly down the gangplank in Derry, not long after Annie would’ve been rising on Arranmore.

Some would wander the shops in Derry - a few were window-shopping and others picking up presents and treats - as the smell of the sizzling bacon was too much to ignore, wafting from Con Molloy’s at 31 Waterlook Street, not far from the Gweedore Bar. 

Molloy was originally from Burtonport and married to Margaret Boyle from Maas, just outside Glenties, and their Rosses Bar murmured with Donegal accents - most as Gaeilge -  that morning. 

Danny Green from Poolawaddy spent his morning pounding the streets of the Walled City. He had lost his tie-pin and would end up missing the train to Burtonport because of it, but would live to tell the tale. Sisters Fanny and Mary Gallagher, as well as Mary Henry and her brother Owen Henry, had also travelled on the Glasgow boat to Derry. 

It was later reported: “They too would have got the train but for the fact that one of their number, a young lad, insisted on going into a local store for sweets, and as a result all missed the train.”

Back on Arranmore, Annie’s husband, 61-year-old Edward Gallagher, would soon set off for Burtonport as five of their children - Madgie, 28; Eddie, 24; Johnny, 22; Charlie 20, and Hannah, 16 - were due home.

Another son, Mickie, who was 29, had stayed home that summer to work on the lobsters, and another, Paddy, 26, had contracted rheumatic fever in Scotland and returned in August. The night he came back was so foggy, it was said the first time many of those on board only recognised Aphort Pier as they were about to dock. 

A nephew of Annie’s, John Gallagher, 20, from Aphort, as well as 34-year-old John Rodgers from Torries and John Bow O’Donnell, 50, from Aphort, would join Edward in going to the mainland on the dark red-painted yawl. 

At the last minute, Eamon Ned Ward, 51, who had been working on the lifeboat by the pier at Aphort, decided to join them, needing to pick up a wireless in Burtonport, thus bringing the party to seven. They pulled out at 2:45pm. With the wind coming in from the mainland, they would row over with the tide and then could use the 24-foot double-edged sail on the way back. 

An 11-year-old Jimmy O’Donnell was almost on his way over too, relieved of his duties of paying the stationmaster in Burtonport for groceries for the local shop by Edward Gallagher, who said he would sort it out, save him the journey and to go on home. Sunday was time enough. 

As they rowed out into the sea, John Bow O’Donnell shared the story of his trip from Derry to New York; of seven days and seven nights on a stormy Atlantic - and then two more days by train to Chicago. 

Eamon Sweeney, who was discharging timber at the pier as they went off into the horizon, saw the clouds darken and swiftly drift in and hauntingly remarked: “It was like an evening on which hundreds were being hanged.”

On the other side, the Swilly train left Derry at 10am, headed for Burtonport and arrived sometime after 4pm - an hour late, although a common occurrence as John McCole, the conductor, would regularly drop off necessities in Creeslough, Falcarragh and Crolly on the way.

There was a 45-minute stop in Letterkenny, where 16-year-old Hannah Gallagher, who was finding the train uncomfortable after her second year in Scotland and due to a sore leg, which she had burned a couple of days beforehand when a kettle slipped from her grasp as she was washing, took a wander and came back with biscuits and lemonade. 

In all, the 75-mile journey from Derry to Burtonport by train took over six hours. Hannah is said to have looked out the window just before the train pulled in, saying: “I can see father and Paddy.”

Edward soon got to hug his sons and kiss his daughters, Hannah and Madgie. He was in Burtonport with seven of his children - the two sons that had rowed over with him and then the three boys and two girls who were returning from Scotland.

He also greeted another Hannah Gallagher, who was 21, with her brothers Daniel (27) and Manus (17), who were expected to be in Scotland another week and were known as the Mickie Mór Gallaghers. They had received a letter from Hannah to say they'd be leaving for home on November 15. 

Edward Gallagher’s son, Mickie, a pioneer who had travelled from the island, was placing the cases and boxes into the boat, with his brother Charlie, and Paddy O’Donnell passing them down. Eamon Ned Ward helped Mickie with the sail. 

Peter Leonard, 61, whose daughter Maggie stayed in Edinburgh to work in a rubber factory for the winter, offered to help with the cases. Hannah sat on a lobster pot watching on, with a bandage around her leg, which was still hurting despite her walk around Letterkenny. 

Willie Bonner, the owner of a motorboat from Leabgarrow, the opposite side of the island to where Edward Gallagher was going, offered a lift. “It’s shorter and faster,” he said, but with all those going home were from the Aphort end, they decided to continue with Edward. That motorboat initially followed Edward Gallagher’s before heading west for home. 

Madgie Gallagher, who came back from the shop with sweets and apples, told Willie Bonner the two-and-a-half-mile walk from Leabgarrow would be awkward for Hannah. They had planned to go to Leabgarrow, where a welcome-home dance was planned in Neily Phil’s Hall, the following night.

Before departure, James P O’Donnell from Burtonport spoke to Edward Gallagher, who passed a remark about how high the sea was in the west bay, just off the island, and said he “had seen the highest waves in his life that evening.” He also said it was stated on the wireless that “there was a storm rising.”

Peter Leonard from Ballintra, who the lift with Willie Bonner may have suited, decided to stick with the original plan, and Edward Gallagher helped Hannah on board and told her to sit beside her brother, Paddy. Brother and sister, Patrick O'Donnell, 44, and Katie O'Donnell, 45, from Leabrannagh, got on together. Both were veterans of the trip, having served their first stints before reaching their teens. The group left Burtonport in good spirits, just three miles from home. 

“Even after the boat had been enveloped in the darkness, the lilt of their laughter could be heard by those who had seen them off,” read The Donegal Democrat a week later on Saturday, November 16, 1935, of those who had departed the mainland. “It must have been little more than half an hour later that disaster overtook them.”

At home, Annie Gallagher put the paraffin light on the inside windowsill and was soon joined by her sister-in-law Mary, who brought buttermilk and together the pair hung a pot full of washed potatoes over the fire to boil. Annie’s youngest son Condy, 7, had fallen asleep in the warmth, while another, Anthon, 13, was waiting at Aphort for the arrivals. Annie and Mary went to the door as they noticed a heavy hailstone shower. 

The sailboat set off into the night to Arranmore, towards the South Channel between Duck Island and Rutland, with everyone ducking as a hail shower rolled by, clacking off their jackets pulled over their heads.

Edward Gallagher called on Mickie to take the sprit out of the sail, with the boat travelling uncomfortably fast in the worsening conditions of increasing wind and persistent hail. John Rodgers, who was on lookout on the bow and minding Eamon Ward’s radio, screamed to lower the sails. 

Suddenly, a crash, before a wave carried the boat halfway up on a rock. The boat fell backwards, emptying its cargo and occupants into the sea.

“Men shouted and cursed, women screamed and cried,” wrote Jimmy O’Donnell in The Arranmore Disaster. “Some tore frantically at the sails. Edward turned the helm to put the boat about as she slid over a large rock. The steer was caught and torn off.

“The following wave caught the boat broadside, capsizing her to port among the rocks. The load screams, the desperate shouting for a few short moments was silenced quickly in the icy waters, where they struggled for their lives for a short time before disappearing below the surface of the sea, their lives lost to eternity. Some clung to the overturned boat, prolonging their lives for a little while longer.”

Annie and Mary were getting worried and presumed the train could be late, or perhaps the homecomers might’ve missed it, while Mickie Mór Gallagher and his wife Una, were wondering how the children - Hannah, Daniel and Manus - were getting on in what was supposed to be their last weekend in Scotland. Little did they know that despite Hannah's letter, the trio would decide to come home early. 

As the boat overturned, Paddy Gallagher would later recall, there were maybe nine people holding on. By the third time it flipped, there were only three - himself, his brother Johnny, a carpenter, and their father Edward, with the mast hanging off. The sons, by now grasping the keel, couldn’t hold onto their father, and he slipped under the waterline like many of those he had been taking back to Arranmore.

John Rodgers had managed to swim to the highest rock nearby before taking off his Wellington boots and decided to return to the boat. Uncertain where he was, he thought he was at a cluster of rocks halfway between Arran and Rutland called Carraic Bheal a’tShrotha, when, in fact, it was Eileen, a collection of rocks stretching out from the island itself at Cloughcorr. This meant that had he stayed where he was, he could have walked back to the island later, when the tide was out. 

He had previously told Neddy Beg Gallagher one stormy night they were fishing salmon, that if he were ever to get into trouble at sea, he would tie a rope around his waist. This meant he would be fastened to the boat “so they can bury my body in peace and not have ot floating around the sea till Judgement Day.” True to his word, John Rodgers’ body would be found tied to the boat, which had left a dark-red paint mark on a rock at Eileen, on Sunday. 

Brothers Paddy and Johnny were holding on for dear life, in the freezing water, with the latter much the more uncomfortable. Johnny was tired, cold and hungry and started to cry, wondering how their mother Annie would cope with only the two youngest boys, Anthon and Cody, to look after her. 

Paddy and Johnny, with mouths dry from gulping seawater, could see the lights dotted in the windows on Arranmore, although neither could swim. 

They shouted till they were hoarse, but nobody could hear, although their brother Anthon, who was at Aphort, would later say he heard cries as he waited at the pier with Condy O'Donnell, Hughie McCauley, Mickie Gallagher and the boy who almost boarded the boat that afternoon, Jimmy O'Donnell, who were all aged between 11 and 13. As the cupped their ears, they too were hit with hail and ran for cover. Mickie and Jimy went onto Illion but believed what they had heard was probably children playing.

Paddy joked, sang and encouraged Johnny, saying the calmness after the storm, and the full moon that was rising over Errigal in the now calm conditions, would help them get spotted.

Paddy’s heart sank as the last light on the island, Barney McGill’s, went out at bedtime and a lone dog barked in the night. They hoped against hope that John Rodgers, Eamon Ned Ward or their brother Mickie - all accomplished swimmers - had made it to land. 

Thinking they were drifting towards the island, they were in fact edging from it, towards Iniskeeragh, where there were 14 houses, with the weather turning nasty again for a spell. Paddy rubbed Johnny’s cheeks to keep him warm and keep him talking. 

Paddy asked his brother if he knew where he was. “Yes,” Johnny replied, with clattering teeth. “At Crolly Station,” which showed he was suffering from delirium. At around 4:30am, some 10 hours after the boat crashed, Johnny took his last breath. 

Paddy couldn’t bear to let him go, even though he knew his brother was gone, and held onto him on the keel with one arm. Their mother, Annie, unable to sleep with worry, was up not long afterwards and got dressed to go to the pier with her sister-in-law, Mary.

Before sunrise, seven-year-old Hughie Gallagher woke over at Plohogue and decided to let it be known from his bed that he was hungry, with his father Charlie Ban getting up to fix him something to eat. 

Charlie Ban, with morning not yet starting to break through, stood outside to see what the weather would bring. He would tell the inquest later that week at the Glen Hotel, owned by Mrs Jack Boyle, exactly what happened from there.

“At half-past seven on Sunday morning, I went to the door and heard a man shouting at sea,” he said. “I saw an object in the water but did not know what it was. I thought at first it was a man fishing for glassan, and that the boat had capsized.”

Charlie Ban called to Anthony O'Donnell and Mick McNulty and leapt into a 12-foot boat as fast as they could. Paddy Gallagher was still on the upside-down boat, grasping his dead brother, waving back at them.

"I saw you running from the house through the fields,’’ Paddy Gallagher would later say to Charlie Ban. "I knew you saw me. It was the gladdest sight I ever saw.”

“We went as fast as we could towards it,” Charlie Ban Gallagher added. “We saw it was Paddy Gallagher, and he had his brother Johnny across the keel of the boat. We threw a rope and Paddy tied it to the body and we took it to the boat. Then we took Paddy.  He was talking a lot, and I did not remember half of it. We were kind of excited. He was in fairly good condition and smoked a cigarette on the way in.”

The Coroner, Joseph P McGinley from Letterkenny, said of Paddy Gallagher: “This is the most marvellous man I have ever heard of.”

The Derry Journal, on Wednesday, Friday,15, would say: “The part Paddy Gallagher played; the superhuman strength he showed; his coolness and presence of mind in the face of seeming death; his wonderful solicitude and consideration for his father and brother, who died in his arms, reveal an example of manhood, courage, and self-sacrifice which could not possibly be excelled.”

As he signed off at the inquest, Paddy Gallagher said: "It surely was a terrible night."

Charlie Ban Gallagher went on to explain that he believed the high tide meant rocks were probably not visible the night of the tragedy, and the boat may have been only 100 yards from the shore at one point, but for that high tide. 

Mr Eugene Doherty, an ex-TD from  Dungloe, said the rocks referred to were a “veritable death-trap.” In his own time, he said: “Authority was given to put up beacons to guide those at sea, but this had never been carried into effect.”

An exhausted Paddy Gallagher had spent almost 16 hours grasping the keel in the freezing cold conditions and collapsed as he arrived at the pier with Charlie Ban Gallagher, Mick McNulty and Anthony O’Donnell. He was attended to by Rev Bernard Gallagher CC of Arranmore Island and was cared for by Dr Frank Gallagher, with his condition being described as “one more of shock.”

Paddy Gallagher recovering in Arranmore following the 1935 tragedy. Photo: Irish Independent

The Donegal News, on Saturday, November 16, would report: “Harrowing scenes were witnessed on the island when news of the disaster spread amongst the inhabitants. Many of them rushed to the shore.”

That day, news of the disaster began to spread and the Civic Guards from Burtonport were joined by boatmen from both Arranmore and the mainland and nine bodies in all would be found.

Mickey Mór Gallager was helping with the search, thinking of his own three children in Scotland. To his surprise, he saw his two sons, Daniel and Manus, sitting up against a boulder, with their eyes open. Mickey Mór told them he hadn’t expected them home, only for it to dawn on him they were dead, and all that would ever be found of Hannah was her trunk.

Located along the rocks, it contained new curtains, blinds and bedcovers for the new bungalow the family had just built. Mickey Mór would spend the next 15 years, the remaining of his life, looking for her in vain.

The bodies found at Eileen that day were four of Edward Gallagher’s immediate family - Mickie, Madgie, Eddie and Charlie, their cousin John Gallagher and Mickey Mor’s two sons, Daniel and Manus, which made nine in all with John Rodgers tied to the boat and Johnny Gallagher, who was in Paddy’s arms from early morning.

The search had to be postponed until Monday, at 11am, due to treacherous conditions. Sergeant Griffin was in charge of the search party of An Garda Siochana, said on Sunday night that “the scenes on the island were pitiable in the extreme. Many of the inhabitants were prostrate with grief.”

“The most tragic figure is Mrs Annie Gallagher, the widow of the boatman, Edward,” The Derry Journal added. “She lost her husband, four sons and two daughters, but is still under the impression that she lost her husband and one son only. She believes that her other children are still in Scotland at the harvesting. The children of seven families who have lost their breadwinner are ignorant of the tragedy.”

At the inquest that week, both skipper Edward Gallagher and lookout John Rodgers as were described as “experienced fishemen.”

“The place where the boar floundered was called Ballinellan, meaning ‘gap of the clutch’,” Bernard Gallagher added. “It is a dangerous spot, and no boar would go there unless put off course. There was a high tide and poor visibility, and those, along with the frequent squalls, probably accounted for the disaster.”

The nine bodies were laid out in the Lifeboat house at Rannagh in three rows of three – eight young men aged between 17 and 29 and Madgie Gallagher’s.

Mourners at the funeral of nine Arranmore natives in 1935. Photo: Donegal Genealogy

The funeral of the victims whose bodies were found took place the following Wednesday, November 13, where it was reported: “Distressing scenes in the chapter during Fr John McAteer’s pagency, scenes that have never before been witnessed and that must be without parallel even in Ireland.”

The Solemn Requiem Mass was celebrated by Fr Bernard Gallagher at 11am, with internment postponed from 12 noon to 2pm to further the search for more bodies. Eventually, the nine bodies were buried, in three rows of three, like they had been laid in Rannagh.

“Louder and louder grew the cries,” The Donegal News wrote. “Women in transports of sorrow and grief rushed hither and thither, some not knowing where they were going, wandering aimlessly around the tombstones and calling on the dead to return. 

“Men began to weep as the grave was slowly filled, and women, crowding around the scene, added to the general poignancy by their shrill interpolations, spoken in the Gaelic, and their ititent cries. The kindly parish priest, moved to the deepest distress at the sight of such sorrow, recommenced the prayers at the graveside, and within a moment the nature of the scene changed. 

“Gone were the cautions and laments, save for the cries of the women in another portion of the cemetery. In their stead, nothing was heard but the soft murmur of the comforting words of spiritual solace spoken by their beloved pastor.”

Sixteen days after the tragedy, on Wednesday, November 27, at 9am, a 15-year-old boy called Neil O’Donnell found a body at Magherameelan that turned out to be that of Patrick O’Donnell. Before the body could make it to Arranmore, news of another sighting emerged. It was that of 16-year-old Hannah Gallagher, found in seaweed at Inismeel near Burtonport. She was fully clothed, even with her gloves still on, only missing a shoe.

Eamon Ned Ward’s body was picked up at Bunanid on Sunday, December 1, tellingly with his pocket watch stopped at exactly 6:20pm, which confirmed the time the tragedy took place three weeks before.

Edward Gallagher’s remains were buried in the sand for nine months before, on Tuesday, August 4, 1936, Charles O’Donnell’s dog began digging to find the fully clothed body at Inniscoo. Brothers Tony Gallagher (17) and Edward Gallagher (15) were located on Tuesday, December 3, at Inisfree and on Monday, December 16 at Maghery. Their brother Johnny had decided to stay in Scotland for the winter, to set the potatoes and cut turf. 

Peter Leonard’s remains were located on Wednesday, December 4 at Maghery, close to where, 12 days later, the man who had spoken of Chicago, John Bow O’Donnell, was located. Katie O’Donnell and Hannah Mickey Mór Gallagher were never given a burial and are still lost at sea. 

A fund for the relief of the relatives and dependents of the victims of the disaster was established, which eventually raised £18,000, and the Donegal Association in Dublin, proudly running to this day, was founded to raise money in 1935 for the Arranmore families.

Paddy Gallagher from Aphort, the sole survivor of the Arranmore Disaster in 1935 and Mick McNulty from Ploghogue. Photo: Eddie McIntyre, Árainn Mhór History

Paddy Gallagher eventually passed away in 1987. In an interview before his death, he couldn’t explain why he was the one to live, especially since he was unwell that summer. 

"It never leaves my mind,” he said. “The sight I seen that night was something terrible. It seems I had to survive to tell the tale.”