People on board

HYNES, James

James Hynes was born about 1853 in Tulla, Co Clare to John Hynes, a Draper, and Ellen Clancy. John and Ellen had married in 1835 in Limerick and their first child, Patrick, was born in 1836. The next identified child was not born until 1843, so there may have been several children born in the missing period. James was the fifth of seven known children. He was reportedly educated in Ennis at Springfield College about the time it came under new management and became known as St Flannan’s College. By 1879 he was in Manchester when he married Mary Halloran, who had been born in London of Irish parents, giving his occupation as ‘Warehouseman’.

A son, Aloysius, was born in February 1880 and in August of that year they emigrated to Boston, USA. A daughter, Ellen, was born there in December 1882 but the family had returned to Salford, Manchester by the time the next child, Teresa, was born in 1885. Bernard was born about 1889 and Joseph the following year. In the 1891 census Aloysius was not with the family and James’s occupation was ‘Grocer’s Agent’. Two more children were then born, Clare Agnes in 1893 and John Anthony, known as Oswald, in 1894. In 1901 Ellen, then fifteen, was with her uncle Patrick and Aunt Mary in their Draper’s shop in Tulla, Bernard, Joseph, Clare and Oswald were with their parents in Manchester, while Aloysius and Teresa were missing. James gave his occupation this time as ‘Draper’s Traveller’ and Mary’s was ‘Dressmaker’.

In January 1909 Ellen Hynes entered the convent of the Irish Sisters of Charity, taking the name Sister Bruno, and for most of the rest of her life taught in the school attached to Cappagh Hospital in Dublin. She died there in 1954.  In 1911 only Oswald was in Manchester where James’s occupation was given as ‘Watchman’ while Mary’s was ‘Dressmaker’. Aloysius, then calling himself Louis, and Bernard were both in Dublin, both Medical Students, while Teresa and Clare were with their aunt in Tulla, and Joseph was a Bank Official in Nenagh, Co Tipperary. Oswald later also became a doctor.

James, then aged sixty-three, and Clare, aged twenty-five were presumably returning to Manchester from visiting their family in Ireland when they travelled on RMS Leinster on 10 October 1918. They did not survive the sinking and neither body was found. A High Mass was celebrated in Tulla parish church for the repose of their souls. Their names are inscribed on the Clare WW1 Memorial in the Ennis Peace Park.