CLONES CONNECTION WITH TITANIC TRAGEDY

In the week in which the tide of life throughout the world pauses a while in its course to mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic on its maiden voyage on 15 April 1912, it is likely that fresh flowers will be laid upon the grave in a Canadian cemetery where rests a Clones man who perished in the great maritime disaster.
Lines written by Augustus M Toplady for the enduring 1776 hymn Rock of Ages embellish the marble memorial: “Nothing in my hand I bring; Simply to thy cross I cling.”
The other words on the headstone, in the Fairview Cemetery at Halifax, Nova Scotia read: “In loving memory of Ernest Waldron King, Currin Rectory, Clones, Ireland. Died on duty S.S. “Titanic”. April 15, 1912. Aged 28 years.”
A number of Titanic victims rest at Fairview, where they were interred after their bodies were recovered by a Canadian cable ship. Close to where Mr King is buried, there is a headstone erected “…to the memory of an unknown child whose remains were recovered after the disaster to the Titanic…” It is bedecked by small teddy bears and other children’s playthings left by the procession of modern mourners drawn to this most deeply poignant facet of Titanic’s kaleidoscope of still vivid human tragedy. “[T]o walk past the headstones in Halifax, Nova Scotia,” wrote the distinguished English journalist Robert Fisk in June 2006, “is a deeply moving experience.”
Something of that same echo of powerful emotion will likely circulate in Clones Branch Library on Monday next, April 23 when, at 6.30 pm, a lecture on the life of Ernest Waldron King will be delivered by Dermot McCabe as part of a series of educational Titanic-linked events that are taking place at the venue just now.
For the many still in Titanic’s thrall, Mr McCabe’s lecture should flesh out the life of a man with local connections whose …