A Titanic Legacy
The Titanic is not just a story from the past for this family. It is part of why there is a camera in David O'Riordan's hands at all.
The man on the shore
After setting sail from Southampton on 10 April 1912, the Titanic made two stops — Cherbourg in France, and then Queenstown, Ireland, the town known today as Cobh. It was in Queenstown that 123 new passengers came aboard. Queenstown would be the last place the Titanic saw land. Standing on that shore was John Frost — David's great-grandfather — camera in hand. On 11 April 1912 he photographed the great liner as she left Ireland. In the early hours of 15 April 1912 the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank into the Atlantic; over 1,500 souls were lost. John Frost was a member of several respected societies, including the Royal Cork Yacht Club. He flew airplanes, sailed Cork Harbour, and rode motorcycles — and through it all he photographed: Ireland in the early 1900s, travels across Israel, Germany and Austria, car races in Cork City, and plane rides in 1919.
The box of negatives
David was born and raised in Cork City and picked up a camera professionally in 2008, believing he was starting something new. Years later, when his great-grand aunt passed away, he was handed a box of glass negatives, old medium-format rolls, 35mm film, and a few worn scrapbooks that told the story of his great-grandfather's life. Tucked between the pages was one image that stood out — the Titanic, captured just off the coast of Ireland. Today, a few of those cameras and a scrapbook sit on a shelf in his office, a daily reminder of the craft and the calling he is proud to carry forward.
Ninety-six years later
When the QE2 made her final voyage, David stood at the same location his great-grandfather had stood at 96 years earlier, and photographed her sailing away. In 2014, David made his own crossing from Ireland to the United States — a very different voyage, but in some ways the same dream: a hope for something new, a future built on courage and faith.
Addergoole
The parish of Addergoole, in County Mayo, sent fourteen of its own aboard the Titanic; only three survived the sinking. Among those lost were Mary Mangan, 32; Annie McGowan, 17, who did not speak of the tragedy until 1984, at the age of 90; and Bridget Donohoe, 22, who had worked in a general store to earn her passage. Every year the parish remembers the loss with the tolling of a bell at 2:20 a.m. — the time the ship went down.
“Photography is a way of writing with light, preserving the faces, places, and moments that make up our lives.”