Ellen "Nellie" Shine (30 December 1891 – 5 March 1993) was the last living adult survivor of the at the time of the sinking and the last living survivor of Irish background.

Early life

Ellen "Nellie" Shine had been living in rural Ireland, near Newmarket,

County Cork County Cork ( ga, Contae Chorcaí) is the largest and the southernmost county of Ireland, named after the city of Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. Its largest market towns ar ...

with her elder sister after their parents died. After her sister took in an orphaned infant, Shine was sent to the United States to live with her brother.

RMS ''Titanic''

Shine boarded the ''RMS Titanic'' at Queenstown as a third-class passenger, to cross to the United States in order to live with her brother. There is confusion over the age of Shine when she boarded the ''Titanic'', as sources have her being aged 20, but in a 1959 article, her husband John Callaghan was quoted as stating she was 19. In the manifest of passengers boarding in Queenstown, she is listed as a third class passenger, with the occupation of "

spinster ''Spinster'' is a term referring to an unmarried woman who is older than what is perceived as the prime age range during which women usually marry. It can also indicate that a woman is considered unlikely to ever marry. The term originally den ...

". Before Shine boarded the ship, a local school teacher gave her a religious medal, following a local custom where the saint featured was prayed to for protection during the journey, and returned to the giver. During the sinking, the medal was lost, causing Shine to become upset, as she felt the prayers and the medal was what had saved her. Her account, shown below, of the sinking was published in ''

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'' (of London), ''

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'', ''

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'' and other United States newspapers. The account slightly differs in some papers, with some continuing that the four men in the life boat were shot by officers, and their bodies thrown overboard.

Later life

Shine married John Callaghan and moved to northern

Manhattan, New York City Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. stat ...

, where she lived until her death in 1993, aged 101.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shine, Ellen RMS Titanic survivors 1993 deaths 1891 births 20th-century Irish women 20th-century Irish people Irish centenarians 20th-century American women 20th-century American people American centenarians Women centenarians