Welcome to the website of Orla O'Connell Irish Writer (Órfhlaith Ní Chonaill)
Orla O'Connell Books
The Whelming Tide
The story I was born to write!
On 7th May 1915, the luxury passenger liner RMS Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk off the south coast of Ireland with the loss of 1,201 lives (officially 1,198).
My grandfather, Jerome B. Murphy, was area manager of the Cunard Line in Cobh (then called Queenstown). The responsibility for dead bodies and bereaved relatives fell on him. He was subsequently awarded an MBE for his "Service to Humanity", but his heroism came at great personal cost to him and his family.
The Whelming Tide is my fictionalised version of his story. It will be published soon. Read an excerpt here.