Tracing the family of a Titanic passenger

Dear Editor,

I am writing from Sydney, Australia, and will be driving around Ireland in late May, spending several days in Sligo.

I have an unusual request that I am hoping one of your readers may shed light upon.

My grandfather, Peter Burns, was born to Michael and Mary Burns at Rosses Point in 1885. He had several siblings: Ellen, Mary, Roger and John. The Burns family were stone masons and lived on a farm near the quarry. Many of my forebearers are buried at Drumcliffe Cemetery, very near Yeats’s grave. Michael Burns carved the Burns tombstone. When I was in Ireland a couple of years ago, while doing the interactive Titanic Experience in the White Star Line Ticket Office in Cobh, out of the 123 replica passenger tickets,

I was given the ticket of Mary Delia Burns, whom I later discovered came from Sligo.

I know Mary was not of my grandfather’s immediate family, but I would love to know if Mary Delia Burns was from the same extended family. This coincidence of name and place seems too great a fate not to follow up on. At the time Mary Burns was emigrating on the Titanic, my grandfather, Peter Burns, was emigrating to Australia.

My grandfather continued the stone mason tradition in Sydney, where he worked on the granite pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Rose Window of St Mary’s Cathedral and the Irish Famine Monument. He was an office holder of the Irish National Association. I know this is a long shot, but if anyone can shed light on this query to see if there is any family connection, I would be most appreciative. I can be contacted at my email address: to_adlib@me.com Regards, Marian McGuinness