File:US certificate of honour for Michael Carroll.jpg

Owen and Michael Carroll were two of the eleven children born to Tom and Margaret Carroll of Ballyconnigar, Blackwater, Co. Wexford. Owen was born in 1884 and worked on a lightship in Liverpool for a number of years. He travelled to the US in 1909 to find work and lived in Long Island, New York. In 1916 he became a naturalised American citizen. He worked on the Corsair, a private cruise ship belonging to American industrialist, J. P. Morgan jnr. In May1917 the Corsair was chartered by the US Navy and in June of the same year the USS Corsair sailed from New York with the first contingent of the American Expeditionary Force to France, arriving at Saint-Nazaire on 27 June. During the war, the USS Corsair crossed the war zone many times on convoy escort, and rescued survivors of torpedoed vessels. After the war Corsair was returned to her owner and once again became the private yacht Corsair II. Owen returned to Ireland and married Catherine Corrigan of Ballyconnigar in 1922. He remained in Ireland and took up farming, having inherited a farm from his aunt in Ballina, Blackwater, Co. Wexford. He died in 1969. Michael Carroll was born in January 1891. He followed his brother, Owen, to the US looking for work and took a job as a bartender. He went to college to study medicine. He was drafted in 1918 and had the choice of leaving the country or becoming an American citizen. As he wanted to continue his medical studies he agreed to the terms of citizenship. He enlisted as a Private in Casual Company 410, Medical Department and in September 1918 shipped out aboard the troop carrier HMS Otranto bound for Liverpool with American troops. On 6 Oct. 1918, during a heavy storm, HMS Otranto collided with another troop-carrier HMS Kashmir in Machir Bay off the north coast of Islay, Scotland. The collision ripped a large hole in her side at the point where the ship’s hospital was, killing several men in the hospital. Private Michael Carroll’s body was washed ashore at Colonsay, a small island near Islay a short while later. He was buried in Kilchoman cemetery (near Islay), overlooking the sea. He was 26 years old. He had married Nellie Reilly in St Joseph of the Holy Family church in Upper Manhattan. His death certificate was issued on 14 April 1919 and in the early 1920s, Michael’s wife Nellie requested that he be re-interred in Queen’s Cemetery, New York. The church service for his re-interment took place in the church where they were originally married.