Typhoid Mary

Speaker: Mary Murphy and Sean McMahonMary Mallon from just outside Cookstown in County Tyrone became infamous in America where she was known as Typhoid Mary. She was correctly identified as the carrier of the organism causing typhoid fever where she spread the disease in her work as a cook. She refused to wash her hands before cooking or to acknowledge her role as a spreader with some 51 people becoming infected by her with three deaths. Born in 1869, she died in 1938 after being confined by authorities for 26 years on North Brother Island in the East River.