Quite right, Bob - there were quite a few passengers travelling on either an outward or homebound leg of a trip to the US or Europe, particularly among the Irish passengers...either to visit family, wrap up business or even just generally vacation.
A few names that spring to mind - 67 year old Frank Dwan, who was visiting his children in the US at the urging of his family. Julia Hennessy, who been living in America for many years and had visited Ireland to nurse her mother before returning to the US. Janie Carr had lived in America, returned to Ireland in 1911 to help her family, and then in 1912 decided to return to Conneticut after her former employer killed himself. She was also going to settle her affairs before returning permanently to Ireland. Welsh boxers David "Dai" John Bowen and Leslie Williams were travelling to the US to compete. Frederick Shellard, Painter and Decorator, had emigrated to the US some time before, and in 1912 was on the homeward leg returning there after visiting relatives in Bristol. Then there are curious stories like that of the Risiens, and theories why they were travelling third class back to the US.
Some travellers were more economical than others, much as some today will travel tourist rather than spring for extra money on business or first. Senan Molony, for example, suggests that 66 year old Patrick Connors - an successful Irish immigrant who had been living in the US and was returning there after a visit to his home place in Ireland - could easily have afforded second class, but chose to travel third.
As Monica and Bob suggest, third class on the Titanic was a far cry from the steerage of old, and with decent food, clean accomodation and the near-guarantee of a fairly fast, timely passage, third class on the Titanic was an attractive prospect. Particularly if, like the evidently canny Patrick Connors with the 'considerable fortune' he was said to have amassed, you knew how to manage money.
Noel, I take your point about the problematic (and rather glib) understanding of the terms 'British' and 'English'. I'm not at all sure that the 'English' were particularly mistrustful of 'foreigners' aboard ships. I note that many British crew would be quite accustomed to 'foreigners' working aboard British registered ships, particularly those crew that came up through sail - typically, these had crew of many nationalities. Harold Lowe, for example, had a tremendous respect for the Chinese since his days sailing with them to the Far East. They also spent time interacting with non-English speaking passengers - James Moody enjoyed trying out his grasp of foreign languages when chatting to non-Anglo-Saxon passengers in South America. Of course there was an element of xenophobia, particularly when crewmen felt their wages were being undercut by cheap labour, but I wouldn't characterise this as exclusively a British character trait.
