Mr Patrick O'Connor was born in Tooreenavuscaun¹, Boherboy, Co Cork, Ireland on 28 May 1888.²

He was the youngest child of James O'Connor (b. circa 1845), a farmer, and his wife Arabella "Abbie" Fitzgerald (b. circa 1848), Cork natives who had married on 1 March 1870. 

One of eleven children born to his parents, his identifiable siblings were: Mary (b. 26 December 1870), Catherine (b. 27 July 1872), Cornelius (b. 27 December 1873), Johanna (b. 18 June 1876), William (b. 18 February 1878), Elizabeth (b. 12 May 1880), Ellen (b. 11 September 1881), John (b. 28 September 1883) and Julia (b. 21 March 1886). He grew up in a Roman Catholic household.

Patrick first appears on the 1901 census living in house 5 in Tooreenavuscaun, Boherboy, Co Cork. By the time he appears on the 1911 census he was described as a farmer's son and by then living at house 9 in Tooreenavuscaun.

He boarded the Titanic at Queenstown (ticket number 366713 which cost £7, 15s) and he was destined for an unknown address in New York City; his brother Cornelius had emigrated to New York around the turn of the century and was married and had a family; another brother William also lived in the USA.

Travelling with him was his cousin Hannah Riordan and others from his general locale in Cork: Bridget Bradley, Nora O'Leary, Patrick Denis O'Connell and Michael Linehan. He is believed to have shared a cabin with his fellow Cork men.

Daniel Buckley, the only survivor from the Cork men in his cabin, awoke after the collision to find seawater ankle deep on the floor. 

"I heard some terrible noise and I jumped out on the floor, and the first thing I knew my feet were getting wet; the water was just coming in slightly. I told the other fellows to get up, that there was something wrong and, that the water was coming in. They only laughed at me. One of them says: "Get back into bed. You are not in Ireland now."

He hurriedly dressed and his three bunkmates eventually got out of bed; with it being a small cabin, Buckley left to give them room to dress themselves whilst he waited outside. Two crewmen passed by shouting "All up on deck unless you want to get drowned!" and Buckley immediately hastened to the upper decks and never saw his friends again. 

Patrick O'Connor died in the disaster and his body, if recovered, has never been identified.

His brother Cornelius remained in the USA and died in New York on 16 January 1940. His brother William died in Bannock, Idaho on 24 January 1953.
What became of his family back in Ireland remains unclear but it is possible his mother died in the late 1920s.