Belfast and the Exhibition of its Most Famous Legacy

Titanic Belfast - the world's largest attraction dedicated to the ill-fated ocean liner. Image Credit: William Murphy via Flickr CC

     If London was the first UK city I had known about, then Belfast was the second one thanks to its notoriety as the birthplace of the RMS Titanic, which has been a long-time interest of mine and remains a significant part of Belfast’s story.

     That story has been a long and complex one which begins with the settlement of the area in the northeast corner of Ireland during the Bronze and Iron ages, out of which still remain a 5,000 year old henge (older than the more notable Stonehenge in Wiltshire) known as Giant’s Ring and a couple of fort hills. Belfast became substantially established in the 17th Century during the migration of English and Scottish settlers, and the city was granted borough status by James VI & I in 1613. Through the 18th and 19th centuries, Belfast grew rapidly and went through a series of expansions to straddle between County Down and County Antrim as it became a thriving industrialized and commercial city with wealth generated through linen, rope-making, tobacco, heavy engineering, and shipbuilding – most significantly Harland and Wolff’s, which was one of the largest shipyards in the world.

     Belfast gained city status under Queen Victoria in 1888 and continued to prosper, but became politically divided over the issue of Irish Home Rule and eventually became the capital of Northern Ireland when Ireland was partitioned and the six counties of Northern Ireland elected to remain part of the United Kingdom. Within the city, there has been sectarian tension between its unionist/loyalist (usually Protestant) and nationalist/republican (usually Catholic) communities. This grew into a civil conflict known as “the Troubles” from 1969 to 1998 and resulted in the violent deaths of over 1,600 people, which combined with the decline of industry following World War II, saw the city suffer economically.

     The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 provided the political basis for ending the vast majority of the violence and since then, Belfast has largely moved forward in peace. As well as being the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, Belfast is the second-largest city on the island of Ireland and the 10th-12th largest city in the United Kingdom. It is a center for higher education, business, industry, arts, and tourism, and its central area has undergone expansion and regeneration, so that it has achieved growth and is the economic engine of Northern Ireland.

     Part of that regeneration has come in the form of Titanic Quarter, an area of land located just to the east of the city center on Queen’s Island which once belonged to Harland & Wolff and home to the facilities which produced the Titanic and other vessels of the White Star Line. All but derelict by the end of the 20th Century, it has been transformed over the last decade into a mixed-use development at the center of which is Titanic Belfast. Opened in 2012 and visited by Her Majesty the Queen for the Titanic centennial (and her Diamond Jubilee), it not only stands as the largest Titanic-themed attraction in the world, but also as a monument to Belfast’s maritime heritage. The exterior takes on the appearance of the angled prows of ships in a nod to the great liners built there and is mostly clad in aluminum shards, so that it looks – interestingly enough – like an iceberg.

The expansive Main Atrium of Titanic Belfast. Image Credit: Titanic Belfast via Flickr CC

     Stepping into the main atrium of the structure (which is home to Ireland’s longest freespan escalator at over 80 feet long), this heritage is commemorated with a compass on the floor around which are lines from Thomas Garnduff’s 1924 poem, Songs from the Shipyard. Indeed, it feels as like stepping into another world – when shipbuilding and heavy industry was king, this is also visibly seen with a 60 foot wall of rusted steel plates like the ones used for Titanic, as well as the names of all the vessels built by Harland and Wolff across from it. There's also a platform overlooking the atrium which mimics the Titanic's prow and may therefore provide for a Jack and Rose moment.

     From here, one can start a journey through the main exhibition, which is the Titanic Belfast Experience and features nine interpretive and interactive galleries telling the story of the Titanic, her sister’s Olympic and Britannic (collectively called the Olympic-class ships), and the city and shipyard which built them.

Harland & Wolff gates and White Star Line posters greet visitors as they begin the Titanic Experience with Boomtown Belfast. Image Credit: Titanic Belfast via Flickr CC

     The first gallery is Boomtown Belfast, which gives visitors the atmosphere of Belfast at the turn of the 20th Century as a city of industrial prosperity and political tension. Through an original set of Harland & Wolff gates are interactive maps and scale models of the Titanic, as well as a game to see how many rivets can be “fit” in 30 seconds. This leads to gallery two in the form of The Shipyard, where one is immersed into the sights, sounds, and even smells of the construction of Olympic and Titanic.

Scale replica sections of Titanic's bow and rudder, as well as the Arrol Gantry as part of The Shipyard gallery. Image Credit: All Titanic Belfast (Left, Top Right, and Lower Right) via Flickr CC; Collage by Wesley Hutchins via Photo Collada

     An elevator (or lift, as they were called at the time) carries visitors to the top of a 66-foot scaffold alluding to the Arrol Gantry which aided in the construction of the sister ships, and from here, they are transported via a cart on a ride through other recreated elements of the shipyard, scale replica sections of Titanic’s rudder and bow, as well as photos and motion picture footage depicting what it took to build the biggest ships in the world. Gallery three – The Launch marks the completion of Titanic’s hull and her launching into the River Lagan with a large window showing the finished hull on the slipway before clearing away to show the area as it appears to today.

     With the empty hull in the water, visitors move on to the fourth gallery, called The Fit-Out, which features the great vessel going through her final stages of construction as she is fitted out to become a luxury liner. There are examples of cabins from each class, a scale model of the ship, information panels and large pictures of the interiors, and most impressively, a 360-degree CGI tour of the ship – going through seven levels from the engine room to the navigation bridge (seen in the above video). This leads to experiencing life aboard the ship itself in the fifth gallery – The Maiden Voyage. Here, visitors can walk on the deck, have a seat on a bench, and take in the views of Belfast Harbour while also viewing the famous photos taken by Father Francis Browne aboard the ship during his overnight passage on the first leg of the voyage from Southampton to Queenstown (now Cobh) via Cherbourg, France.

Gallery featuring Father Browne's collection of photos and deck benches with views of the harbor and atrium, as if on Titanic herself. Image Credit: Titanic Belfast (Top Left and Bottom Right) via Flickr CC

     Of course, the happiness and good feeling doesn’t last as Titanic hits an iceberg and sinks to the bottom of the Atlantic with a great loss of life. For this, galley six – The Sinking features a cold room and simulated water to immerse the visitor into the conditions experienced by the Titanic and the souls aboard her that night in 1912. The beeping Morse Code signals carrying Titanic’s distress call in form of CQD and SOS are heard, as well as audio from survivors giving their gripping accounts of the unfolding disaster, accompanied by the images of the great liner foundering.

Graphic novel-like depiction of the sinking Titanic. Image Credit: Titanic Belfast via Flickr CC

     Also depicted is the confusion and contradictory reporting reports in the media during the early hours following the sinking. This leads into the seventh gallery of The Aftermath, where there is a full-sized replica lifeboat on which a large double-sided television screen displays the portrayals of the American and British inquiries into the disaster. There are also interactive tablets allowing people to search a database and see if they had a relative on board, as well as information on Harland and Wolff to the present day and careers of Titanic’s sister ships.

The Aftermath Gallery featuring a replica lifeboat and representation of the present-day Harland and Wolff gantry cranes. Image Credit: Titanic Belfast via Flickr CC

     Following this, the Myths and Legends section in gallery eight deals with Titanic in popular culture, including books, plays, poems, films, songs, and other media that have been inspired by the ship for over a century. Clips and excerpts from these are featured, along with various Titanic memorabilia as Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On plays in the background. There are also more interactive tablets, this time providing answers to long-standing myths surrounding the Titanic.

Myths and Legends meet reality as Titanic appears on various Media. Image Credit: Titanic Belfast via Flickr CC

     The ninth and final gallery is Titanic Beneath, which brings Titanic’s story up to the present with the discovery of her wreck by Dr. Robert Ballard, and a video about the discovery and exploration of the wreck is available for viewing in an experience made to feeling as though the visitor is underwater. Further on is a glass floor revealing a mosaic of the Titanic floating underneath as she appears today on the ocean floor, as well as more information of the wreck and the debris around it.

Looking two-and-a-half miles "down" to the Titanic's final resting place in the ninth gallery of the Titanic Belfast Experience. Image Credit: Titanic Belfast via Flickr CC

     Under this is the Ocean Exploration Centre, which features additional experiences with regard to Titanic as well as an educational facility drawing on expertise and resources from local universities, with a marine biologist on hand and a focus on the waters of Northern Ireland and images from Dr. Ballard’s expeditions throughout the world in the hope that Titanic may spawn interest in this area of study for future generations.

The Ocean Exploration Centre. Image Credit: all Titanic Belfast ( Top Left, Top Middle, Top Right, Bottom Left, and Bottom Right) Via Flickr CC; Collage by Wesley Hutchins via Photo Collada

     This whole experience can be done in 2-3 hours, though Titanic aficionados may naturally spend more time. In addition to the main exhibition, the building also features gift shops with Titanic memorabilia (including plates with the White Star Line logo), places to eat, and areas for booking events such as conferences and receptions – including a room featuring a stylized replica of the Grand Staircase. In the greater expanse of Titanic Quarter, there are the slipways on which Titanic and her sister’s were built – which have been turned into a nice walking plaza, the SS Nomadic – the last White Star liner and one of the tenders which serviced Titanic at Cherbourg, the Drawing Offices where the vessels were designed, Titanic Studios (where Game of Thrones is filmed), the Thompson Graving Dock, which was built to accommodate Titanic for dry-docking purposes, and nearby are the modern-day facilities of Harland and Wolff – dominated by the yellow gantry cranes, Samson and Goliath. Furthermore, within the the plaza which surrounds the Titanic Belfast building, there is a large map of the Northern Hemisphere which shows Titanic's maiden voyage track and features benches which form a Morse Code sequence which reads: “DE (this is) MGY MGY MGY (Titanic’s call sign) CQD CQD SOS SOS CQD (the distress calls radioed from the ship)”.

Aerial view of Titanic Belfast, with the slipways (Olympic's on the right and Titanic's on the left) above it and the Drawing Offices to the Right. Image Credit: Titanic Belfast via Flickr CC

     Titanic Belfast is open year-around save for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day (December 24-26) and times vary depending on the season. Tickets can be purchased for the main exhibition experience alone or for the Titanic Discovery Tour, a walking tour of the slipways, Drawing Offices, and other features in the immediate area of Titanic Belfast. Visitors can also join in special events for afternoon tea and Christmas. There's also the White Star Premium Pass to access the main experience, the Discovery Tour, and the Nomadic, which ought to make make for an exciting, educational, and memorable experience.

     For Belfast and its citizens, a memorable experience is exactly what they want visitors to have as the city strives to march forward confidently into the future. What’s remarkable is that until fairly recently, Titanic was not embraced so much by the city, for it was considered a mark of shame to have built a vessel that sank on its only voyage less than a fortnight after leaving her birthplace. With the discovery of the wreck and further confirmation that Titanic was a liner of sound workmanship, the city has done more to promote its connection to her, which has led to a cheeky saying that “she was fine when she left.” The popularity of James Cameron’s 1997 film helped bring Titanic to a new generation, as well as increased interest in Belfast, so that Titanic Belfast is in many ways, the culmination of the city’s reconnection with and pride in its most famous product, as well as sign of its renewal and regeneration. This reached new levels of success this year with the attraction welcoming its three millionth visitors and being named the Leading Visitor Attraction in Europe by the prestigious World Travel Awards – the “Tourism Oscars” – and seeing off competition such as the Eiffel Tower. Through Titanic, Belfast is indeed continuing to build for itself a positive reputation and showing that it is turning a corner in its long and layered history.

Grand View of the River Lagan, Belfast Harbour, the city itself and beyond. At Left are the gantry cranes of Harland & Wolff, Samson and Goliath; below them is the Thompson Graving Dock, were Titanic was partly fitted out; to the right is Titanic Studios in the large brown building, and further over is Titanic Belfast and the slipways. Image Credit: Titanic Belfast via Flickr cc

See more photos of Titanic Belfast on its Flickr account here and here.

Titanic: My Original Interest in the UK

The iconic bow of the RMS Titanic in 2004.
Image Credit: NOAA (Public Domain)

     Thirty years ago today – after being hidden by 73 years of cold and darkness – the RMS Titanic was discovered in the wee hours of the morning.

     The search by a joint French-American expedition led by Dr. Robert Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel was the culmination of decades of unsuccessful attempts to find the British luxury liner, which had struck an iceberg and sank with a great loss of life on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on April 15, 1912.

     Of course, as many people may know, the Titanic was said to be unsinkable because of features such as electrically-driven watertight doors, which pushed the limits of shipbuilding technology at the time. 70 years later, Dr. Ballard and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) developed a deep sea camera sled (known as the Argo) which could transmit live video. Like Titanic, Argo pushed the limits of technology in order to achieve better results – in this case, to have a better chance at finding the great ship, and given its fate, this was somewhat of an eerie prospect. But even the latest side-scan sonar technology – relying on pings bouncing off of objects (whether natural or man-made) – developed by the French had failed to capture the ship after over five weeks of searching in the general area of the Titanic’s last known position.

The Titanic was the largest ship in the world at the time of her
maiden voyage - with a gross tonnage of 46,328 tons and length of 882 ½ feet - half again as big
and nearly a hundred longer than her Cunard rivals, Lusitania and Mauretania.

     It was hoped that Michel and the French Research Institute for Exploration of the Sea (IFREMER) would have at least found some promising targets and then Ballard and his team would use the Argo sled to confirm the sightings and hopefully video-tape the wreck. In fact, the American team had been using Argo to map the wreck site of the lost nuclear submarine USS Scorpion, as part of a now declassified Cold War mission for the US Navy, which had funded the development of Argo and other underwater imaging equipment for Ballard (who was an intelligence and research officer in the Naval Reserve) and WHOI.

     As it was, the American half of the Titanic expedition began at square one, and with less time to spend – only twelve days, but Ballard had learned from his then secret missions to the Scorpion and another lost sub, the USS Thresher that when ships sink, objects tend to spill out of them and underwater currents create a debris field across the ocean floor. If this was the case with the Titanic, it meant that the search should focus on a larger target – the debris field – rather than the ship itself, which was only 92 feet wide. Once the debris was found, Ballard could then use it as a trail to find the main wreck.

     Using this knowledge, the American team joined up with the French and deployed Argo from the research vessel Knorr, which towed the video sled back and forth across the ocean floor in a process known as “mowing the lawn”. As the expedition went on for days, the grainy black and video images being fed back to the expedition members aboard the Knorr revealed little more than the topography of the sea floor and some bits of trash and other objects with no obvious connection to a ship. It seemed as though the Titanic would once again prove allusive, and for Ballard in particular – for whom finding her was a lifelong dream – this would have been a personal blow.

     Then at 12:48 AM on September 1, 1985, wreckage started appearing on the monitors aboard the support ship, and the turning point came when the Argo passed over a coal-fired boiler which was identical to the ones installed on the Titanic in 1911, and period photographs of the boilers during assembly in Belfast confirmed this. Titanic was found. Ballard, Michel, and their combined teams rejoiced at having solved one of great mysteries of the 20th Century, but then realized that they were approaching the time at which White Star liner sank beneath the waves – 2:20 AM. A small service was held on fantail of the Knorr to commemorate the finding of the ship, remember the lost, and honor the survivors of the great tragedy.

Robert Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel, the co-discoverer's of Titanic, in 2012

     Eventually, the ship itself was found upright, albeit in two main sections – proving correct the accounts of those who had seen the ship break up as she went down. The hundreds of hours of film and tens of thousands of still photos were the first images of Titanic in 73 years, and despite being broken into pieces, was still in remarkably good condition 2 ½ miles (nearly 13,000 feet) under the surface. A follow-up expedition in 1986 saw Ballard diving to Titanic in the three-man submersible Alvin to see ship close-up and using the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Jason Jr. to explore the interior and other confined areas.

     The discovery of the wreck sparked renewed interest in the Titanic – spawning a string of books and television specials along the way, leading to more expeditions to the wreck and a more thorough understanding of ship, and how and why she sank, as well as shedding new light on the stories her passengers and crew. One of the people caught up in this was filmmaker James Cameron, a man with an interest in the sea and shipwrecks. While filming The Abyss in 1989, he met with Dr. Ballard, who talked about his expeditions to Titanic, and according to Cameron:

“Meeting Ballard, I discovered that there was a romance to the wreck which appealed to me. I started reading up on the history and that is very seductive. The event’s almost novelistic. The elite of society were aboard, all the class issues, the number of people that died in steerage. It's got all these tensions and symbols. It's a gold mine.”

     With this, Cameron set out to write, produce, and direct a film about Titanic, which saw Cameron diving to wreck itself as part of the filming, and he has said that the film was really about getting 20th Century Fox to pay for an expedition more than anything else. Be that as it may, Cameron went on to create of the highest-grossing films of all time, and one of the millions of people who watched it during its original run in theaters was yours truly.

James Cameron in 2012 with the ships wheel from his epic 1997 film, which he donated to Titanic Belfast.
Image Credit: Titanic Belfast via Flickr cc

     At the time, I was a seven years old lad when I viewed the film (save for certain scenes) in April 1998, and I liked it so much because of its extensiveness – the legendary and masterful musical score by the late James Horner, the overall screenplay, the revolutionary use of special effects and CGI, and the meticulously-built and faithfully-created live sets which were used to bring Titanic back to life in an extraordinary way that had not been done before, and which has not been done since. Indeed, it was these things I paid attention to, as well as the historical events surrounding the ship, and not the love story of Jack and Rose – which was something I did not really comprehend at the time and found quite boring. Looking around all that and focusing on the beauty of the ship itself and real story of it and its passengers and crew was what peaked my interest, and soon after I became fascinated – some would say obsessed – with all things Titanic.

     Through books, films, magazine articles, documentaries, and other media, I delved deeper and deeper into the Titanic and virtually anything related to it, including other ocean liners, and this resulted in a fascination with those great liners which were built in the 19th and 20th centuries – many of which happened to be British, such as the Olympic and Britannic (Titanic’s sister ships), Lusitania, Mauretania, Aquitania, Majestic, Berengaria, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2).

RMS Queen Mary, probably the greatest of all British ships, as she appears
on this 1940's baggage tag of the merged Cunard White Star Line.
Image Credit: Centpacrr via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)

     As I became more engaged my study of British ships, it led to learning about Britain and its heritage as a maritime nation and much more. I became increasingly attached to Britain over the last decade because of those ships, and due to British cultural exports such as 101 Dalmatians, Harry Potter, James Bond, and the Beatles, as well as the writings of Lewis, Burns, Scott, and Shakespeare. Along the way, I became interested in the monarchy, British politics, and the British people themselves.

     Becoming immersed into British society and culture – and from all parts of the United Kingdom – quite simply, I developed a serious liking for the country and its people, and in 2012, this reached new heights as I closely watched the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics with pride in a country which I had already adopted as my second home. This is why I have been passionate about the UK staying together and not breaking up, because I see as a strong country, rich in people and a diverse culture – from Shetland to Land’s End – and a place with so much robust and positive potential going forward.

     But I always remember that it was the Titanic that brought me to this point, and it remains my original interest in the United Kingdom, since she was owned by the Liverpool-based White Star Line, sailed from Southampton, and – perhaps more importantly – was built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast. In fact, all of the White Star liners were built at Harland and Wolff, and the shipyard workers took pride in the near-simultaneous construction of Titanic and her older sister-ship Olympic in just 3 ½ years – a phenomenal achievement of maritime engineering which has yet to be rivaled.

Titanic (at left) and Olympic under construction at Harland and Wolff's in Belfast.
Image Credit: George Grantham Bain Collection at the Library of Congress (Public Domain)

     When Titanic left Belfast on April 2, 1912 for Southampton to prepare for her maiden voyage, she carried the pride of a city with her, along with the dreams, ambitions, and lofty expectations of the men who built her. Among them were the eight men of the Guarantee Group, who were aboard the liner to observe its operations and spot the need for improvements. They were led by Thomas Andrews, the well-liked and respected managing director of Harland and Wolff and head of the drafting department – meaning that he had overseen Titanic’s design and construction. Known for being a diligent and hard worker, Andrews – along with his men – walked up and down decks to ensure that the maiden voyage went smoothly aboard the brand new vessel.

     On the night of the sinking, the entire Guarantee Group was lost, including Andrews – who informed Captain Smith that Titanic’s fate was a “mathematical certainty.” He tirelessly searched through staterooms and public areas to urge people to get to the lifeboats (of which he knew there were not enough to save everybody due to the lax regulations at the time), and assisted in the evacuation with the knowledge that his ship had only a very limited time above water. For his selflessness and concern for others above his own safety, he has been marked as a hero of that tragic night.

Thomas Andrews

     Back home in Belfast however, the sinking and the loss of life – including eight of its own – proved a huge blow for the city and the shipyard that was its major employer. Men who built the ship wept – sometimes inconsolably in the streets – as the news reached them, and the shipyard closed for one day as it went into mourning with the shock and disbelief that the unthinkable had happened.

     Eventually, life went on and Harland and Wolff went on to become one of the largest, most extensive, and technologically advanced shipyards in the world – producing an array of passenger liners, cruisers and aircraft carriers, tankers and cargo ships, offshore oil rings, and even aircraft. At its peak, it employed 35,000 people and accounted for around one-eighth of the world’s shipbuilding output. But despite being officially exonerated of wrongdoing or negligence with regard to Titanic, the disaster remained somewhat of a cloud over the yard and city. For many decades, Titanic simply was not brought up in polite conversations out of shame that something produced by Belfast with such pride and optimism – with all of the advanced technology and safety features of the day – had ended up on the bottom of the Atlantic within a fortnight of leaving the city, and through the 1970’s, Harland and Wolff barely acknowledged its link to the doomed liner.

     However, with the discovery of the wreck in 1985 and a renewed popular interest in the Titanic saga, the city and shipyard began to embrace their creation as more people visited Belfast just to see where the Titanic was built. The effort and skill that it took to build her became increasingly focused upon as an achievement by the people of Belfast, in recognition that Titanic’s sinking did not reflect poorly on the workmanship of the men who built her from the keel up – so much so that a cheeky phrase has come into being: “She was fine when she left here.”

The modern-day Harland and Wolff, whose enormous gantry
cranes (named Samson and Goliath) continue to dominate the Belfast skyline.
Image Credit: Maryade via Flickr cc

     In addition, there has also been a greater focus on the shipyard workers themselves and their stories – the lives they led in and outside the yard, and their descendants now take some pride having a connection with building the Ship of Dreams. The city of Belfast itself has also received better recognition, so that people now better understand the stock from which Titanic and so many other ships came.

     Harland and Wolff today – like so many UK shipbuilders – is now but a shell of its former self, but it is still in business, though its primary line of work is in repairing and refitting ships, offshore oil platform construction and repair, and the burgeoning renewable energy sector with regard to wind turbines and tidal power construction. These days, the company occupies a much smaller footprint than it did at the time of its peak, resulting in a large brownfield site. Some of this has been transformed into Titanic Quarter – a massive redevelopment project which includes educational institutions, residential facilities, and Titanic Studios (of Game of Thrones fame, which was visited by HM the Queen last year).

Titanic Belfast with the main exhibition building
and the redeveloped slipways where the great liner was built.
Image Credit: Titanic Belfast via Flickr cc

     At the heart of it is Titanic Belfast – the world’s largest Titanic-themed attraction, which contains several interpretive and interactive galleries telling the story of Titanic and the maritime heritage of the city and people which built her. The slipways on which the White Star sister ships were built have been transformed into a beautiful park promenade and plaza, and the last surviving White Star liner – the SS Nomadic, one of the passenger-ferrying tenders which served Titanic and other liners for over fifty years at Cherbourg, France – is located in the Hamilton dry dock, where she was originally fitted out over a hundred years ago, having been faithfully restored by her builders, Harland and Wolff.

SS Nomadic - the last of the line.
© Copyright Joseph Mischyshyn and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

     Titanic Belfast has been visited and endorsed by arguably the two most important people in the Titanic community within the last thirty years – Robert Ballard and James Cameron. It is a symbol of Northern Ireland’s emergence from its troubled history, and helps to showcase the vibrancy of modern Belfast as it attempts to move forward confidently and boldly into the future – thanks in part to the vessel which will forever be associated with it, and which remains my first interest in the UK.