Belfast's Titanic Doings
Created | Updated Apr 4, 2012
Belfast: Home of Titanic
It's taken Belfast a wee while to recognise the tourist potential of its links to the RMS Titanic. And some might argue that leaving it until the 100th anniversary of the sinking is rather late in the day. That's the anniversary of the sinking, remember, rather than the launch, which was last year. 31st May 2011. I am certain of that date cos it's my son's birthday–he was born 80 years to the day after the launch, so he's always had an interest in the greatest ship ever built.
But the city itself has been largely ambivalent until now. Reactions ranged from "She was alright when she left here!" to "It sank - get over it!"
The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, set in the leafy and well-to-do outpost of Cultra, did have a Titanic room containing some old letters and memorabilia, as well as a model of the ship illustrating the proportion of lives lost from the various classes of passenger and the crew. But you'd never have known this room existed.
You'd only have known that there was a memorial in the grounds of Belfast's City Hall because of the small voice of protest when it was being overshadowed by a fairground wheel (in a nod to the larger attraction in London, this one was dubbed the "Belfast Aye").
And when a consortium set out to buy and refurbish the Nomadic, the tender which was used to ferry first class passengers out to the ship, the loudest voices were those complaining about a waste of money.1
But in a remarkable sea-change, the lure of tourist dollars into the city's coffers has proved too strong to resist, and the newly styled "Titanic Quarter" has been taking shape. One of the most striking new shapes on thy city skyline is the Titanic Building, a purpose built exhibition centre designed with four protruding corners resembling the prows of the ships built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard next door, and creating a star shape when viewed from above, to remember the White Star Line. It is clad in steel scales, which shimmer in the sunlight, evoking the ripples on the water. On the actual spot where the ship was built, a curve of poles silhouettes where the hull would have been. These are illuminated at night, creating an eerie ghost-memory. Dwarfed by the huge building, a depressingly unoriginal bronze statue of a mermaid like creature, arms outstreched, is already prompting rhyming nicknames (The daughter by the water? The fox at the docks?)
Other new buildings have sprung up nearby, including the campus for Belfast Metropolitan College (that's the tech to old-timers like me). And to provide access for tourists and students, the nearest train station, formerly Bridge End, has now been renamed "Titanic Quarter". It's still a good 15 minute walk to the exhibition centre, mind you, but being close to the rows of terraced houses where many of the shipyard workers lived, the name isn't too misleading.
Another new statue on Belfast's streets (Lower Newtownards Road to be exact) comemorates the number of workers who toiled and perished working on the ship. Since 1861 the yardmen of Harland and Wolff have helped shape the history of Belfast. At its peak some 35,000 yardmen worked at Harland and Wolff in a variety of different roles including red leader, riveter, holder up, loftsman, catch boy, gouger and rat killer to name but a few. I took part in a charity fundraising walk last weekend, where we dressed up and recreated the daily "commute" for the islandmen.
The bronze workers statue faces a shop which sells tartan, and makes kilts and other Scottish items. New tartans created to celebrate various events, and unsurprisingly there is a new Titanic tartan. My husband wore a kilt of Titanic tartan, made in this shop, at our wedding in Gretna Green, and I wear the matching sash on my white dress for Scottish dancing demonstrations. It's a rather fetching pattern: pale blues for the sea, blocks of white for the iceberg, with stripes of red for the keel, black for the hull, and yellow for the funnels. I have a signed copy of the book describing its genesis, written by Clifford Smyth, who is a regular at many Scottish dancing events that I attend.
Belfast City Council don't want to miss the boat 2 and has a whole host of themed events lined up.
Other attempts to cash in on tastefully remember the tragedy cause some raised eyebrows. Does afternoon tea at the poshest hotel in town REALLY need to have lifebelt shaped pastries and macaroons decorated with a white star (damn tasty though they are)? Do the touts enticing passers-by on to open topped tour buses REALLY have to dress up like the ill-fated Captain Smith? Do all the buskers REALLY have to play "My heart will go on"? Sea-salt flavour crisps and tea bags branded with the ship's name?
And let's finish with the thoughts of an unnamed cynic of this parish:
"But but but…thousands of ships and planes were made here! Some of them even *worked*. Why not be proud of those ones?"
Ah, human beans–if only they behaved rationally and logically!
