TITANIC BELFAST EXPERIENCE
High Tech Exhibit of the World’s Most Famous Ship
The RMS Titanic has risen once again in Belfast and may never sink again. Now made so familiar to the world with documentaries and the epic movie of James Cameron romantic retelling of the story with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet standing on the bow shouting “I’m king of the world” millions know the events of the sinking of history’s most infamous ship, but the story of its birth belong to Belfast. There is even now a stage dance spectacular to the story. This amazing exhibit center opened on 100th Anniversary of the Titanic in the city where she was built. The tragedy of the sinking of the “practically unsinkable” ship offers a whole dock load of stories, which have fascinated for a hundred years – with heroes and villains, romance and the lesson of man’s hubris. Branded the world’s largest and most luxurious ocean liner of its time, the Titanic was actually one of three sister ships built by the Harland and Wolff Shipyard in Belfast in Northern Ireland. The city of Belfast, perhaps best known for the “troubles” of the 1970s, revels in its own special part in in the story of the grand gilded age vessel, and a very good reason to visit Belfast.
Titanic Belfast – Titanic Experience offers a fascinating and high tech look into not just the familiar night of the tragic sinking of the iconic ship after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic, taking 1,500 souls to a watery grave, but the three years of her construction and launch. For a century the citizens of Belfast, many with relatives who had worked at the shipyards, never really spoke much of the famed ship. It’s hard to claim a disaster, but the locals are rediscovering the pride in the achievement and their industrial historic past. As the saying goes “she was fine when she left here”, with the slightly wry dig that “she was sunk by an Englishman steaming through an ice field at full speed in the middle of the night”.
Not really a museum, as there are no artifacts from the ship (see Ulster Transport Museum Titanica), but the
exhibit at the Titanic Belfast Experience covers five floors of a very
impressive building designed to invoke the shape of a ship’s bow,
with a shimmering surface which catches the sunlight set at the edge
of the harbor waters of the River Lagan, and not incidentally as impressive,
equal in height to the actual Titanic when under construction in the
slipways, now marked just behind it. The exhibits are presented in nine
galleries. The experience begins with Boomtown Belfast and the history
of the city’s rise at the turn of the last century into the most
important industrial center in Ireland, once referred to as Linenopolis,
for its linen cloth production, as well as its maritime ship building,
especially the Harland and Wolff company. The Launch, Maiden Voyage,
the Sinking and the Aftermath, follow the planning, building, outfitting,
launch and ultimate fate of Titanic. Inside, on the Arrol Gantry and
Shipyard Ride, you can take a ride through the recreated shipbuilding
yards of steal and furnaces, not quite Disneyland, but an impressive
sense of the scale of the work. Recreated cabins of the ship, in First,
Second and Third Class, with projections of passengers in residence almost
as if ghosts haunting, the detailed story of the design of the ship by
Thomas Andrews, and the complicated story of J. Bruce Ismay, the director
of the White Star Line who ends up with as much credit for her ignoble
end and the inspiration for her creation.
The
story goes that the Titanic was born over a dinner party. The White Star
Line was acquired by Ismay’s father Henry and financed with
the proviso that its ships be built at the shipyards of Gustav William
Wolff at Queens Island in Belfast. The company’s main rival Cunard
had captured the transatlantic crossing routes with the fastest liners
at the time, the Mauretania and the Lusitania. Over cigars, Ismay and
Harland & Wolff Shipyards boss Lord William Pirrie proposed building
the largest and most luxurious ocean liner. Their concept was not to
outdo their rivals with speed, but with luxurious splendor. The
keel of the Titanic was laid on March 30 of 1909 and the after two years
of construction but 1500 workmen (curiously about the same number of
passengers who perished), she was launched from the slipway on May 11,
1911, but only an empty shell. She was towed to the dry dock, just down
the quay for fitting out with the splendor of the accommodations to attract
the ultra-wealthy lights of the industrial age like John Jacob Astor
and Benjamin Guggenheim, who sank with her along with most of the 3rd
class passengers The Titanic was actually built along with her sister
ship the Olympic, just as big and luxurious, and at the time of their
construction only known as ship 400 and ship 401, gaining their outsized
names later. After a very brief sea trail on the Belfast Loch (the bay
off the Irish Sea, Titanic sailed from Southampton, England on April
10, 1912, and after picking up passengers in Cherbourg France and a last
stop for mostly immigrants in Cobh (then Queenstown) on the south Ireland
coast, Titanic sailed into destiny, hitting the iceberg at 11:40 pm on
April 14th and sinking to a deep watery grave two and a half hours later
on the 15th of April 1912.
One of the more fascinating features of the Titanic Experience in Belfast
is the Titanic Beneath Gallery theater where films of the actual underwater
explorations of the sunken ship by her discoverer Dr. Robert Ballard,
take you down into the 12,000 foot depths of the ocean, with projections
below your feet as well as above for a true 3D experience. Not really
part of the museum exhibits, but for events like corporate dinners
or
weddings on the upper floor is a recreated replica of the Grand Staircase
from the Titanic where the fictional Jack – would have appear for
the dinner party. The staircase will surely be much in demand for nuptial
photos, but is not really part of the general public tour.
The Titanic Belfast Experience is only one of several Titanic themed sites in Belfast. The Thompson Drydock and Pumphouse is where the ship was fitted out before her maiden voyage into history and the last remaining physical spot of land where she stood. And just across the quay is the last sister ship of the Titanic, The Nomadic, which ferried passengers from the dock at Cherbourg out to the ship, with some of the same fittings as the bigger ship lost to history. A number of Titanic guided tours are available to explore the sites and the city.
Visiting Titanic Belfast Experience
The Titanic Belfast Experience is open in Summer (April to September) Monday through Saturday 9am to 7pm and Sunday 10am to 5pm. Winter hours (October to March) are 10am to 5pm daily. Admission prices are £15.50 for Adults, £10 Students during the week (£11 on Saturday and Sunday), £11 for Seniors during the week and £13 on Saturday and Sunday, £7.25 for Children. A Family Ticket is available for £34. A combination ticket including the Titanic Pumphouse and Dry Dock is also available (see Titanic Drydock). The Titanic Belfast experience is located on Queens Island, just across the river from the old city center, reached by city bus, or within a long healthy walking distance from many of the hotels and city center - 1.3 miles from the Belfast City Hall. The Titanic Quarter with shopping and entertainment venues is one stop from the main Belfast City train station, though a 10 minute bit of a stroll from the station. © Bargain
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SEE ALSO:
NOMADIC BELFAST - TENDER TO TITANIC
DRIVING
SCENIC IRELAND WITH A RENTAL CAR
COOKING
HOLIDAYS IN IRISH CASTLES
ENNISKILLEN CASTLE - FERMANAGH
