We were in Belfast recently and my husband, who is interested in ships, wanted to visit the brand new Titanic Museum; I opted out I couldn’t bear the tragic stories of so many people dying in such awful circumstances, so I decided to walk round the lovely city and see the sights there.
However, we parked at the Museum and I was almost overwhelmed by the magnificent building. He went into the museum, daughter and I wandered around outside, marvelling at the structure. At the front there is a wonderful statue by the Irish sculpture, Rowan Gillespie who has cast bronze statues representing the victims of the Irish Famine, and the migrants who left the island, many as a result of the Great Hunger.
Titanica by Rowan Gillespie
One of the major features of the exhibition is not the dreadful end of the ship, nor the poor passengers themselves, but of the ship before – the ship being built by Belfast labour and the human investment in the project. I hadn’t realised that nine of the workers were chosen to go on the first voyage of the ship in case there needed any work doing, a shipbuilder, a joiner, a draftsman, an electrician, three fitters, a plumber, an electrician and an electrician’s mate aged just 15. They were known as the Guarantee Group, and must have thought themselves the luckiest of men to have the opportunity to travel on this great vessel, they never could have dreamt that not a single one of the nine of them would survive and return to their families.
Although I didn’t visit the exhibitions I was impressed and overawed by the building, and the setting, right next to slipways where Titanic was built. Belfast is a wonderful city full of the most interesting things, but I really do recommend you visit the Titanic museum, even if you don’t actually go round the exhibitions. I also recommend you look at the museum website which gives you a glimpse into the fascinating things you will see there:
http://www.titanicbelfast.com/Home.aspx
Lois Elsden 