Saturday 14 April 2012

The Titanic Legacy


Across this weekend, 13th – 15th April 2012, Belfast is frantic with celebratory concerts and memorial masses and services to commemorate the sinking of the White Star Line’s world famous Titanic and those who went down with her. MTV return to Belfast to put on a concert at the site of the great slipways where Harland and Wolff built their two massive liners, the Titanic and the Olympic. The Waterfront Hall is putting on a live BBC concert with music and readings by renowned artists and ‘Requiem for the Lost Souls of the Titanic’, composed by Belfast born Philip Hammond and performed by premiere Irish voices, will be performed for the first time to a sell out audience at St Anne’s Cathedral. On the final day, masses and memorial services will be going on across the UK throughout the day.

You might think this weekend’s respectful services are right and proper to mark the centenary of such a tragic event. If you do, then you might also find the huge build up to this weekend a rather morbid profiteering. March 31st heralded the long awaited opening of Belfast’s most expensive visitor attraction to date, Titanic Belfast, and what ensued was a festival of arts, music and activities that well and truly ensured that no one in Northern Ireland would be able to avoid the great legacy that is Titanic.

Costing nearly £100 million, I heard one local ask, “why didn’t they just rebuild the Titanic itself?” It is instead 150,000 square feet of world-class exhibition space. The biggest and most ambitious attraction built about the Titanic in the world, the new site really puts Belfast on the map in 2012. I went to see it in the opening weekend and the historian in me loved it. What I loved most about it was that it kept the city of Belfast at the heart of its story. It used interactive and entertaining techniques to tell the story of ‘Boomtown Belfast’ at the peak of its industrial success. Nowhere else I have visited has told this story to the full. I was aware of Belfast’s linen making, tobacco, and ship building history but I had no idea that it dominated the world markets as it did. Nor did I realise that in addition to these, it was also leading the world markets in rope making, fans and tea exports! All the “wow” figures that really set this home are all there to be seen in the exhibition.

The exhibition then continues to use avant-garde presentations to relay the building of the Titanic from the scaffolding in Belfast’s shipyards, to its fitting out, and eventual passage to Southampton, England, Cherboug, France and Queenstown, Ireland. Before sharing the real distress signals sent between the Titanic and nearby ships and exploring the inquest into the sinking. The real highlights for me that set it apart from an ordinary museum is the cable car ride that takes you through the sites and sounds of the shipyard and the cinema room that shows footage of the wreck as it is now.

Personally, I don’t agree with the furor around the Great Staircase. Belfast’s newspapers and radio shows erupted with complaints from local residents that they couldn’t see a replica of the Great Staircase during the public visitor experience. I fall within the camp that argues the only reason people want to see it is because of its prominent use in James Cameron’s ‘Titanic’ film. If posing on the staircase a la Leo and Kate is the main priority of visitors to a Titanic exhibition then they’re really missing a trick…

The Northern Ireland Tourist Board is criticised for its emphasis on what is essentially, a very tragic demise. Donegall Square North in the center of Belfast, which is the street lined either side with high street stores, already has symbolic iron statues that each represents a sunken ship. The way I see it is that Northern Ireland is taking possession of an awe-inspiring ship that was literally built in its biggest city, and rightfully so. After all, an Irishman built the Titanic but it was an Englishman who sank it…

Since visiting the exhibition I have placed the Titanic Belfast at the top of my five things to do in Northern Ireland. The list is by no means firmly set, is currently Belfast-biased and will no doubt evolve, but for now it stands as the following…

1)    See the Titanic Belfast for a world-class exhibition and the industrial history of Northern Ireland.

2)  Drive up the Antrim Coast and take in Northern Ireland’s breath taking beaches, cliffs and the stunning Giant’s Causeway.

3)   Set aside an evening to enjoy the craic of Belfast’s traditional pubs including the Cathedral Quarter’s Duke of York and John Hewitt Bar as well as the Garrick and Maddens. If traditional Irish music is what you’re after then Maddens is the place for a Guinness.

4)   Book a Black Taxi Tour and see the murals of West Belfast. The drivers of the Black Taxis were eyewitnesses to the Troubles and will give you a real sense of what life was like in that time. But beware, the drivers tend to give their own version of events.*

5)   Take a walk from South Belfast into the city center, you’ll get a real sense of modern Belfast if you do this. Start at the Botanic Gardens and walk down Botanic Avenue, stopping to take in the arty, alternative feel of the Queen’s Quarter. Carry on down Dublin Road for the compulsory stop at Filthy McNasty’s and then on down Bedford Street to reach Belfast’s City Hall. Walk right round the square with some form of guide** to tell you which buildings are what – if you do you’ll realise the historical significance of the architecture and what happened within those buildings.

* For a recommended guide then get in touch.
** There is an app you can download for access to tours around Northern Ireland here. Or you can download itours presented by Patrick Kielty for all parts of Belfast for free.