Titanic
Titanic was enormous. The Titanic Belfast exhibit is enormous as well. After three hours in the museum, you feel like you helped build that gigantic ocean liner. Belfast is justifiably proud of the Titanic. It wasn't their fault after all if the captain did foolishly run full speed through a known ice field. But the workmanship, the sweat, the tears, the agonies, the deaths that the city endured building her and her sister ship, the Olympic, they are extremely proud of that.
This city certainly has deep blue collar roots. Before the ship building industry took off at the end of the 19th century, the city was mostly known for its multiple linen mills. Belfast linen was among the best in the world and if you spoke of Irish Linen, you were almost certainly speaking of a Belfast product. So when the linen business began to decline, the city had a large workforce ready to jump in and earn regular wages. So the city began to produce ships. Titanic was number 401 of ships built here, and there have been hundreds since.
The museum, and it's almost a sacrilege to call it just a museum, was designed to give a sense of the scale of the Titanic, something that isn't easy to conceive. The building has a sharp protruding angle that very closely resembles a ship's bow and is aimed directly at the ship ways where the Titanic and her sister ships, Olympic and Brittanic, were built. By the time you reach the point of the "bow" at the top of the building, you are the same height off the ground as the bow of the ship. A row of steel poles jut into the sky to show the height of the gantries that enveloped the ship, gantries that had no safety gear of any type, and the number of men who either fell off to their deaths, or were hit by something falling from above, isn't tallied, but you know it was a substantial number. The museum takes you through the entire process of building a ship, from laying the keel, to installing the decking, to fastening the steel sheets of the hull, to the fitting out. And finally you see her launched with great fanfare.
Your journey takes you through the final voyage, the sinking, and the remembrances of survivors. Hardly a city in Europe was untouched by the tragedy. The last exhibit is a large screen film of the deep sea submersibles that visited the Titanic and filmed her resting place, foot by foot. It's pretty sobering.
On a slightly more positive note, following lunch at the Titanic museum, we walked over to PRONI (Public Records of Northern Ireland) where we searched and found more records of the Greer family in County Tyrone. It's a pretty sobering experience to hold the actual lease document signed in 1792 by your Great Great Great Grandfather, George Greer. We found numerous documents that placed him right where we thought he was, in Mullaghmore, County Tyrone, near Fivemiletown. We also found numerous other families we share heritage with like the Lendrum, Crozier, Stevenson, and Little families. In short, we discovered a lot more than we ever really expected to when we came. Little by little, we're opening the door to our ancestors a bit more.
Tomorrow, it's off to Dublin for an evening flight to Heathrow/London. Then a mid-morning flight to New York. And finally home.
Slainte tha.
This city certainly has deep blue collar roots. Before the ship building industry took off at the end of the 19th century, the city was mostly known for its multiple linen mills. Belfast linen was among the best in the world and if you spoke of Irish Linen, you were almost certainly speaking of a Belfast product. So when the linen business began to decline, the city had a large workforce ready to jump in and earn regular wages. So the city began to produce ships. Titanic was number 401 of ships built here, and there have been hundreds since.
The museum, and it's almost a sacrilege to call it just a museum, was designed to give a sense of the scale of the Titanic, something that isn't easy to conceive. The building has a sharp protruding angle that very closely resembles a ship's bow and is aimed directly at the ship ways where the Titanic and her sister ships, Olympic and Brittanic, were built. By the time you reach the point of the "bow" at the top of the building, you are the same height off the ground as the bow of the ship. A row of steel poles jut into the sky to show the height of the gantries that enveloped the ship, gantries that had no safety gear of any type, and the number of men who either fell off to their deaths, or were hit by something falling from above, isn't tallied, but you know it was a substantial number. The museum takes you through the entire process of building a ship, from laying the keel, to installing the decking, to fastening the steel sheets of the hull, to the fitting out. And finally you see her launched with great fanfare.
Your journey takes you through the final voyage, the sinking, and the remembrances of survivors. Hardly a city in Europe was untouched by the tragedy. The last exhibit is a large screen film of the deep sea submersibles that visited the Titanic and filmed her resting place, foot by foot. It's pretty sobering.
On a slightly more positive note, following lunch at the Titanic museum, we walked over to PRONI (Public Records of Northern Ireland) where we searched and found more records of the Greer family in County Tyrone. It's a pretty sobering experience to hold the actual lease document signed in 1792 by your Great Great Great Grandfather, George Greer. We found numerous documents that placed him right where we thought he was, in Mullaghmore, County Tyrone, near Fivemiletown. We also found numerous other families we share heritage with like the Lendrum, Crozier, Stevenson, and Little families. In short, we discovered a lot more than we ever really expected to when we came. Little by little, we're opening the door to our ancestors a bit more.
Tomorrow, it's off to Dublin for an evening flight to Heathrow/London. Then a mid-morning flight to New York. And finally home.
Slainte tha.