Jude Collins

Monday 2 April 2012

The Titanic - let's have all the facts, shall we?



Dear God.  Have we all lost our senses? I was at the launch of a novel by Downpatrick’s David Park on Friday night. In the course of a witty speech, the author said he’d like to apologise firstly to the people there, then to all future readers and especially to the people of Belfast:  he hadn’t once in the book mentioned the word ‘Titanic’.  The room instantly filled with laughter and applause. We’re getting it wall-to-wall, across the ceiling, over the floor and down our gullets, day after day.  With the opening of this exhibition in the Titanic Building in the Titanic Quarter in East Belfast, dementia beckons.

Because what we’re being force-fed is not just the history of the ship but a carefully sanitized version of that history. True, Belfast can be proud that the city produced the single biggest moving object on earth a hundred years ago (NOT, please note,  Northern Ireland -  it didn’t exist when the ship was built). But there’s a big awkward fact: on its first time out the ship sank. Am I the only one finds something faintly ludicrous about boasting you built a ship that sank first time out? Strikes me as being like a surgeon who boasts about an operation in which his patient died.

The thing is,  you’re not supposed to forget facts when you’re talking history. The facts in this case include another, even bigger and spikier fact: the Belfast shipyards where the Titanic  was built were a by-word for sectarianism. In 1912, the year of the Titanic’s launch, over 6,000 Catholics were expelled from the shipyards and other industrial sites throughout Belfast. In 1960 the brave and talented Sam Thompson wrote a play ‘Over the Bridge’, exposing shipyard sectarianism, and the Belfast city fathers did all they could – unsuccessfully -  to suppress it. Nothing, they figured,  must be allowed to mar the myth of the shipyards. But history isn’t like that . We either tell what happened and how things were or we write propaganda.

The Titanic exhibition currently open to the public cost somewhere between £60 million and £90 million of public money. That’s your money and mine. I devoutly hope we get our money back through tourism, even if that tourism is generated by a half-true story of the time.  If the hype on this morning’s Stephen Nolan Show is anything to go by, the place should be crowded. How many people will it take, over what period of time, to earn back that £60-£90 million? A good number and a good while, I would guess. Incidentally, I heard a man  - on RTÉ radio, not BBC – say last week that the Titanic display in the Titanic building in the Titanic quarter contains not one single original artefact from the, um Titanic. Is he right? And if he is, do you care?

14 comments:

  1. Agree about the history of the shipyard and how the sectarianism has been swept beneath the carpet. Regarding genuine artefacts I seem to remember the problem is the artefacts cant be sold individually but as a lot and recently were at auction for $200 million so I think you would agree we need to know when to stop the spending. The exhibition building cost 60-90 million - to be honest its a bit odd looking - would it not have been better and probably cheaper to have just rebuilt the ship in the old dock and used it as a museum/hotel - surely that would have attracted more tourists doh!

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  2. Don't forget the working number the good workers of East Belfast gave the greatest ship ever built, was 3909 04. I wonder what that reads in the mirror...

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  3. You'll have seen that Belfast telegraph article,[which i spotted on their site], Jude, about the French schoolboys and the opening paragraph which goes, 'As the centenary approaches and the festivities beckon' which tells you all you need to know about the media here. Far from the BT editor's concerns are the victims of the death trap. The BBCnewsline and UTV live viewing figures for this week should make interesting reading if they dare to publish them, that is. Only Noel thompson brought up the true nature of the shipyard in his question to Marty. I don't know why people watch news programmes hwere anymore as they can't tolerate any negative stories about this benighted place so insecure are they.[madraj55]

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  4. News flash; After one hundred years at the bottom of the Atlantic, East Belfast divers where amazed to find the swimming pool on the Titanic was still full!

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  5. News flash: After 100 years at the bottom of the Atlantic, divers from East Belfast where amazed to find the swimming pool on the Titanic was still full.

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    1. Your points are well made but since D F M seems to be endorsing the whole venture,should you not be more supportive of him as you normally do.

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  6. The "NO POPE" number is a myth, perhaps even a joke, although I realise this will disappoint your angry-sounding contributor above.
    Titanic's hull number was in fact 401.

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  7. Jude don't know if you are aware of it but there is a Titanic coin advert on your site.

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  8. Jude
    Don't let the actual facts get in the way of a good rant.
    Two minutes perusing the titanic belfast website shows several galleries exploring the maiden voyage the sinking, and the aftermath.
    So clearly that part of the story has not been forgotten.
    As for the sectarianism in the shipyards, I hope it is well documented in the exhibition. Maybe it is.Do you know, or are you making assumptions?
    Having said that, I am fed up hearing about it, and I seriously doubt it can bring in the 300,000 visitors per annum required to break even.

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    1. giordanobruno. The extensive wall to wall coverage is a by product of the reality that since the ceasefires, BBC belfast and UTV have nothing to fill their news programmes so they jump on this. They should just have ten minute s as at the weekend and cut out the threadbare nonsense they fill these half hours with.
      As for the Belgfast telegraph orgy, I'd expect nothing better from that lot.madraj

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    2. Anonymous
      I admit I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I would be quite happy to never hear the Titanic mentioned again. On the other hand, I think if the tourist industry did not make the most of our connection to what is a worldwide phenomenon, we would all be calling them idiots.
      I just hope they haven't pushed the boat out too far!

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    3. It looks to me like they've blundered on the facsimile of the hull shape, since having the entrance with the two shaped points at the sides you don't see a ship shape but something resembling an outsize wardrobe seemingly about to take flight. Faintly ridiculous looking and an entirely undignified spectacle [madraj].

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  9. The daily mirror has the story of the backlash over the blatant money grubbing antics of the Titanic building bosses who have been forced to issue a statement about their gaffe over the staircase. All they've done though is add insult to injury to the 'commoners' visiting the building, by suggesting a new staircase for the lower class vistors so they can still charge premium prices for the original one. Obviously there would be no point charge higher rates for special ones if the grand staircase was available to the proles as well in the first place [madraj].

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  10. The Titanic tragedy should have been commemorated with sorrow and dignity,not tacky celebrations: Thought nadir plumbed with 150-a-head ghoulish'Titanic 1st class menu feast by 1000 freeloading Hooray Henry's led by grinning PM and DPM, today I saw 'Titanic Tea', suppose we should be glad it's not iced tea..

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