Does Anybody Really Care About The Titanic? Really Like? Really?

[Evil Genius]

Is it me getting old and grumpy? But I couldn't give a flying f**k about some old ship built in a sectarian cesspit which is now at the bottom of the sea. I am sick to death listening to The BBC and UTV wittering on about it. Only the Irish could celebrate such a glorious failure. Sailed once sank once. As the man in the dinning room on the Titanic said to the waiter I know I asked for ice but this is ridiculous! Boom Boom.

Is your "sectarian cesspit" comment at the bottom of your distaste for all this attention on the Titanic?

For if it is, then you appear somewhat ignorant. Una Reilly*, founder of the Belfast Titanic Society, was on the radio earlier. She pointed out that a study of the 1911 Census reveals that not only were the streets around the shipyard religiously mixed, but even some of the houses, and that there were many Catholics who worked on the Titanic.

Which is not to say that everything was "fine and dandy" for Catholics at H&W at the time  - they certainly weren't - but it is a matter of historical record that it was a combination of the Home Rule Crisis later in 1912, WWI and the Troubles around Partition etc, which led to Catholics being put out of the yard (esp in 1921) and the movement of large numbers of Catholics from East to West Belfast.

And by the time these deplorable events had occurred, Titanic had already been built, sailed and sunk.


* - Ms. Reilly is herself a Catholic, having been inspired to research the history of the Titanic by the memory of her (Catholic) great-grandfather, who had worked on the ship for H&W.

[Evil Genius]

It's about time this place cashed in on the story of the Titanic. If it had been built in America the theme park would be in its 50th year by now. Anything that brings money and/or jobs to this part of the world should be welcomed

Think you are wrong there Laceer. America doesn't "do failure" like we do here in Europe and whatever way you look at it Titanic was a complete and utter disaster.

Perhaps a bit simplistic [bold]?

For example, Custer and the Little Big Horn, The Alamo, Pearl Harbor, the murders of Lincoln and JFK and the whole 9/11 Ground Zero attacks were all epic failures, but however they have been portrayed since, they can hardly be said to have been ignored.

[Ball Hopper]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vetaFnJ2TpQ&feature=related


Titanic 2

[ziggy90]

Ya must watch a lot of news!! I haven't really heard a peep about it. Though I don't watch the news at all. If ya don't care about it why put up a thread about it and give it more attention? (well on here)

If the ship had have been built on the Liffey by a load of taigs and not too many prods would we be raving about it?

Wind your necks in. A few facts, the greatest ship built (of it's time) Built here on our wee island. Crashed on it's maiden voyage into an iceberg!! 1500 souls died and due to the deaths changes on design and health and safety measures were taken (namely adequate lifebouts) on new builds.

Certainly not the greatest ship of our time as it sank! It's a tragedy that so many died but, hey I only asked the question was it just me being grumpy? I guess you would say yes.

Apples its split accross everyone. I have a friend who works in a hotel and she will kill the next person who mentions titanic to her.

I love my history which is why I am intrested in it

I love my history as well but this is just a publicity and moneymaking scheme, which while I'm not saying is a bad thing it just doesn't "Rock my Boat".

[oisinog]

Ya must watch a lot of news!! I haven't really heard a peep about it. Though I don't watch the news at all. If ya don't care about it why put up a thread about it and give it more attention? (well on here)

If the ship had have been built on the Liffey by a load of taigs and not too many prods would we be raving about it?

Wind your necks in. A few facts, the greatest ship built (of it's time) Built here on our wee island. Crashed on it's maiden voyage into an iceberg!! 1500 souls died and due to the deaths changes on design and health and safety measures were taken (namely adequate lifebouts) on new builds.

Certainly not the greatest ship of our time as it sank! It's a tragedy that so many died but, hey I only asked the question was it just me being grumpy? I guess you would say yes.

Apples its split accross everyone. I have a friend who works in a hotel and she will kill the next person who mentions titanic to her.

I love my history which is why I am intrested in it

I love my history as well but this is just a publicity and moneymaking scheme, which while I'm not saying is a bad thing it just doesn't "Rock my Boat".

Belfast are not the only city using Titanic this year to boost tourisim.
Liverpool is also using Titanic and the only history there is that thats were the ship was registered

[Canalman]

It's about time this place cashed in on the story of the Titanic. If it had been built in America the theme park would be in its 50th year by now. Anything that brings money and/or jobs to this part of the world should be welcomed

Think you are wrong there Laceer. America doesn't "do failure" like we do here in Europe and whatever way you look at it Titanic was a complete and utter disaster.

Perhaps a bit simplistic [bold]?

For example, Custer and the Little Big Horn, The Alamo, Pearl Harbor, the murders of Lincoln and JFK and the whole 9/11 Ground Zero attacks were all epic failures, but however they have been portrayed since, they can hardly be said to have been ignored.

Missing my point EG.............. where did I mention "ignored".

For what it is worth  the examples you mention were acts of violence/"war" (loosely termed I know) and not for want of a better term a "natural disaster".

My point is that no city in the USA with any shipbuilding history or any ambition to foster heavy industry etc in the future would imvho have any type of "celebration" of an iconic and expensively built ship that failed to even make its 1st journey.

As for the loss of life in the sinking I have no problem with that being memorialized as in Pearl Harbour. Manhattan etc.
Doubt all Americans regard Little Big Horn as an "epic failure". Always thought the Americans won that battle.

Mourning the dead I have no problem with, making a tourist attraction of it .................mmmm!

[ONeill]

No one ever claimed that the Titanic was "unsinkable". The quote, "practically unsinkable" was taken out of context.

How do you know that no one ever claimed that the Titanic was unsinkable before 1912?

The link I provided ( http://home.comcast.net/~georgebehe/titanic/page2.htm ) indicates a plethora of such descriptions - even from survivors who wrote letters before they'd reached land - "...The 'Titanic' was considered a 'non-sinkable' boat."....

[ONeill]

I understand the PR benefit to Belfast. I know it'll probably be an economic success over time. I know the intrigue it created coupled with Kate Winslett in the buff.

However - here is my reading:

The Titanic was substandard. Safety had been sacrificed in favour of luxury and the race to be the biggest and best. All the craic about compartments closing if in danger and double bottoms etc was pointless bunkum as it transpired. The crew failed. The boat failed. It was a tragic disaster. Even when leaving Southampton it nearly wrecked another boat. The unsinkable nonsense seemingly negated the need for extra lifeboats and effective evacuation procedures. It appears that even as it was looking like the yoke would definitely drown, with its snout struggling to stay afloat, some still thought it wouldn't. Even after it sank some believed it didn't because it couldn't surely.

H&W would've been better off building a few small boats to sail around Lough Neagh collecting eels for the international market. The Germans can't get enough of our eels yet we would rather have a fish supper. Even the pollan is a lovely fish fried and it's all ours. Titanic my hole.

[Tony Baloney]

I understand the PR benefit to Belfast. I know it'll probably be an economic success over time. I know the intrigue it created coupled with Kate Winslett in the buff.

However - here is my reading:

The Titanic was substandard. Safety had been sacrificed in favour of luxury and the race to be the biggest and best. All the craic about compartments closing if in danger and double bottoms etc was pointless bunkum as it transpired. The crew failed. The boat failed. It was a tragic disaster. Even when leaving Southampton it nearly wrecked another boat. The unsinkable nonsense seemingly negated the need for extra lifeboats and effective evacuation procedures. It appears that even as it was looking like the yoke would definitely drown, with its snout struggling to stay afloat, some still thought it wouldn't. Even after it sank some believed it didn't because it couldn't surely.

H&W would've been better off building a few small boats to sail around Lough Neagh collecting eels for the international market. The Germans can't get enough of our eels yet we would rather have a fish supper. Even the pollan is a lovely fish fried and it's all ours. Titanic my hole.

A feed of eels might have prevented them from getting cross and starting WWI. We'll never know.

[Evil Genius]

However - here is my reading:

The Titanic was substandard. Safety had been sacrificed in favour of luxury and the race to be the biggest and best. All the craic about compartments closing if in danger and double bottoms etc was pointless bunkum as it transpired. The crew failed. The boat failed. It was a tragic disaster. Even when leaving Southampton it nearly wrecked another boat. The unsinkable nonsense seemingly negated the need for extra lifeboats and effective evacuation procedures. It appears that even as it was looking like the yoke would definitely drown, with its snout struggling to stay afloat, some still thought it wouldn't. Even after it sank some believed it didn't because it couldn't surely.

H&W would've been better off building a few small boats to sail around Lough Neagh collecting eels for the international market. The Germans can't get enough of our eels yet we would rather have a fish supper. Even the pollan is a lovely fish fried and it's all ours. Titanic my hole.

The Titanic was built for JP Morgan - the Bill Gates of his day - after H&W brought him to Belfast. There was not another shipyard in the world capable of building so large a ship and even then H&W had to build the world's biggest dry-dock for the purpose.

And if safety and standards etc were a concern, then these were driven primarily by the people who commissioned, operated and crewed the ship, plus the Government of the day, not the builders. For example, Lifeboat provision was well within the Board of Trade requirements; indeed, Lifeboats were not thought of in those days as a means of rescuing a complete ship's crew and passenger list. Rather, they were intended as a means of ferrying people back and forwards to other ships, or to land.

As for the "unsinkable" tag, that was a myth perpetuated before and after the event by others, not by H&W. In fact, when the designer Thomas Andrews was informed that five compartments had been breeched, he knew then that it must sink, and him with it.

As for the build standard, the Titanic was built by the same people, using the same methods and materials, and at the same time as eg the RMS Olympic:
"Olympic served a long and illustrious career (1911 to 1935), including service as a troopship during World War I, earning the nickname "Old Reliable." She was the largest ocean liner in the world for two periods in 1911–13, interrupted only by the brief career of the slightly larger Titanic."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Olympic

And as for being better off building "a few boats for Lough Neagh etc", Titanic was known to H&W as "No.401" for a reason i.e. there were 400 ships built by the yard before her. And that's before you get to all the ships which were built there afterwards, including for two World Wars and the more recent cruise industry, eg:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Canberra

In fact, mention of the Canberra brings to mind another  piece of trivia to illustrate the scale of the Titanic etc. When Australia decided it needed a new bridge over Sydney Harbour, despite having enormous reserves of coal and iron etc, there wasn't a steel works in the entire country capable of building it. Instead the bridge had to be built in the UK and shipped out to Oz. And that was in 1932 - 20 years after little old Belfast was building the Titanic. And the Olympic. And the Britannic...

[ziggy90]

Ya must watch a lot of news!! I haven't really heard a peep about it. Though I don't watch the news at all. If ya don't care about it why put up a thread about it and give it more attention? (well on here)

If the ship had have been built on the Liffey by a load of taigs and not too many prods would we be raving about it?

Wind your necks in. A few facts, the greatest ship built (of it's time) Built here on our wee island. Crashed on it's maiden voyage into an iceberg!! 1500 souls died and due to the deaths changes on design and health and safety measures were taken (namely adequate lifebouts) on new builds.

Certainly not the greatest ship of our time as it sank! It's a tragedy that so many died but, hey I only asked the question was it just me being grumpy? I guess you would say yes.

Apples its split accross everyone. I have a friend who works in a hotel and she will kill the next person who mentions titanic to her.

I love my history which is why I am intrested in it

I love my history as well but this is just a publicity and moneymaking scheme, which while I'm not saying is a bad thing it just doesn't "Rock my Boat".

Belfast are not the only city using Titanic this year to boost tourisim.
Liverpool is also using Titanic and the only history there is that thats were the ship was registered

It was on the local news last night that 75% of the interior of the Titanic was manufactured here in Birmingham & the Black Country.

[J70]

It's about time this place cashed in on the story of the Titanic. If it had been built in America the theme park would be in its 50th year by now. Anything that brings money and/or jobs to this part of the world should be welcomed

Think you are wrong there Laceer. America doesn't "do failure" like we do here in Europe and whatever way you look at it Titanic was a complete and utter disaster.

Perhaps a bit simplistic [bold]?

For example, Custer and the Little Big Horn, The Alamo, Pearl Harbor, the murders of Lincoln and JFK and the whole 9/11 Ground Zero attacks were all epic failures, but however they have been portrayed since, they can hardly be said to have been ignored.

Missing my point EG.............. where did I mention "ignored".

For what it is worth  the examples you mention were acts of violence/"war" (loosely termed I know) and not for want of a better term a "natural disaster".

My point is that no city in the USA with any shipbuilding history or any ambition to foster heavy industry etc in the future would imvho have any type of "celebration" of an iconic and expensively built ship that failed to even make its 1st journey.

As for the loss of life in the sinking I have no problem with that being memorialized as in Pearl Harbour. Manhattan etc.
Doubt all Americans regard Little Big Horn as an "epic failure". Always thought the Americans won that battle.

Mourning the dead I have no problem with, making a tourist attraction of it .................mmmm!

The Americans got their arses handed to them at the Little Bighorn. However, they won the war with the Sioux within a couple of months. The massacre of the 7th Calvary galvinized public opinion against the Native Americans, especially with the news hitting the east cost on the centenery of the Declaration of Independence and Custer's already large celebrity.

[oisinog]

Part of what makes the Titanic story so engaging is difference of opinions that it has created over the last 100 years

[haranguerer]

Part of what makes the Titanic story so engaging is difference of opinions that it has created over the last 100 years

No, it definitely sank.

[ziggysego]

Part of what makes the Titanic story so engaging is difference of opinions that it has created over the last 100 years

No, it definitely sank.

Are you sure?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVxEMJD2Qlg