Titanic Belfast: how the city’s new visitor centre is healing old wounds

’VE ONLY been in Belfast five minutes – for a sneak preview of Titanic Belfast, aka the World’s Largest Titanic Visitor Experience, opening this weekend to coincide with the centenary of its disastrous maiden voyage – and five steps outside the airport I’ve already met someone with a connection to the doomed liner. In the smoking area outside the terminal, I strike up a conversation with Clara Taylor, who asks why I’m in town.

“Titanic, eh? A terrible thing. I don’t know why we keep on about it. It’s a grave and they should be left to rest in peace,” she says of the 1,512 victims. Then her tone changes. “But it means a lot to people in Belfast. My great-grandfather worked on it. He was a riveter. It’s something to tell my grandchildren,” she says proudly.

I head for the Harland and Wolff shipyard where Titanic was built, now home to the new £97 million development of which the Titanic Belfast exhibition centre is the jewel in the crown. As we cross the Lagan, the aluminium shards coating the exterior glisten like an iceberg in the spring sunshine, as behind them the iconic cranes of the Harland and Wolff shipyard soar.

It may not be the glory days of Belfast’s shipbuilding, when 21,000 men toiled to produce hundreds of the world’s finest ships, but the place is abuzz as it’s full steam ahead for the official opening by First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness. Workmen in hard hats scuttle around the building like neon ants beside the Titanic-scaled 175ft building. A minibus full of policemen pulls up kerbside and a Dyno-Rod van is in attendance.

Close up, the building is less iceberg, more four hulls pointing outwards in star formation, based on a picture of two ships crossing. High up on a cherrypicker a man sprays the 3,000 gleaming aluminium tiles with a hose. Down on the ground another mixes cement as I walk along part of the original slipway, preserved among the new landscaping that footprints the outline of Titanic and its sister ship Olympic. “I’m covering up the gantry bases in case people fall over them, explains the man at the mixer.

Isn’t that a shame, to cover some of the history? The place where 3,000 men worked for three years to build the 46,328-tonne ship? “Health and safety,” he shrugs, and we smile at the irony.

What do the those working on the building think of the city’s Titanic link? “Well, don’t put my name, but Belfast is known for all the wrong reasons. We have an airport named after an alcoholic footballer (George Best), the Europa hotel is the most bombed in Europe, and then there’s ...”

We turn and look at the building as it shoulders its role of bringing a potential 425,000 visitors in year one, 20,000 jobs and a much-needed economic boost to the region. “But it’s a fine building, so it is. It’s a landmark.”

Also admiring the building are David Beattie and Jennifer McKeown. Beattie’s father and grandfather were shipyard workers, his father being ‘a hat’ or foreman in his bowler, and Beattie himself worked there at the age of 15, in the 1950s.

What’s most impressive about Titanic Belfast is its sheer scale, from the docks themselves to the building that also houses the country’s biggest banqueting suite. So far there are 200 events booked, with another 380 provisionals, and 50 weddings as couples rush to pledge their vows in front of the iconic staircase Kate Winslet sashayed down. Oh, and have their very own My Heart Will Go On moment as they balance on the suite’s mezzanine railings.

“There were thousands of bicycles and the streets were black with the men in dunchers (flat caps),” reminisces Beattie. “And, as we say in Belfast about Titanic, she was all right when she left here,” he adds.

“It’s a cracking building,” says McKeown. “People talk about the money but it’ll be worth it. We have hidden the Titanic for years because people were mourning. But when you think how many thousands worked here; every family had something to do with it,” she says “There’s a pride and a sorrow.”

We watch as a smorgasbord of clergy gather around the ‘Titanica’ statue created by renowned Irish sculptor Rowan Gillespie, ready to bless it. “Well, this is Belfast, we’ve got to make sure we cover all fronts,” says Clare Bradshaw, the attraction’s sales and marketing manager “It’s about wishing good luck for Titanic Belfast in 2012.”

Discussions were still taking place as to whether Robinson and McGuinness would smash a bottle of champagne against the building. Titanic was never christened as it wasn’t White Star Line policy – and look how that ended. “If they do, they better not damage the panels,” says architect Paul Crowe, of Dublin-based Todd Architects, who inherited the original concept from Eric Kuhne.

It was finally agreed that the bottle would be swung against the statue.

“People are taking ownership of the building already. They see icebergs, ships, cranes, gantries, swords and hills,” says Crowe.

Pausing to take breath as the final snagging takes place, the architect is satisfied to deliver on time and to budget. “Well, there wasn’t any more of either,” he says. Part of the £7 billion redevelopment of the 185-acre brownfield site and supported by the Northern Ireland Executive, Titanic Belfast is a unique public/private partnership funded by the Northern Ireland Tourist Board, Belfast City Council, Belfast Harbour and Titanic Quarter Ltd.

The area has also attracted the new public records office, Metropolitan College and a film studio, where Game of Thrones is currently being shot, as well as 400 apartments. “It’s an opportunity to create an iconic reference point like the Guggenheim in Bilbao, and I hope it has the same regeneration impact,” says Crowe.

“We had a city that was embarrassed about Titanic for decades, but it was a well designed and constructed ship.”

With the aim of presenting the entire Titanic story, up to today, and commemorating the dead, the centre balances old and modern. Rusty metal panels line the vast atrium, while there are nine galleries that focus on different parts of the tale and use the latest technology, with interactive touch screens, virtual tours, 3D animation and a ride through the sights, smells and sounds of a shipyard.

There are artefacts and innovative glazing that depict the ship sitting on the slipway outside. And, finally, there is footage of Robert Ballard’s 1985 discovery of Titanic, lying two and a half miles down on the seabed.

Throughout are stories of the 2,225 passengers and crew on Titanic – such as that of fireman William McQuillan, a last-minute boarder who replaced a friend whose baby was due, and six-year-old Robert Steadman, photographed spinning a top on the ship’s deck. “We are celebrating what our city achieved in 1912 and what we have managed to do now, but also remembering the dead,” says Bradshaw.

“This is the birthplace of Titanic. Nowhere else will you get the real feeling. Belfast has been coming out of a dark part of its history, and Titanic Belfast is a shining beacon.”

As the city looks back with pride on its history, I take my leave and one last glimpse of the impressive building. Shafts of low evening sun glance off the panels, creating a ripple effect, like waves of movement and time, echoing the icy depths of the north Atlantic and a ship whose presence is still very much alive a century after it went to its final resting place.

THE GLASGOW ENGINEERS

Hailed as ‘unsinkable’, Titanic was the largest and most luxurious ocean liner of her day. When she hit an iceberg on 14 April 1912 during her maiden voyage and went down with the loss of 1,512 lives, including 692 crew, there were 34 engineers in that number.

With their maritime expertise, Glasgow-based shipworkers were to be found on many ships worldwide, and Titanic was no exception. Two engineers hailing from the city went down with the ill-fated liner, and many others on board were employed by Clydeside firms.

A memorial to honour the engineers lost in the disaster was unveiled on 15 April 1914 at the then HQ of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders, a Beaux Arts building in Glasgow’s Elmbank Crescent, now the base of Scottish Opera. Made by sculptor Kellock Brown, the grey marble tablet is surrounded by a bronze frame and surmounted by two bronze female figures. It hangs in the foyer.

Included among the sombre roll-call of dead engineers are William Mackie and William Kelly, both born in Glasgow, while several others had a Glasgow connection.

Kelly, an assistant electrical engineer with Harland & Wolff, had only sailed on the ship’s maiden voyage to complete work that had been left unfinished during the fitting out.

Another, William Young Moyes, aged 24, was senior sixth engineer on Titanic and is commemorated on a family gravestone in Stirling’s Valley Cemetery.

TITANIC ON SCREEN

Fictional accounts of real-life events are always vulnerable to interpretation, and the way actors present characters and the way they behaved has influenced whether we see them as heroes or villains. As well as the fictional versions, there have been numerous documentaries over the years, of which Dr Robert Ballard’s filming of his discovery of the wreck 4,000m underwater is the most compelling.

1920 Atlantic

This was a silent film in English and French, while the German version had sound. It proved so popular with German audiences, who sympathised with stuff-upper-lip Brits, the seeds were sown for a revised version.

1943 Titanic

A Nazi propaganda film made during the Second World War, this technically acclaimed film features actual newsreel shots of Captain EJ Smith and the rescue ship Carpathia. It takes huge liberties with the facts and features fictitious good German crew members. Footage of the sinking was later swiped for 1958’s A Night to Remember.

1953 Titanic

With Hollywood’s big-budget romantic treatment and starring Barbara Stanwyck, this one won an Oscar for its screenplay.

1958 A Night to Remember

With Kenneth More and Honor Blackman, this faithful screen version of Walter Lord’s meticulously researched bestselling book was a definitive dramatisation of the disaster, and proved the truth was far more compelling than the fiction.

1997 Titanic

James Cameron’s blockbuster, starring Leonardo diCaprio and Kate Winslet, saw scale-models of parts of the ship being built in California and used in the filming. It was, at the time, the most expensive film ever made, with an estimated budget of $200m. It won 11 Oscars and grossed over $1.8bn, but attracted controversy in Scotland over its portrayal of First Officer William Murdoch, who was from Dalbeattie. In the film’s fictional account, he is the officer in charge of the bridge on the night the ship strikes the iceberg and, during a rush for the lifeboats, shoots passengers in panic, then commits suicide out of guilt. Murdoch’s family objected to his portrayal and Fox vice-president Scott Neeson visited Dalbeattie to deliver a personal apology and present a £5,000 donation to the town’s high school.

2012 Titanic 3D

The Cameron film is re-released this week, to commemorate the centenary, with 3D effects capturing the moment the ship shears in half and the water surges through the hull.

2012, ITV, Titanic

With the world’s most talked about ship sinking on 14/15 April, Julian Fellowes’s four-part series is perfectly timed. Dubbed Downtown on Sea, or Drowntown Abbey, its treatment of the tragedy focuses on affronted upper-class dames and chirpy below-stairs crew, all thrown together by the exigencies of the watery disaster.

• Titanic Belfast, Queen’s Road, Queen’s Island, Belfast (www.titanicbelfast.com), £13.50/£6.75