NORTHERN IRELAND, BELFAST: THE TITANIC MUSEUM

 July 10, 2024

After our two-part tour of Belfast, we decided to squeeze in a quick trip to the Titanic Museum. We only had an hour before it closed, but we had already been to the Titanic Museum and the Titanic Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, so we thought it would be okay to zip through.

The recovery effort after the sinking of the Titanic was based in Halifax, and that is where 150 of the recovered bodies from the ship were buried. 

Belfast is where the ship was built, and the museum there focuses on the ship's construction as well as on the disaster.

The heart of the museum is this large room surrounded by and audio-visual extravaganza.

A pathway leads visitors through the museum displays, and our first stop was to learn about the building of the ship, especially about its enormous size and its surprising power.

The shipyard where the Titanic was built can be viewed from the upper windows of the museum. It would have filled this entire dock.

A scale model is on display.

This area is still used for building/repairing/refurbishing ships.

The museum is full of fascinating, interactive displays.

I learned that the ship was propelled by three massive propellers. The central propeller had a diameter of 16' 6" and the two side propellers had diameters over 23'. 

One of my favorite parts was the recreation of various rooms on the ship. I believe the one below is what was known as the "Parlour Suite." It would have cost about $130,000 in today's dollars for a one-way ticket! First class berths, on the other hand, were a more reasonable price--just $4,600.

A second-class cabin would go for $1,834 in today's dollars, and a third-class ticket would be $1,071.  I think the photo below is of a third-class two-berth cabin.

Displays took us through the fateful voyage.

A video gives visitors a sense of what it would be like to be on deck. 

We saw several people recreating this moment in the famous Titanic movie:

A copy of lounge chair from the upper deck of the ship is on display:

I love these lines from Thomas Hardy's poem "The Convergence of the Twain."  You can read the poem in its entirety here. 

Transcriptions of the Titanic's desperate Morse code messages are on display. There were five.

The Carpathia was the first ship to reach the scene. Its crew was able to rescue 713 survivors from lifeboats. (Only one person, a woman, was rescued from the water.)

  

Two of the survivors are highlighted.

The Titanic was nicknamed "The Millionaires' Ship," and public interest focused on the wealthy people who died, including John Jacob Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim.  The death rate among the third-class passengers was much higher than any other category, but no one was interested in their stories.

Most of the victims who were buried in the Halifax Cemetery were third-class passengers and crew.

I liked seeing all the names of both those who were saved and those who died. Different messages were projected into this list, like the one here that points out that Lifeboat No. 1 had a capacity of 65 but was launched with only 12 people in it. Another post noted that the average age of those saved was 29.

A voice on the speakers announced that the museum was closing, so we made our way one more time through the main room with its impressive audio-visual array . . .

. . . and headed to our bed and breakfast, the Seaview House.