May 18th: Titanic and the Crum

The first adventure on today’s agenda was a visit to the most visited tourist attraction in the world, the Titanic Museum! The museum has four corners and four stories, each corner representing different ages of shipbuilding. As it turns out, the Titanic was Belfast’s pride and joy, seeing as it was built and first launched here. Building the ship took 26 months. Construction began in 1909 and was completed in March of 1911. 


The first exhibit of the museum was about the different products manufactured in Belfast (including linen, rope, and whiskey). The second exhibit was about the engineering behind Titanic's design. This exhibit was awesome because it included a ride inside of the museum to give is an idea of what it was like work as a laborer constructing the ship. There were also interactive panels everywhere to learn more about the various layers of the structure of the ship. The third exhibit was about the launch. This included the four ports the Titanic was at before heading out into the North Atlantic, which were Belfast, Southhampton, Cherbourg, and Queenstown. The fourth exhibit showed life-size displays of the cabins for the various classes aboard the Titanic, there were some large rooms and then there were some really small rooms. The fifth and sixth exhibits were about the maiden voyage and the sinking. From the morse code messages that were sent, it was clear that they knew that there would be ice in their path, but they continued to ignore the warnings. Tragically, there were not enough life boats available for everyone on board and less than half of the people on the ship survived. The seventh exhibit was about the aftermath, which involved the Carpathia coming to retrieve the survivors. The whole world was in mourning for the sinking of the Titanic, including the city of Belfast. People donated money to victims and the families of those who were lost in the wreckage; some organizations even helped survivors start their new lives in the United States. The eighth exhibit was the myths and reality of the Titanic, which included a comparison of Hollywood and international films (yes, the romance of the famous James Cameron film was mentioned as Celine Dion played in the background). The ninth exhibit was about what was found at the wreck site on the ocean floor, and you could even walk over part of the digital wreck on the glass floor.
We were also able to go onto the S. S. Nomadic. This ship was also a White Star Line ship. The inside had a tea table set up similar to that of the Titanic. There were clothes from the time period of the Titanic set up for you to try on inside the ship, which some of us did. The Nomadic only had one smokestack, while the Titanic had three. The Nomadic was about to be scrapped, but was saved when an investor turned it into a restaurant on the water in Paris, which is why it is available for viewing today.


Between our two bigger tours, Gerry gave us a mini bus tour of Belfast. This involved stopping at the Stormont Estate, which is where Northern Ireland’s Parliament meets, and the City Hall, which also has a Titanic Memorial.


Our second adventure of the day was visiting the Crumlin Road Gaol prison, known by locals as the “Crum.” During its years of operation, it housed suffragettes, children, and political prisoners; the prison experienced marriages, executions, and escapes. The Crum continued to operate even after a Provisional IRA bomb was detonated in the dining hall, killing two men, in 1991. Opening in 1846 and shutting down in March of 1996, the Crum was considered Europe’s Alcatraz.





Fun Fact of the day: The Europa hotel, still standing and open today, was bombed 27 times and kept its doors open during the Troubles.


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