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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