10
Currents
February 2018
Globetrotter
By: Max Edwards
Belfast’s Famous Docks
For history buffs and students of maritime
tragedies, Northern Ireland fits the bill. Just 2 hours
by train from Dublin, or 1 1/2 hours by car (driving on
the left), awaits Belfast—a
mélange of Victoriana, historic
political conflict, and peaceful
modernity.
The Titanic Visitor Experience,
which opened in 2012, is a first
stop. The Experience is not a
museum or a repository of arti-
facts, but is an engaging multime-
dia self-guided tour (about $25
USD). The interactive exhibits
explore aspects of shipbuilding,
and provide likely dialogue of
workers, and of Titanic passen-
gers.
The Experience was built on
Queen’s Island where the Har-
land & Wolff shipyard built HMS
Titanic.
The area, renamed
“Titanic Quarter,” is now home to
upscale apartments; the ship-
yards have been disassembled.
Today, the bleak expanse of land
[see photo] is in sharp contrast to
what was, in 1912, a thriving hub
of 15,000 shipbuilding employ-
ees.
During the Experience’s “Ship-
yard Ride,” replete with hammer-
ing and shouts of shipbuilders,
visitors are reminded that Titanic
was built in only 26 months. The
ship’s dimensions, 882 feet long,
92 feet wide, and 104 feet high,
were the apex of workers’ skills.
None could have imagined that,
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