OK….lets get this straight. A big ship “Titanic” was built in Belfast. It sank on its maiden voyage in 1912. It was a tragic loss of life (1,512 people died). In my youth, I knew people who claimed to have worked on it.
But frankly nobody in Belfast ever mentioned it. Then along comes a movie with Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslett and we claim the ship as a great icon of our city.
We have Tshirts “Titanic…….built in Belfast……it was ok when it left here” and this year we must celebrate its centenary. We even have a Titanic Quarter built on the site of the old shipyards. And we have got a great big bilding which will be “the worlds largest Titanic Experience”. This is the booking office in Cornmarket, Belfast.
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 
Gavin has been learning about The Titanic this year due to the 100 year anniversary. I will have to share with him that it was built in Belfast, and a friend of mine knew people who worked on it.
One was my Uncle Robbie who would have died about 1964/65. But of course theres nobody living now who would have even seen the ship. Until just a few years ago there was a man over 100, who was regularly on our local TV News as a boy he had seen it launched.
It is quite common now to hear people say on TV whatever “my father/grandfather worked on The Titanic” but I suppose theres a certain amount of “licence” in that.
Certainly its a source of pride in East Belfast. The workforce was largely Protestant (the ship yards were a cold house for Catholics/nationalists and I think as a means of rediscovering some pride (the shipyards are long closed and theres no traditional employment left) there are strret murals depicting the Titanic. I might post some later on. I took them when our friends from Texas visited us two years ago.