Harland & Wolff

Belfast, shipbuilding, and the game of billiards that changed the world

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on March 6, 2015, 7:52 pm | Readers 731

It is almost universally known that Belfast played a pivotal role in the history of shipbuilding. However, amidst the mania for all things related to the most famous ship built in the city, it can often be overlooked that Belfast produced ships that didn’t sink, too. It may not have the fame of RMS Titanic, but the development and launch of RMS Oceanic and her sister ships in 1870 may have been one of the most pivotal developments in world …

Titanic: was it all right when it left here?

Patrick Corrigan on April 2, 2012, 12:03 pm | Readers 372

Not according to metallurgists Tim Foecke and Jennifer Hooper McCarty whose research has suggested that dodgy Harland and Wolff rivets were at fault for allowing the Titanic’s hull to be ripped apart by the pressure of the iceberg impact. With six of the hull’s chambers exposed to the Atlantic waters, the “unsinkable” ship lasted less than three hours, not enough time for rescue boats to reach those (disproportionately poorer) passengers left without access to a lifeboat (the White Star line …

A poem for the day – Launching the Whaler Juan Peron

Martin Mooney on August 18, 2011, 10:00 am | Readers 111

A Belfast epic, and one of my oldest poems, the opener of my first collection, Grub. The gist of the story was found in Moss & Hume’s Shipbuilders to the World: 125 Years of Harland and Wolff, Belfast, 1861-1986, which tells how Eva Peron was due to launch a huge whaling vessel in Belfast, built for and named after her husband. Unfortunately, her ill-health and political and economic turmoil in Argentina forced her to cancel, though the story goes that …