Almost 98 years after the infamous ‘Titanic’ sank on a calm April night in 1912, ‘Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition’, which has been seen by more than 22 million people worldwide, ran from December to June at Citywest Event Centre.

This Exhibition was produced by Atlanta-based RMS Titanic, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Premier Exhibitions, the only company permitted by law to recover objects from the wreck of Titanic.

The Company was granted salvor-in-possession rights to the wreck of Titanic by a United States Federal Court in 1994. During seven research and recovery expeditions to Titanic, it recovered approximately 5,500 artefacts. There were 300 of these on display in Dublin, including 19 never seen before anywhere.

Assistants estimate 30,000 to 40,000 people saw the exhibition in Citywest before it closed. I got there just in the nick of time, and I am very glad I did, as it was one of the best exhibitions I have ever seen, leaving me with an eerie sense of almost having been on board.

This specially-designed exhibition focuses on the legendary RMS Titanic’s compelling human stories. Cheryl Mure, Vice President of Education for ‘Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition’, stated that “On that unexpected night in 1912, more than 1,500 passengers met the same fate, no matter their class or place in society; a shocking ending to what was a joyous journey. Their story is our story and it is our honour and duty to share these treasures with Ireland at such a poignant time.”

Jim Mansfield, Proprietor of Citywest Hotel and Event Centre, expressed his delight to be bringing the exhibition to Ireland. Dean Halpin, one of the specially-trained artefact specialists and guides, said this dream job was a “once in a lifetime opportunity.”

When you enter the exhibition, you receive a replica boarding pass of an actual Titanic passenger. My passenger was Ellen Hocking, a 21-year-old woman travelling with her family in second class, on her way to New York to marry her fiancé. During the voyage, she thought she heard a cock crow as she was falling asleep, a sign of impending disaster in Cornish folklore.

In the final gallery, there was a Memorial Wall, listing alphabetically the names of those who survived and those who did not in first, second, and third class, and among the crew. There you could find out the fate of your passenger.

Journey back to 1912
You then take a fascinating chronological journey. It was the beginning of the twentieth century, a time of optimism and progress. Technology had produced such wonders as the automobile, airplane, skyscraper, cinema, and telegraph. The world was on the move and the transatlantic transport of passengers, cargo, and mail was brisk and competitive. Ocean liners, the predecessors of our modern day jumbo jets, became ever faster, larger, and more luxurious to accommodate this traffic.

Over dinner one July evening in 1907, J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Line, and Lord James Pirrie, chairman of the Belfast shipbuilding company, Harland & Wolff, conceived the idea of building lavish vessels to compete for the transatlantic market: the ‘Titanic’, ‘Olympic’, and later, the ‘Britannic’, which became the largest moving objects created by man.

We see the design office, and a model of the Titanic, the ultimate in safety, with a double bottom and 16 watertight compartments incorporated into the design. According to ‘The Shipbuilder’, a 1911 trade publication: ‘The watertight subdivision of Olympic and Titanic is very complete, and is so arranged that any two main compartments may be flooded without in any way involving the safety of the ship.’

They did not envisage that an iceberg might hit above the compartments, ensuring that the unsinkable ship was destined for the seabed, where it lay broken in half and lost for 73 years, until 1985.

You then see actual video of the ship’s construction, objects brought up from the depths in near-perfect condition– champagne bottles with champagne still in them, sample perfumes which you can still smell through holes in the exhibition case, portholes, diamond necklaces.

You see a luxurious first class cabin– they had ensuites with full bathtubs and constant hot water, and a third class cabin with 4 beds in two bunks. You hear and feel the vibration of the engines thrumming on the third class decks. You see the smoking room for the men, and the reading room for the ladies.
The cargo hold and boiler room are recreated, with pictures of the men who kept the fires stoked, all of whom perished. Warning signs begin to appear– messages about icebergs from other ships ignored or not received; the fatal absence of the two sets of binoculars which might have given advance warning of the iceberg they barely struck, but which because of the angle from which it scraped the ship, proved fatal.

Poignantly, the postmen tried valiantly to save the registered mailbags, until it became obvious that not even all the passengers would escape, much less the mail. Musicians played until the last, and went down with the ship, as did Captain Smith and the heartbroken designer, Mr. Andrew.

There is even an iceberg you are allowed to touch. Putting your hand on its cold surface for 15 seconds gives you the exact temperature of the waters which killed so many by hypothermia. A computer model on the wall shows how the ship broke as it filled and sank.

Some objects in cases have videos on the wall showing how they were recovered from the seabed– china from all three classes, and a piece of the actual hull which you are allowed to touch add to the reality of the nightmare. One gallery is dedicated to local Irish connections, who was on the ship. and what was the country’s reaction to the disaster. In the final gallery, I took Ellen’s boarding pass to the Memorial Wall, and was relieved to find that she and her mother, if not all their party, survived.

While there are no definite plans yet, it is hoped to bring the artefacts exhibition to Belfast, where the Titanic was built, on the 100th anniversary in 2012.