Carmel Street, Belfast (image by Albert Bridge)

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Belfast is famous for many reasons, not least its murals brought about by The Troubles that gripped Northern Ireland from the late 1960s until the “Good Friday” Agreement of 1998. But less well known is an intriguing network of streets in the inner-south of Belfast known as the Holy Land.

Holy Land mural (image by missfitzphotos)

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The Holy Land (or Holyland) is a Victorian residential area behind Queen’s University, skirted to the south by the River Lagan, and bounded by University Street, the Ormeau Road and the Botanic Gardens. The area takes its unexpected name from the streets within its boundaries: Jerusalem Street, Palestine Street, Damascus Street, Carmel Street and Cairo Street.

Image via Google Earth

These streets were built in the 1890s by Brown McConnell Clark, Belfast’s oldest property consultants. Sir Robert McConnell, former Lord Mayor of Belfast and a devout Christian travelled to Palestine and Egypt with builder friend James Rea, on a journey that would inspire the name and doubtless the ideals of their later development. The street names alone conjure a sense of mystery and the spirit of travel in faraway lands.

Clockwise from top left: Jerusalem Street, Palestine Street, Damascus Street, Carmel Street (images by Albert Bridge)

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But in a twist the founding fathers probably never imagined, the Holy Land’s demographics have shifted considerably over the years thanks to a burgeoning university population and rising house prices. What was once a working class Protestant community has given way to 90% student and young workers, with longterm resident numbers dwindling to just 250 people. Raucous student hijinks has led to an increase in anti-social behaviour, while poorly secured university housing has in turn left students vulnerable to crime.

Image by Speed Demon Photos

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Numerous campaigns have been spearheaded to try and stymie petty crime and calm the raucous roads, including one aimed at students positing the question: “Do You Turn Into A Monster After Dark?”  The Holylands Arts Festival (above, 2005) also sought to bring locals and students together and foster a sense of community.  But recent statistics revealed that crime is on the rise in the Holy Land. With many students moving to escape the unrest, landlords have struggled to re-let properties and house prices in the area have plummeted.

The relatively ornate Cairo Street (top, by Albert Bridge) and the relatively plain Jerusalem Street (by Ross)

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The number of sexual attacks is said to have increased, correlating with a purported scheme to house convicted sex offenders in this transient vicinity.  This, along with anti-social student antics and petty crimes committed by a minority of locals has led some commentators to conclude that there is nothing holy about the Holy Land.

Image by fa1th

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But that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate the neighbourhood’s hard-working past, or the sense of mystery and adventure conjured by its enigmatic street names. Many former residents likely worked in the shipyards of East Belfast that built the most famous liner in history, Titanic, and their legacy will always live on despite modern upheavals. But for the time being, at least, it’s probably best to explore the Holy Land from the comfort and safety of your home computer.  While you’re doing that you might want to give the above question, painted on a gable end, some thought.  It’s an ironic sight indeed in an area whose name offers a nod to the Bible.

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While her days were numbered from the outset, Titanic was a legend during her own lifetime, and has become increasingly immortalised ever since.  In this article, we take a look at the famous liner’s origins, from the abandoned Drawing Office and slipways of Harland and Wolff to the murals of east Belfast and the awesome Titanic Quarter that is rising from the dereliction.

Building Titanic

Image via Bain News Service

RMS Titanic was built alongside her sister ship Olympic on two massive slipways.  Below left shows Olympic in the foreground with her younger and less complete sister Titanic behind.  The yard is alive with men constructing the future of ocean travel, and it’s hard to imagine that this corner of the yard lies abandoned today, a wasteground of empty slipways and rusting cranes.

Images by trialsanderrors

Workers standing beneath Olympic’s enormous propellor help lend scale to these massive iron wonders.  This was shipbuilding on an unprecedented scale, helping to define an industry that would never be the same again.  (Read more about Harland and Wolff’s collaboration with White Star Line in our previous article: The World’s Most Famous Slipway.)

All Set to Sail

An elderly man looks on at the Titanic (author unknown)

The completed Titanic is seen here in dock, resplendent in fresh livery and ready to bring cutting edge technology and comfort to an A-rated guest list, while transporting thousands of others to a better life in the New World – or at least that was the intention.

The Grand Staircase

Titanic's Grand Staircase, original on left; replica on right (image by cliff1066)

The first-class only Grand Staircase was one of the most impressive features of the ship.  With no expense spared, the finest craftsman in Ireland created two identical sets of steps  (fore and aft) – which plunged five storeys from the Boat Deck to E Deck.  The Grand Staircase still plays an important role, as a vast empty hole through which submersibles can gain easy access to the wreck, and even today some balustrade details are still extant.  The staircase on the right is a replica at the Titanic Experience in Orlando, Florida.

The Drawing Office at Harland & Wolff Shipyard

Images by craigfinlay

It’s ironic to think Titanic is now the world’s most famous wreck while its birthplace remains largely forgotten.  Abandoned but not deserted, some real treasures lurk behind the sturdy doors of the old Harland & Wolff Drawing Office which, like the rusting steam cranes below, played a key role in the development of the liner that became the yard’s enduring legacy.

Rusting steam cranes (images by donnamarijne)

These cranes helped build Titanic while the Drawing Office, hauntingly empty, is where the ship was designed and its construction project managed.  With its nineteenth century sinks and ornate features, the Drawing Office is almost a microcosm of the Titanic story.  Incredibly, a selection of blueprints gather dust in what amounts to an abandoned warehouse.  Rumour has it that the scale set in James Cameron’s epic film was constructed from blueprints – long since thought lost – hidden away in the dusty store rooms of the Belfast Drawing Office.

The Titanic Quarter

Images via Google Earth and Archiseek

The image above (right) shows a scale model of the £1.5 billion Titanic Quarter, which will create 20,000 jobs over a 15-year period.  To the left is the land today,with the famous concrete slipways (Titanic’s on the right) in front of the isolated Drawing Office.  The model shows how the fully renovated office and slipways are to be integrated into the final scheme, in an exciting waterfront development that blends modern architecture with Belfast’s maritime heritage.

Images via Archiseek

The icing on the cake will be the restored Nomadic, built as a tender to Olympic and Titanic, and the last remaining vessel still afloat of the White Star Line.  Images courtesy of Archiseek.

Titanic Murals on the Streets of Belfast

Image by KGGucwa

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Belfast is known for its striking murals, many depicting the sectarian strife that plagued the city for years.  But this one, on Dee Street, shows Captain Edward Smith above Titanic with the famous Harland & Wolff shipyard forming the backdrop.  The caption reads “Nearer My God to Thee” and is dated April 14, 1912 – the fateful night Titanic struck the iceberg.  To the right, the words “Titanic, built in Belfast”, reflect the pride of the city and particularly the shipbuilders of East Belfast.

Titanic in the News – For Better or Worse

Contempory ads and front page news

Watery Grave

Images by Lisa Stone

(Images reproduced with permission of Lisa Stone, mysteriousnovascotia.com)

(Irishmanlost, reproduced with permission)

RMS Titanic is without doubt the most famous ocean liner in history and most of us know how the story ended in 1912 – at the bottom of the North Atlantic, several hundred nautical miles southeast of Newfoundland.  But the story of the Olympic class liner’s birth is less well known, with Titanic‘s life starting out on a now sorry-looking concrete slipway in a Belfast shipyard.

(Image: donnamarijne, cc-sa-3.0)

The Harland and Wolff shipyard where Titanic was built remains active in a reduced capacity.  When the Olympic class liners – Olympic, Titanic and Britannic – were built for the White Star Line, the dream was to rival Cunard’s great liners of the day (Lusitania and Mauretania, the latter holding the Blue Ribband for 22 years from 1907).  While the Cunarders pushed for speed, White Star went for unrivaled luxury, never more so that with Titanic.

(Image: trialsanderrors, cc-3.0)

Titanic and Olympic were built side-by-side adjacent to the former Drawing Office, which, along with the old Harland and Wolff offices, are the only buildings left from 1912.  Though rundown, the Drawing Office remains a beautiful building which reflects the industrial pride of the age.  It has changed little since the Titanic’s day, and it’s even rumoured that priceless blueprints of the famous ships might have been stored in the otherwise abandoned building until recently.

(Image: Calotype46, cc-nc-sa-3.0)

Several decades ago, the shipyard’s main operations were moved to the east side of Queen’s Island in central Belfast, which was deemed more suited to the needs of modern ship building.  As a result, the famous slipways, alongside the Drawing Office, now stand on an abandoned and largely empty strip of land – a far cry from the days when 30,000 men worked at the yard.

(Images: Google Earth (right), Archiseek)

But like other cities gripped by modern redevelopment, this lonely corner of Belfast is set to house an exciting new district known as the Titanic Quarter.  The fully restored slipways and former Drawing Office will form the centre of the scheme, with RMS Nomadic – the last vessel built for White Star Line – preserved alongside.  When it’s complete, the eponymous Titanic Quarter will be a fitting tribute to the iconic liner and the men that built her.

Titanic: The Rise, the Fall and the Birth of a Legend

Belfast’s Historic (& Troubled) “Holy Land”

World Discoverer: The Solomon Islands Cruise Ship Wreck

Ship Graveyards: Abandoned Ships, Boats and Shipyards