Titanic Memorial Garden

Titanic Memorial Garden. . , Titanic Memorial Garden is a permanent tribute to over 1,500 passengers and crew who died after the ship struck an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic during its maiden voyage in April 1912., When RMS Titanic departed Southampton on 10 April 1912, she was the largest and most luxurious ship ever built. She dropped anchor at Cherbourg in early evening to collect more passengers. Ninety minutes later, Titanic departed for Queenstown (Cobh) on the south coast of Ireland from where, at 1.30 pm on April 11, she set out for New York., The ship had made over 1,500 miles when the first warning of icebergs, five miles to the south, was received on the evening of 14 April. At 11.39 pm an iceberg was spotted ahead but could not be avoided. At 11.40 pm, the iceberg scraped Titanic's hull below the waterline, buckling it in several places so that water flowed into the first six compartments. The ship was fatally damaged., Though the watertight doors were quickly closed, the ship's designer, Thomas Andrews, calculated that Titanic could sink within two hours. Captain Smith ordered the lowering of the lifeboats. Soon after midnight, the first wireless messages for help were transmitted. By 12.25 am passengers were being guided to the lifeboats and 30 minutes later the first lifeboat was lowered into the freezing waters., Distress rockets lit the air and the loading of the lifeboats became more hectic, with desperate efforts being made to get women and children aboard first. Around 2 am the band stopped playing. A survivor, William Murdoch, was quite certain that he heard the band play a final hymn, "Nearer My God To Thee" as the bow slipped below the water. By 2.20 am Titanic had sunk beneath the waves., On the Sunday following the disaster, thousands attended commemorative services in the local churches. At St Anne's Cathedral, the hymn "Nearer My God To Thee" was sung while a collection was taken for widows and orphans of the tragedy. At the Unitarian Church in Comber, home town of the much respected Thomas Andrews, Harland and Wolff's chief designer who perished in the disaster, the Rev. Dunkerly took as his text 'Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends' (John 15:13)., The Ship , Why did the largest, most advanced ship of its time sink? Some claim that Captain Smith was at fault; that he ignored iceberg warnings from his crew and other ships. Others say her builders, Harland and Wolff, were to blame, claiming that rivets used in her construction were made from sub-standard iron. It is also speculated that Bruce Ismay, the Managing Director of the White Star Line, may have put pressure on Captain Smith to maintain the speed of the ship. Whatever the cause, she now lies over 12,000 ft down on the floor of the Atlantic, her debris strewn over a half mile across the sea floor, her bow and the stern nearly 2,000 ft apart., Those Lost , Titanic's 20 lifeboats provided space for barely half the passengers and crew aboard. The ship also carried over 3500 lifebelts and 48 life rings but these were useless in the icy water. The majority of passengers that went into the sea did not drown, but froze to death, succumbing to hypothermia in the icy waters of the North Atlantic. Among the dead were Thomas Andrews and Captain Smith as well as 691 crew. The number of first class passengers lost was 124, with 166 second class and a disproportionate 530 of third class passengers., Titanic Memorial Statue , Overlooking the garden is the Belfast Titanic Memorial, a work by Sir Thomas Brock which was unveiled in June 1920. The statue is both a beautiful work of art and a stark reminder of the terrible loss of life. Nearby stands the Pirrie Memorial, erected initially on his grave in Belfast City Cemetery but restored and moved to its current position in 2006, in honour of William James Pirrie, (1847-1924). Pirrie was chairman of Harland and Wolff, the ship-builders who built Titanic. The Titanic Memorial Plaque bears the names of all those who died as a result of the tragedy., The Survivors , Passengers lucky enough to get into a lifeboat were forced to listen to the dreadful cries of those in the water. Eventually, the cries died down as, one by one, they perished. Ships within a 200-mile area had received Titanic's distress signals, and some began heading towards the doomed ship's last coordinates at full speed. The Carpathia, the only ship to pick up survivors, sighted the first lifeboat at 4:10 am and by 8:30 am on 15 April, all the survivors had been brought aboard. Finally, on 18 April 1912, the surviving passengers and crew of the Titanic disembarked in New York. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , The Titanic Memorial Garden was officially opened on 15 April 2012 , by The Right Honourable, The Lord Mayor, , Councillor Niall Ó Donnghaile , to commemorate the centenary of the sinking of RMS Titanic , and to remember all 1,512 people , who tragically lost their lives that fateful evening..