Belfast - Choices & Consequences

This past summer my wife and I made a long anticipated trip to Ireland, visiting both countries on the island - the UK province of Northern Ireland and the larger Republic of Ireland.

There was some concern if we would even be able to make the trip due to last-second cold feet by the management of my employer. Good blessings prevailed when they realized someone was going to have to pay for the trip cancellation and neither our trip insurance nor employer wished to cover the loss. Our blessings were multiplied with our daughter, son-in-law, and 4 month old (at that time) granddaughter staying with us for the week just before we left.

We arrived at the Belfast airport early on a Sunday morning, and within 20 minutes of landing we were in the taxi heading for town. Our taxi driver provided us with our first taste of the Irish way of conversing:
   - Us - “Are you from around here”? 
   - Driver – “No, I’m from a little town just north of here”
     (Note – less than 5 miles distant)

Being so early, our hotel room was not ready, so we had a second breakfast at the hotel (first was on the plane) and headed out to explore. The hotel is very close to the Titanic Quarter of town - the area where the offices and shipyards of the company that built the Titanic, Harland & Wolff, are located.

The Titanic Quarter includes an impressive, multi-story museum (as tall as the hull of the Titanic once stood) that tells the story of the lives that built the ship and the human side of the tragedy. But we didn’t spend too much time there because in the Titanic Quarter you can walk amongst and touch the actual offices, shipyard, dry-docks, and other buildings and vessels that were there when Titanic was designed, built, and set sail.


We took a historical, guided walking tour where we peered into the Harland & Wolff drawing rooms where the ship was designed and walked the length of the shipyard where her hull was built and first floated (at the time Titanic was built, Harland & Wolff was the largest shipyard in the world). We saw the massive dry-dock where Titanic and her two sister ships were finished. One of my highlights was touching the great iron dry-dock doors which had been submerged for most of the last century yet still sturdy and impressive today. And lastly I boarded the S.S. Nomadic – the actual tender that ferried passengers, including Margaret “Molly” Brown from the French port of Cherbourg to Titanic just four days before Titanic’s final night. Nomadic has been restored and looks just as she likely looked to the passengers on that spring day 102 years ago. She even sits in same dock where she was built. The restoration included in the 1st class Lounge, a Loo complete with a genuine Thomas Crapper working toilet. And “Yes”, it worked.

While the company which owned Titanic, White Star Line, was of English/American ownership and the crew that sailed the famous ship was nearly all of English nationality, Titanic was built in Ireland by the Irish. For many years Belfast did little to advertise its connection to the great ship – perhaps from shame, perhaps from shock, perhaps embarrassment. It was only after 70 or so years that Belfast seemed to acknowledge its role in the building of history’s most famous and tragic ship. And the building of the Titanic was a role the Irish took pride in. They say in Belfast, “She was fine when she left us.”

In many ways, the reluctance of the Irish for so many years to honor their role in the story of Titanic reminds me of the consequences we all face from decisions we make each day. Usually our poor choices directly lead to harmful, perhaps even tragic consequences. But more often, we are left wondering if the suffering we see around us or to us is from our own choices, or a cascade of many poor choices of which only a few are caused by us.

There are unintended consequences to choices we make. We have to live with that. But we also have to choose how we live with the consequences forced on us by others.

It is true that Titanic could’ve been built better. It is also true its crew could have sailed slower or taken a different course while sailing through high-risk weather and sea conditions. Which decision led most to the deaths of more than 1500 souls?

The Irish in Belfast have chosen to no longer hide from their past but to embrace the good in what they built. The Irish acknowledge that while the ship had flaws, the decisions and work completed in Belfast did not alone sink the Titanic – others made choices that had more significant and direct impact. They have acknowledged their past and have chosen not to bear the shame or guilt brought on by others.

I have made and likely will make decisions with unintended consequences. And I will also live with the consequences caused by the choices of others. My choice will be to acknowledge where I am wrong, seek mercy, and freely give mercy to others.