Titanic's Pump House and Dock

We all walked over to the Titanic's Pump House and Dry Dock. It was just a quick 15 minute walk down the road. 

Harland & Wolff's Gantry

We passed Titantic Studios where many of the scenes are filmed here for Game of Thrones

The Pump-House was once the heart of Harland & Wolff's operation during the construction of the great White Star Liners - Britannic, Olympic, and the famous Titanic. The Pump House has the original equipment used for the Titanic to empty the massive dry dock.

The Pump House

These massive pumping engines could drain 21 million gallons of
water from the Titanic's Dock in just 100 minutes. The pumps are 40 feet down almost
matching the bottom of the dock. Thee pumps were powered by steam. 

The control desk was nicknamed "The Piano" and used to operate the speed of the
pumps after they converted to electricity in the 1950's.

After the Titanic was built it was brought to the dry dock where it was fitted out. The ships boilers, funnels, and other machinery were added. It was fitted with propellers and her hull was painted and inspected. The state rooms and cabins were also fitted out.

the dry dock was HUGE

Here is a picture side by side of what it looks like now and when the Titanic was in the dock. 

This is one of the penstock filling valves. The valves were opened slowly 
so that the dock was filled with water gradually to the level of the Belfast Lough. 
It only took two hours to fill it.

the worker's stairs

the tourist's stairs

These are the original keel blocks that the Titanic rested on in the dock

Titanic's keel blocks

the Titanic's hull rested on the keel blocks

These are the railroad tracks that brought in the equipment for the ship

Where is Mom C and MC?

We walked back to the museum and checked out the slipway where the Titanic and Olympic were actually built before it went over to the dry dock to get fitted. You can explore the life size plan of the Titanic's promenade deck which was inlaid in white stone. 

View of the Titanic slipway on the left and Olympic on the right

Names of those who died on the Titanic

This is what the slipway is supposed to look like at night

It was neat to see all these sights of actual places where the Titanic had been. All of these sites were literally in ruins and in the last 5 years they have cleaned them up and turned them into tourist attractions. The city wanted to do something big for the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's sinking. 

We drove around downtown Belfast for a little bit to show Mom C and MC the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. 

Then we started the drive back to Dublin. I thought I was going south on the "big" highway but apparently I was going west. For some long reason I was ignoring the Garmin because I thought it was not recognizing the "big" highway, etc. Long story! When I realized this we were right outside of Armagh. 

When Christianity spread to Ireland during the mid-400's, Armagh became the "ecclesiastical capital", as St. Patrick established his main church there. Armagh was founded by St. Patrick and 12 men appointed by him help build the town. He ordered them to build a church for the monks, nuns, and the other orders. St. Malachy is an Irish saint and Archbishop of Armagh (1094-1148). He was the first native born Irish saint to be canonized. He was from Armagh.

There are two big cathedrals in Armagh both called St. Patrick's, one is the Church of Ireland (England) and the other is Roman Catholic. Obviously the Catholic one was built in the late 1800's because the Protestants took the original one. We drove around and found the Catholic cathedral which was really pretty but we really wanted to see the Church of Ireland's cathedral because that is where all the history is. We had a really hard time finding it..many one way streets, etc. 

St. Patrick's Cathedral (Church of Ireland)

It was on this hilltop which St. Patrick built his first "Great Stone Church", around a monastic community.  Apparently in Downpatrick another town in the north claims that St. Patrick built his first church there, so here they say the first "great stone church". After the death of St. Patrick, St. Cormac, one of his successors as Bishop of Armagh, made this church the center of a monastic settlement. It attracted students from all over Europe. By the 12th century, only those who had studied at Armagh were permitted to teach theology. 

The church itself has been destroyed and rebuilt 17 times. There were many attacks from Vikings (1000-1200). So the church is definitely not the same from when St. Patrick was alive. Unfortunately the church was closed when we arrived so we were not able to see inside. Bummer!

We finally arrived back in Dublin after taking the "long cut" through Armagh. I think we sat down for dinner at 8pm and we were all starving (as usual). We went to Johnny Rocket's which as you know one of my children's favorite restaurants. We had a nice "last" dinner all together. We had lots of fun questions for everyone - favorite thing in Ireland, least favorite, etc. It was fun! 

After dinner we dropped Mom C and MC off at the airport hotel for their last night. I then did the car return routine - drop the car off and took a taxi back to the house. 

The next morning we got up and we all drove to the airport to say goodbye to Mom C and MC. They took a big suitcase back for me...which I packed so well at exactly 50 lbs! It was hard to say goodbye but we knew we only had 4 weeks left until we were home sweet home! We all had a great trip together and I hope Mom C and  MC had a great first trip to Ireland (besides the burning clutch, stuck in a roundabout, and rain, and rain)! It was wonderful to show them around "the island" and their motherland.