THE MOOD turned solemn in Belfast at the weekend as the city remembered the human cost of the Titanic sinking.
Church services, candle-lit processions and reflective works of art marked the exact date, 100 years ago, when the doomed liner met her fate and became a watery grave for more than 1,500 people.
Even the new Belfast museum – the site of much fanfare since it opened last month – turned quiet, with low-key events designed to remember those who lost their lives.
An inter-faith service yesterday morning at Belfast City Hall saw the unveiling of a commemorative plaque in the new Titanic memorial garden.
A large work in bronze, it is unique among Titanic memorials for listing every person who died, including the musicians and the crew. Unlike other commemorations, it does not categorise the victims into first-class/second-class passengers, but simply lists them alphabetically.
Speaking at the ceremony, Belfast’s lord mayor Niall Ó Donnghaile said it was a time to remember “all who had perished”.
“This is a place to remember them,” he said. “Here, they are not just numbers, not just a collective. Here they are remembered as individuals with different stories to tell.”
About the same time yesterday morning, composer Philip Hammond’s Titanic Requiem was being performed at Mass in St Peter’s Cathedral, after being given its world premiere the previous evening in an atmospheric ceremony at St Anne’s Cathedral.
Three years in the making, the requiem was inspired, Dr Hammond said, by the musicians who “stayed for the last moments and went down with the ship”.
He had an image of the liner “at the bottom of the sea, in total silence, total darkness. And these souls floating around the ship.” His requiem aimed to convey the fragility of that image, but also a sense of hope, tracing “a movement from darkness into light, the darkness of death into the lightness of understanding”.
At both performances, the stirring choral sections of the work were sung by the Belfast Philharmonic Society, Dublin-based choral group Anúna, the Schola Cantorum of St Peter’s Cathedral and Belfast chamber choir Cappella Caeciliana. Belfast-born mezzo soprano Jacqueline Horner and the US-based Anonymous Four also performed.
Spoken-word sections featured readings from Belfast author Glenn Patterson while a set of wordless meditations were performed by the Fidelio Trio, led by Belfast native, violinist Darragh Morgan.
After Saturday night’s ceremony at St Anne’s Cathedral, members of the congregation joined a torch-lit procession to the Titanic memorial at Belfast City Hall to remember the moment, exactly 100 years before, when disaster had struck.
Also on Saturday evening, a sound and visual installation called Water Night got under way at the new Titanic Belfast visitor centre.
Produced by Grammy winner Eric Whitacre and featuring a “virtual” choir made up of voices from all around the world and delicate, appropriately floaty images transposed on to the museum building, it received its world premiere at 11.40pm, the exact time the Titanic struck an iceberg on April 14th, 1912, before eventually sinking at 2.20am the following day.
Tim Husbands, chief executive of Titanic Belfast, said it was fitting to remember the human story of the ship as well as to celebrate Belfast’s central place in her history. He said: “Titanic was an engineering spectacle but she is also the final resting place for over 1,500 souls.
“Over the past few years and weeks we’ve had the privilege to work with and meet descendants of those who worked on Titanic, and those who survived and perished. This is their time.”