Talk to explore Titanic's Irish connections

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OFFICE OF NEWS&PUBLICATIONS
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The Titanic sank in April 1912, but interest in the luxury ship remains unsinkable. The link the ship has with the Irish will be explored Thursday, Nov. 6, when Edward M. Fennell presents a lecture on “The Titanic: The Irish Connection” at 7:30 p.m. in the Recital Hall of the Fine Arts Center on the University of North Florida campus.

Fennell’s free lecture is part of the John Francis Reilly Irish Studies Performance and Lecture Series.

“The Titanic was an Irish-built ship. She was designed there. The people that built her had been in business about 40 years before the Titanic and are still in business now,” Fennell said. “No Irish, no Titanic.”

His interest in ships comes from his Irish father, who told stories about his year in Scotland as an apprentice in a shipyard. Fennell’s father had moved to Scotland at age 15 and then to the United States, where he continued shipyard work until the Depression.
Fennell’s education as an engineer also helps him to better understand what went wrong with the ship.

“It’s a fascinating field, and you begin to acquire an interest in it,” Fennell said of his maritime research.

Fennell, who has lived in Jacksonville since 1999, has done some research overseas.

"Titanic was a twofold tragedy,” he said. “On one hand, there was the terrible loss of human life. On the other, we have a ship which took two years to build, cost $135 million in current dollars and lived for only 15 days."

- UNF -