TITANIC WAS FINE WHEN SHE LEFT HERE

The pier still stands - but barely - in Cobh, Ireland where passengers gathered to board RMS Titanic on its last stop before heading to New York City.

By Pat Brennan.

Mariners are a superstitious lot.

They’re not keen on having women on board; they don’t like carrying bananas as cargo or supplies; they avoid setting sail on Thursdays (Thor’s day, the god of storms); no whistling permitted, never change a boat’s name and don’t hire redheads.

And yet, they have no concerns about sailing into this port on Ireland’s south coast – despite its role in two of history’s greatest maritime disasters.

On April 11, 1912, RMS Titanic sailed from this port – also known as Cove (Cobh is its Gaelic name) - to start its maiden voyage to the new world. Three days later a large iceberg assured it a place in world history.

Only tree years later, mariners ashore in Cobh could see the distress flares and hear the radio calls for help from RMS. Lusitania, a regular visitor to Cobh, as she sank only 20 kilometres off shore after being torpedoed by a German submarine during World War One.

Lusitania took 1,198 of her 1,959 passengers and crew down with her and of the 123 passengers who boarded the Titanic at the mouth of Cobh harbor, only 44 returned to this port. The others joined 1,500 fellow passengers and crew in eternity.

The waiting room for Titanic's first-class passengers is now a luxury restaurant called Titanic in Cobh (also known as Cove). The Maitre D' will send a Titanic vehicle to fetch diners from their hotels.

With nearly 3,000 souls lost in only two maritime mishaps involving Cobh, you would think sailors would try to avoid this harbor like the scourge. Yet, Cobh is one of Europe’s busiest cruise ports.

Seventy six large cruise vessels pulled in here last year and the 8,200 locals have no trouble handling the hordes of visitors coming down the gangplank. Most passengers board buses and trains and head further upstream to Cork or Dublin, but many put on their walking shoes and learn the fascinating history of this small town.

Some come here to trace their family’s heritage.

More than 6 million Irish emigrated from this island between 1848 and 1950 to North America and Australia and 2.5 million of them shipped out from this port. Ship captains kept meticulous records of who they had on board and many of their log books are preserved in the local museum – a retired church.

Years after they safely reached the other side, many lonely Irish still talked about their last sight of Ireland. It was the tall steeple on the Cobh Cathedral.

The huge Catholic church sits at the town’s highest point overlooking Cobh Harbour - also known as Cork Harbour. The 49 bells in its towering steeple compose one of Europe’s largest carillons.

Ironically, Robert Browne, bishop of the cathedral in 1912, is the reason there are at least 1,000 excellent photos of the posh life aboard Titanic before its demise. He had given his nephew Francis Browne, a Jesuit seminarian, a birthday gift of a two-day cruise on the Titanic from Southampton to Cobh via Cherbourg, France.

Young Browne was a prolific photographer. He shot 1,000 photos of Titanic and her inhabitants during his short trip. And he was apparently a charming dinner companion. A wealthy American family sharing his table offered to pay his way to America and home if he would continue to sit with them.

Browne immediately telegraphed his bishop/uncle asking permission to carry on. He got back a terse reply. “Get off that ship.”

Browne and his photographs survived that cruise, but most people didn’t. He became a military chaplin, was wounded five times at the Battle of The Somme and Ypres, plus shot thousands of excellent photographs around the world, many of them classics today.

The dock where Browne got off the Titanic while others went aboard still stands on the Cobh waterfront today, but it’s too treacherous to stand on. The waterfront offices of White Star Line that owned the Titanic is now a museum and popular restaurant called – The Titanic.

Little has change in this port since the Titanic sailed away and the Lusitania went down just off shore. You can still see where the Titanic passengers embarked and where the Lusitania wounded were treated and or buried in the local churchyard.

Very emotional statues in the town’s core tell the story of both famous ships. Thousands of visitors still come ashore each summer right through the terminal buildings where millions headed out to new lives across the sea.

And it’s all recorded for your education and amusement.

One interesting statue on the waterfront tells the story of an unusual little boat made of animal skins with which Ireland’s Saint Brendan The Navigator explored the lands of the North Atlantic.

Some historians and story tellers claim St. Brendan in his leather boat arrived in North America 500 years before the Vikings got out of bed.