A remarkable video including rare and previously unreleased footage reveals some of the first ever views of the wreck of the Titanic.

As the Belfast Telegraph reports, the feature-length posting on the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s YouTube channel comprises uncut footage from a 1986 expedition to the site led by Robert Ballard, just months after the RMS Titanic’s final resting place was found.

The oceanographic team famously explored the site with a three-person submarine named Alvin, and captured images of its interior with and ROV called Jason Jr.

In a statement accompanying the film, Hollywood director and noted deep-sea exploration enthusiast James Cameron said: “By releasing this footage, WHOI is helping tell an important part of a story that spans generations and circles the globe.”

The Belfast Telegraph has more on the story HERE.

Harold Cottam was a 21-year old radio operator who was on duty on the night of April 14th, 1912 on board passenger ship RMS Carpathia when he received a Morse code message he would never forget.

Nor would the world, for Cottam was the telegraphist who picked up the first distress call from the RMS Titanic.

The RMS Carpathia was about four hours away from the Titanic, and steaming in the opposite direction towards the Mediterranean.

Its captain Arthur Rostron, changed course – which meant heading for ice - and took a number of measures to increase speed while ordering the crew to prepare food, blankets and medical care for any survivors.

The lesser-known story of the Carpathia’s role in rescuing 705 Titanic survivors has been recalled by Belfast author and illustrator Flora Delargy, whose grandfather and great grandfather both worked in the Belfast Shipyards where the Titanic was built.

Morse code, navigation tools, the different roles of the crew, how the ships found each other, and by-the-minute details of exactly what happened on this cold and fateful night are reflected in her illustrated text, which has received critical claim from British publication The Bookseller.

Incidentally, the Carpathia, a Cunard Line passenger steamship, was sunk six years later on July 17th 1918 off the south Irish coast after being torpedoed three times by German submarine U-55.

Flora Delargy spoke to Wavelengths about her debut publication, and you can listen below

A new illustrated story of quiet bravery tells in detail how the little ship Carpathia saved 705 passengers of the Titanic from the icy waters of the North Atlantic.

The intrepid little ship heroically changed course and headed straight into the frozen sea to help save as many people as it could.

Along the journey, you will learn all about Morse code, navigation tools, the different roles of the crew, how the ships found each other, and by-the-minute details of exactly what happened on this cold and fateful night.

Flora Delargy is an author and illustrator from Belfast who loves to bring to life true tales and events from the past. Her grandfather and great grandfather both worked in the Belfast Shipyards where the Titanic was built.

Deep down, four miles beneath the surface of the North Atlantic, the wreck of Titanic is dying as Nature "takes it back to itself."

So says Irish diver Rory Golden who is taking part in the current expedition to the wreck site using the newest submersible in the world, Titan. But, he says, the part of the tragic liner most remembered by the public will survive – the bow.

Submerisible Titan on the surface at the wreck site

That has evocative memories for me as I outline on this week's Podcast with Rory Golden.

The expedition has been eleven years in preparation by the privately-owned USA company, OceanGate, which was founded in 2009 with the aim of increasing access to the deep ocean. It required a lot of discussion with the Canadian authorities before the expedition was allowed proceed.

Seabed image from Titanic site Photo: Rory Golden

Podcast here.

Dublin Bay diver Rory Golden will join the 2021 Titanic Survey Expedition starting in May going back to the wreck after a gap of 16 years, and taking part in a “sea bed” breaking scientific expedition.

Golden has over 44 years of dive experience and played key roles in Titanic expeditions and dives in 2000 and 2005.

Citizen explorers, known as Mission Specialists, will work hand-in-hand with Golden and other scientific, archaeological, and oceanographic experts throughout the expedition.

“I will never forget the first time I saw the Titanic. We were travelling along the flat ocean floor towards the ship and we came upon a wall of mud,” recalls Rory Golden. “We were at the forward section, near the bow, and we slowly rose up a steel wall that was covered in rivets and rusticles. Eventually we ascended over the top and there she was. It was a rush of emotion. She is massive and awe-inspiring. You are excited, amazed, and, at the same time, you feel a deep sadness for all those lost. It is unlike anything else I have experienced in over 40 years of diving. In the five short years between my dives to the Titanic the changes were dramatic. I’m anxious to bear witness to the deep ocean’s impact on this historic sight,” says Golden.

The bow of the Titanic Photo: Rory Golden

Rory is highly regarded in the dive and Titanic communities. As a member of the Explorers Club and Vice Chair of the Great Britain and Ireland Chapter, he has been an active explorer, diver, and researcher dedicated to the preservation of Titanic history. We are proud and excited to welcome him to our expeditionary team for the 2021 Titanic Survey Expedition,” says Stockton Rush, President, OceanGate Expeditions. “His knowledge and previous documentation of this revered shipwreck will help us navigate the features of the wreck site and assess how quickly the wreck is decaying,” continues Rush.

Six missions scheduled for Summer 2021 will mark the inaugural expedition of a multi-year effort to preserve Titanic history for future generations and document the rate of decay of the important site. Using an array of high-resolution 4K cameras, a laser scanner, and sonar equipment, OceanGate Expeditions’ team will create a fully explorable photorealistic virtual 3-D model of the site.

Each participating citizen scientist will embark on 8-days at sea as a Mission Specialist crewmember and make one untethered 8 to 10-hour submersible dive as part of a 5-person team (sub pilot, subject matter expert, three mission specialists).

Each submersible dive team will spend several hours exploring the renowned Titanic wreck-site. The Summer 2021 Expedition schedule runs late-May through mid-July.

For the first time in 15 years, paying guests will soon be taken nearly four kilometres beneath the ocean’s surface to visit the wreck of the RMS Titanic.

According to Bloomberg, a company called OceanGate Expeditions will launch its dive expeditions and research missions next May using a privately owned five-person mini-submarine.

And already more than 30 eager explorers have signed up at $125,000 (€105,260) apiece for the privilege of getting close to the remains of the ill-fated, Belfast-built ocean liner, which struck and iceberg in the North Atlantic in 1912 just days after her last port of call in Cobh.

While the planned deepwater voyages are for profit, the company insists that research is at their heart, and paying guests will take on the role of citizen scientists as they assist in a technical survey of the wreck site.

Bloomberg has much more on the story HERE.

Old Ireland in Colour celebrates the rich history of Ireland and the Irish through the colour restoration of stunning images of all walks of Irish life, and the Irish abroad, throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From the chaos of the Civil War to the simple beauty of the islands, the book also includes retouched photos of RMS Titanic leaving Belfast Port. Each image has been exquisitely transformed and every page is bursting with life.

Old Ireland in Colour started in 2019 when John Breslin developed an interest in historic photo colourisation, enhancement and restoration through personal genealogical research. He began to
colourise old family photos – photos of his grandparents from Fanore in Co. Clare and Glenties in Co. Donegal. Using a combination of cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology and his own historical research, John moved from family photographs to photographs of Galway and Connemara, and then on to others taken across the island of Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

On board the Titanic

A first-class cabin interior on the Titanic

After a few months, the Old Ireland in Colour project was born. For this beautiful book, John has meticulously colourised a varied and fascinating selection of images, with breath-taking attention to detail and authenticity. With photographs from all four provinces, and accompanied by fascinating captions by historian Sarah-Anne Buckley, Old Ireland in Colour revitalises scenes we thought we knew, and brings our past back to life before our eyes.

The front cover of the Old Ireland in Colour book that is out now

John Breslin is a Professor at NUI Galway, where he has taught engineering, computer science and entrepreneurship over a twenty-year period. Dr Sarah-Anne Buckley is a lecturer in History at NUI Galway and President of the Women’s History Association of Ireland. She is co-founder of the Irish Centre for the Histories of Labour and Class.

Irish deep-sea diver Rory Golden is providing expertise to a new expedition to the Titanic which aims to recover the Marconi radio from the wreck, The Sunday Times reports.

The wireless Marconi telegraph was instrumental in saving more than 705 passengers from freezing Atlantic waters when the ship sank after striking an iceberg off Newfoundland in April 1912 with the loss of almost 1500 lives.

As Afloat reported previously, the ambitious project to retrieve the most famous marine radio in the world from 2.5 miles down in the Atlantic has finally secured legal approval.

The new expedition planned by RMS Titanic Inc, the salvor-in-possession, will be led by Dr David Gallo and French former naval officer Paul Henri Nargeolet.

Dublin-based Golden, who was the first Irish diver to visit the wreck site in almost 4,000 metres of water, has been engaged as a consultant to the company which has recovered over 5,500 artefacts in eight previous expeditions.

The former managing director of Virgin Records Ireland was dive safety operations manager for the Operation Titanic 2000 project which recovered 800 items - including the main ship’s wheel which he spotted. He returned in 2005 for a second dive, which was recorded in a BBC documentary.

In March 2013 he was a member of the team sponsored by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos which salvaged five Apollo F-1 rocket engines from 4200 metres in the North Atlantic, including one from Apollo 11 which launched a man to the moon in 1969.

Golden’s participation is one of several Irish connections to the new diving expedition which is expected to cost at least 10 million US dollars.

A Mayo community’s support for the new venture also helped to secure recently approved US Admiralty Court permission for it.

A letter to the US Admiralty Court from Addergoole Titanic Society director Toss Gibbons, secretary Mary Rowland and public relations officer Frank Gibbons urged that it would “give its blessing” to RMS Titanic Inc to undertake the expedition. The society remembers 11 of the ship’s fatalities from the Mayo village of Laherdane and surrounding area.

“We spent a lot of time in Ireland, in Belfast and with the folks in Addergoole to put a plan together which would satisfy the court,” RMS Titanic Inc president Bretton Hunchak said.

The recovery of the Marconi telegraph is crucial to understanding “the story of all of the survivors”, Hunchak explained.

The Marconi Telegraph room as seen from the top of the Titanic Photo: Rory Golden

“Ultimately, the Marconi radio system remains an unsung hero, responsible for countless generations of families that exist only because the radio cried out on behalf of their ancestors,” he said.

“ For that reason, we must recover this incredible piece of history, to rescue the radio that saved 705 lives from being taken from the world that fateful night."

The hatch to the Marconi Room Photo: Rory Golden

Hunchak said the original plan for the expedition was within a weather window between June and August of this year, and that might still take place.

“Obviously, with the Covid-19 pandemic, we have questions now and will make a decision on timing very shortly,” he said.

“The Marconi telegraph is recognisable, from our underwater photography, but if we recover it there will be considerable conservation required before we can take it around the world as part of our exhibition of artefacts,” he said.

Golden said the project was “fraught with a lot of unknown and known variables, such as the condition of the roof area, the wreck itself, currents, visibility” and other factors, but has “a very good chance of succeeding”.

The wreck of the Titanic was discovered by Dr Robert Ballard and Jean Louis Michel in a joint US/ French expedition on September 1st, 1985, some 963 miles northeast of New York and 453 miles southeast of the Newfoundland coastline.

More on the Sunday Times report here

An ambitious project to retrieve the most famous marine radio in the world from 2.5 miles down in the Atlantic has finally secured legal approval. The saving of the Marconi radio which sent out the distress signals from the sinking Titanic after she'd struck a North Atlantic iceberg en route to New York on 14th April 1912 has finally been given approval in a US court. And if the project is successful, it will be a very tangible reminder of a special link between Belfast and Dublin.

The Titanic was built in Belfast in a massive seven-year project between 1907 and 1912, and towards its conclusion, her legendary “Radio Shack” was installed with the latest in marine radios from the Marconi company. The company was founded and its best ideas provided by Gugliemo Marconi, whose father was Italian, but whose mother was Annie Jameson of the long-established Dublin whiskey-distilling company, a family renewed for their long and successful association with sailing.

This had been underlined in 1904 when the young Marconi’s new invention was used to transmit sailing results for the first time ever from an event afloat to national newspaper, the event being the regatta of Royal St George Yacht Club in Dublin Bay. The Jameson family had been closely associated with the club since at least the 1840s, and possibly since its formation in 1838.

The Guardian has the story of the proposed radio retrieval here

Make mine a Jameson……radio pioneer Gugliemo Marconi definitely had the look of one of the more serious Jamesons, which is not surprising as his mother Annie was of the famous Dublin whiskey-distilling family

At the end of the 500 metre Titanic Walkway which connects the Titanic and Olympic Slipways to the Alexandra Dock in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter, proudly sits The Great Light, a curved glass interpretive structure designed to resemble a lighthouse lantern room. The lens inside began life atop the lighthouse on Tory Island and in the 1920s replaced the Mew Island light on one of the three Copeland Islands off the North Down Coast. It’s journey to the Walkway was by helicopter, the ILV Granuaile and a store in Dun Laoghaire.

The Copelands lie on the south side of the North Channel, and posed a great danger to shipping, especially when trade in and out of Belfast Harbour increased. Over three hundred years ago the first Lighthouse was built on Lighthouse Island but as Mew Island was more difficult to see, especially at night, a new one was built there in 1884.

In the 1920s the Mew Island light was reported to be flashing irregularly so in 1928 it was replaced with eight of the lens panels from the Hyper - Radial Optic on Tory and it is this light which has earned a place in the world-famous Titanic Quarter.

The Great Light, at seven feet tall, is one of the largest optics of its kind in the world and weighs 10 tonnes. This irreplaceable heritage object is hugely significant to Belfast’s economic, maritime and industrial past.

By the 21st century, advanced light technology meant the lighthouse’s huge lens was no longer needed and in 2014 they were replaced by solar panels, a LED light, a radar beacon and AIS.

Recognising the Light’s historical importance, the Titanic Foundation charity was awarded funding for saving, restoring and displaying the optic, and with the help of many organisations including the Commissioners of Irish Lights who contributed and restored the optics, Belfast Harbour who donated the site and the Titanic Quarter who provided the Walkway, the Great Light can now be viewed by the public.

During sixteen weeks work in 2015, many parts were helicoptered to the Granuaile, the heaviest parts were towed under a buoy to the ship and the Irish Lights vessel took all the optic’s parts to Dun Laoghaire. Finally, the site was opened in November 2018 and with free public access, it tells the story of lighthouses, their technological development, the keeper and their role in the maritime and industrial history of Belfast and Ulster.