Sinking Like The Titanic

Yesterday's Twelfth of July festival of sectarianism resulted in some of the worst rioting in Belfast in a very long time.

While the Orange Order complained about being compared to the Ku Klux Klan and claimed that Protestants were facing ethnic cleansing in the north of Ireland, the Real IRA let everyone know that they haven't gone away.

People tend to fly off the handle when the economy is bad, jobs are being lost and the unemployed have little more to do than toss petrol bombs and rocks.

Ambitious plans to turn the Twelfth of July into "Orangefest" and make it a fun-filled tourist attraction have fallen as flat as another project that has gone nowhere.

Back when a film reminded everyone of the tragedy that was the Titanic, the movers and shakers of Belfast figured out that such an interest would translate into tourists flocking to the old Harland and Wolff site to see where the doomed ocean liner was constructed.

Like all public works projects, this one was done by committee and there should be little wonder that the papers are not all signed, sealed and delivered.

The Titanic Quarter would bring new life to the empty dockyard. The Titanic Signature Project would bring in millions of pounds in revenue, with a huge exhibit of ship-related artifacts and history, all up and running in time for the 2012 centenary of the sinking.

Belfast City Council won't sign until the Northern Executive and the Belfast Harbour Commissioners sign the agreement for the funding and operating of the Titanic Quarter. No one, it seems, wants to go first. No one wants to be seen as rushing in, should the multi-million pound project turn out to be a fiasco.

At the present rate, it is estimated that there isn't much chance that the Titanic Quarter will be operational by 2012, not when construction has yet to begin in the middle of 2009.

No one is saying what the problem is, exactly, or why the various political entities won't make it legal. Is there a problem with allowing Catholics into the old Harland and Wolff shipyard? So difficult to break with tradition, and isn't it all about tradition in Belfast?