WORLD’S BIGGEST SHIPYARD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 June 1940, Page 2

WORLD’S BIGGEST SHIPYARD

EMPLOYING 20,000 HANDS. WORK OF BELFAST. The greatest shipyard in the world, in Northern Ireland, is now working to capacity and employing over 20,000 people. Few outside the British Isles realise the great part Northern Ireland is playing in Britain’s wartime industry, including the production of “peaceful” goods for export all over the world. The famous Irish linen industry, for example, is now manufacturing solely for overseas customers. Mention of shipbuilding is usuallyl associated with thoughts of Tyneside, Merseyside and Clydeside (which produced the Queen Mary) yet much of Britain’s mercantile prestige was born on an Irish mudbank, in Belfast Lough. Ships have been built at Blefast since 1630, and the world’s greatest yard is now Harland and Wolff’s, at Queen’s Island. The word “island" was used because the earliest shipyards were little more than a waterbound patch of mud. After 200 years of minor developments. Edward .lames Harland, a very determined Briton, arrived in 1858 and began large-scale expansion works. Harland’s difficulties in reclaiming land and carving a harbour and extended shipyards from the mudbands, were so great that ho was advised to give it up. .

“I have mounted a restive horse and I will ride it into the stable,” was his reply, and his faith in himself and in the inherited skill of the Ulstermen working under him was justified. Although passenger and merchant shipping is Belfast’s speciality, it has also turned its hands to work successfully for the Admiralty, whose confidence it enjoys today.