Another piece of fab unexpected publicity for The Dock this week – an article in PezCycling News. It’s well worth clicking through to read the whole article – as well as calling in for a coffee at The Dock, Gordan followed the entire journey of the Giro through Ireland, North and South, and reflects on the different responses it evoked. Makes me proud to be Belfastian!
Here’s the section concerning The Dock (text and photos by Gordan Cameron):
One part of Belfast that has had a cash injection is the Titanic Quarter and the area around the River Lagan’s east bank. This is the heart of what was the shipbuilding district, where thousands labored on the Titanic among other ships. The Harland and Wolff cranes, Samson and Goliath, still tower into the sky.
Reverend Chris Bennett oversees the Dock Café in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter. This is a brand new venture which symbolises a collaboration between communities for the community. And everything that people drink out of, or sit in, has a story.
“Every mug is fabulous but none of them match! Every chair, every table … I can tell you who’s granny gave us that sofa or who was changing round their dining room and gave that table and chairs. Everything has been donated, and the honesty box ethos isn’t just how you pay for your coffee. It’s in the whole café. People give what they can to support this space and their local community.”
“We’re passionate about good news for Belfast. This is the shape of the city that we’ve been dreaming of and hoping for the last couple of 
decades … this feels like the chance to start again, because this [the Titanic Quarter] was just wasteland ten years ago.”
“This is a brand new community that we’re building together. This café is actually run by the churches working together, Catholic and Protestant, and that’s the global image of Belfast … where Catholics and Protestants are throwing bricks at each other but here we are serving coffees together and the chance to live that out is so exciting for us.”
On a completely unrelated note, has anyone noticed the big change in the Belfast skyline today? No not just the fact that the sky is blue – the Blackford Dolphin has departed Belfast, bound for the North Sea, tracing the same route down Belfast Lough as Titanic and countless other ships before and since…
These photos were all tweeted by various people who watched the Dolphin depart from various vantage points around the city (including the windows of the Drawing Office)… I think we’ll actually miss it!