I’ve got a new favourite spot in the Titanic Quarter.  And it’s got some pretty heavy competition, so you know it’s got to be something really special…

It’s the area at the base of Titanic Belfast now called ‘Slipway Park’ – the very ground where Titanic and Olympic were hammered together under the Arrol Gantries 100 years ago.  Miraculously, many of the features of that time have managed to survive the century pretty-much unscathed – it’s always one of my favourite parts of a Titanic Walking Tour when the walkers gradually realise that those metal tracks on the ground, those scaffolding foundations, the bollard over there, the ramps we’re walking beside… surely not… hang on… but in that picture of Titanic under construction… can it be that we’re walking on exactly the same spot?

It sure can – and as part of the redevelopment of the area, Titanic Belfast’s builders have done a beautiful job of preserving and interpreting the traces of history in the ground.  Really, truly, words can’t express how well it’s been done – you have to see it for yourself.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the Titanic Belfast Building, and all that lies within it – but the slipways are something special.  The old coal-cart tracks still criss-cross the century-old tarmac; the ramps at the heads of the slipways still stand at exactly the angle needed to launch 882-feet of riveted metal into the lough; the foundations of the soaring gantries can be traced in the ground; even the bollard at the water’s edge, visible in one of the most famous photographs of Titanic’s launch, has been perfectly preserved.  (Come on a Dock Walk and I’ll show you where!)

And the work that’s been done to illuminate and interpret the space – lightposts in the places where the gantry legs once stood; an outline of Titanic and Olympic (lit vivid blue at night); a satellite-view of Titanic’s short journey mapped out in lights on the ground; stonework mapping out the schematics of lifeboats, deckhouses and funnels along the length of the ship; areas of grass and decking sized in direct proportion to those lost and saved on Titanic; names etched into glass at the head of the slipways… It is stunning.  At some stage I’ll load more photos of it all to the blog, but it’s no substitute for seeing it all yourself.

And here’s the best thing of all – the slipways are a spiritual place.  By the very nature of what happened there (and what happened next), they provoke a pause for thought.  Even in the week-and-a-bit they’ve been open to the public, it’s not unusual to see people using the area for quiet reflection, space, prayer.  At the conclusion of the Yardmen walk last Sunday, the Belfast Community Gospel Choir filled the slipways with worship music in glorious harmony, and I’ve never seen a space that suited that sound so well.  (And I’ve seen BCGC perform in a church!)  They have the atmosphere of somewhere that could be a place of pilgrimage – even if that pilgrimage is just to walk the length of the ships, lost in thought.

Now I don’t want to over-egg things – after all, we already know that the slipways are also a public park – I’ve seen them used for vintage car rallies, motorbike displays, a balloon release and much more – and an awesome venue for spectacular open-air events like the light-show last Saturday or the MTV concert this Friday  (Although I’ve got to admit – and I’ll be very happy to be proved wrong – that using the space for an MTV bash just 24 hours before the commemoration of the disaster just strikes slightly the wrong note with me…)  Certainly I can’t think of a more awe-inspiring backdrop for the incredible display on Saturday night (and incidentally, was anyone else struck by the thought that as we all streamed home after the event, the Queens Road was filled with thousands of people walking towards home for the first time in decades?)
 But I love the sense that the slipways are something more.  A bit like Dock Cafe, could they be an expression of a new kind of church, a new kind of spiritual space, in the Titanic Quarter.  There aren’t any church buildings yet.  There isn’t even a boat.  But in conversations around the sofas and tables of Dock Cafe, in moments of prayer and meditation on the slipways, on Dock Walks, in choirs on the slipway, in the profoundly moving hopeful-yet-sorrowful-yet-joyful-yet-beautiful mixture of emotions and experiences in this incredible place, God is working.  And it utterly, completely, fills me with joy.