AFTER THE TITANIC They said I got away in a boat And humbled me at the inquiry. I tell you I sank as far that night as any Hero. As I sat shivering on the dark water I turned to ice to hear my costly Life go thundering down in a pandemonium of Prams, pianos, sideboards, winches, Boilers bursting and shredded ragtime. Now I hide In a lonely house behind the sea Where the tide leaves broken toys and hat-boxes Silently at my door. The showers of April, flowers of May mean nothing to me, nor the Late light of June, when my gardener Describes to strangers how the old man stays in bed On seaward mornings after nights of Wind, takes his cocaine and will see no-one. Then it is I drown again with all those dim Lost faces I never understood. My poor soul Screams out in the starlight, heart Breaks loose and rolls down like a stone. Include me in your lamentations. -- Derek Mahon (b. Belfast 1941) The "unsinkable" "Titanic," a British steamer of the White Star Line built in Belfast at HARLAND and WOLFF, sank on the night of April 14-15, 1912, during its first trip from England to New York City after striking an iceberg, the collision having torn a gash in its hull. Those aboard ranged from the most well-to-do on holiday to the immigrant family hoping for a better life in America. The lifeboats had room for less than half of the approximately 2,200 persons, and took on mostly women and children, mostly from first class. The ship sank in about 2-1/2 hours. The liner "Carpathia" picked up 705 survivors; several women later wrote a letter thanking the captain of the "Carpathia" for the rescue. The "Titanic" had been the largest ship in the world. The British inquiry reported 1,490 dead, the British Board of Trade, 1,503, and the USA 1,517. Employing virtually only Protestants - HARLAND and WOLFF, shipbuilders (as well as SHORT Brothers, aircraft manufacturers of Shorts flying boats, cutting edge of civil aviation in the 1930s and their Sunderlands, a vital element in anti-submarine warfare in the 1940s) represented something unique in the north - a level of technical and industrial activity which the south of Ireland could not begin to rival.