Belfast remembers Blitz victims of 1941

Belfast remembers Blitz victims of 1941

Nearly 70 years after Belfast was bombed in World War II, the city has its first memorial to nearly a thousand people who died in the Blitz.

The city suffered its greatest disaster in the raids in April 1941, and in years afterward people avoided talking about it, John Hughes, spokesman for the Northern Ireland War Memorial, said Friday.

"Perhaps it was a bit like the Titanic, where for many years they didn't want to be associated with failure," Hughes said, recalling that the Titanic was built in the city. "But we have lit the candle and I hope it will burn for a little while and encourage people to come and see it."

The memorial, which was formally dedicated on Thursday, is a 5-foot-high (1.5-meter-high) bronze relief by Carolyn Mulholland, an artist born in Northern Ireland. Her parents' home was among those damaged in the attack.

There are human shapes in the relief, some only in outline to represent those who died. The figures stand in a mass of fallen planks.

A thousand people died and hundreds were injured, Belfast's docks and shipyards were destroyed, and 15,000 people were made homeless.

"The Blitz was the single greatest catastrophe ever to occur in Belfast in one incident," Hughes said.

 

Cheers for that

 

thanks for sharing.

belfast deserves to be hounerd,they help britain alot and got bomb to death,good city to be freinds with.

 

*bumped for an update*

"Three buoys have been removed from a Belfast city centre square to make way for a new Blitz memorial.
The buoys sat at the centre of Cathedral Gardens, known locally as Buoys Park, beside St Anne's Cathedral for 36 years.
They were removed on Monday ahead of the installation of a new memorial to those who lost their lives in the Belfast Blitz.
Belfast City Council agreed earlier this month to the memorial to the people who died during a series of Luftwaffe bombing raids in April and May 1941. Around 1,000 lost their lives.
A council spokeswoman said the buoys are to be repainted before being installed at Abercorn Basin in the Titanic Quarter in the spring."
www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/buoys-make-way-for-memorial-to-belfast-blitz-37762852.html?fbclid=IwAR2vkeecLD2x13A3FLRlTij2QLOkwfjJOYRcufaOZGTUbYYENlfe_N6P_a8