The Debasing of Myth: The Privatization of Titanic Memory in Designing the ‘Post-conflict’ City

This article argues that the newly relaunched ‘Belfast Titanic story’ puts too much emphasis on extravagant claims for the real ship Titanic and thereby overly commercializes design and other public space issues in Belfast such that the Titanic of representation and its profound mythic status in western culture is debased. This reality in a ‘post-conflict’ city, where an ethnic war of attrition between competing identity claims forecloses mature cultural dialogue, is regretted.