Madam, – Congratulations to The Irish Times(Weekend Review and LifeFeatures May 28th-31st) for the splendid series of features, capped with a handsome poster, marking the centenary of the launch of the Titanic. It is very moving to contrast the joy that attended the launch with the devastating shock of the sinking less than 11 months later.
We might consider for a moment the approach taken by the White Star Line in the naming of the three mammoth additions to its fleet a century ago. To capture the grandeur of the vision, the sheer scale and opulence of the super-liners, the company turned for inspiration to Greek mythology.
The first to be built, the Olympic, was named after the family of deities believed to have resided in the clouds above Mt Olympus in Thessaly. The second, the Titanic, paid homage to the powerful Titans, the elder gods who preceded the Olympians.
Their battle with Zeus, the supreme ruler on Olympus, resulted in defeat and banishment to Tartarus, a place of torment below the underworld. The third vessel, to be named the Gigantic, owed its name to the Gigantes, the race of giants who rose up against the Olympians, but faring no better than the Titans before them were likewise condemned to the gloom of Tartarus.
No one is suggesting that the name it was given had the slightest bearing on the fate of the Titanic; clearly such is not the case. But the identification of the ship with the losing players in a mythological battle for supremacy, with mighty beings plunged into the abyss, does not appear an auspicious choice.
When the Titanicwas lost, the Gigantic, still under construction, was hastily renamed. The White Star Line, in light of the enormity of the calamity, opted for the surer footing of national pride and patriotism, and launched the vessel in 1914 as the Britannic. The thinking behind the assigning of names to the Olympic class liners was flawed, and emblematic of the complacency and misplaced confidence that lie at the heart of the Titanictragedy. – Yours, etc,