Find out how Belfast became on of the most important shipbuilding cities in the world - and built the world's most famous ship. The events that led to the partition of Ireland Find out more about ...

Already an established industrial heavyweight of international standing, the Northern Ireland port city of Belfast had acquired a new speciality by the end of the 19th century - shipbuilding.

However, it persisted until the early 20th Century through smaller outbreaks and looked set to bring devastation to Ireland, particularly Dublin.