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Introducing: Titanic: Ship of Dreams - Episode 1

April 9, 2025·52 min·4 clips

Belfast engine builder Tommy Miller signed up to sail on Titanic just three months after his wife died of tuberculosis, seeking a fresh start in America.

The episode opens with a brief preview of the series before placing the listener at Titanic's launch in Belfast on 31 May 1911, where J.P. Morgan watches as the 900-foot hull slides into the Lagan in 62 seconds. Simultaneously, shipwright James Dobbin is fatally crushed under a timber support — Titanic's first victim before she even touched water. The narrative steps back to 1907 and a dinner party at Lord Pirrie's Belgrave Square home, where Pirrie and White Star chairman J. Bruce Ismay first discussed the concept of a new class of liner. Experts including Professor Stephanie Baczewski explain that White Star's decision to prioritise luxury over speed was a calculated response to Cunard's faster Lusitania and Mauretania. Titanic and her sisters Olympic and Gigantic were designed to carry both wealthy first-class passengers and large volumes of steerage immigrants to America. The episode details Titanic's design and construction at Harland and Wolff, where 246 workers were injured and several killed, with the youngest fatality just 15 years old. Belfast tour guide Susie Miller recounts her great-grandfather Tommy Miller, one of Harland and Wolff's engine builders who joined the crew three months after his wife died of tuberculosis, planning to start a new life in America. He gave his two sons two 1912 pennies each and told them not to spend them until they were all together again. The episode explains that Titanic was largely an improvement on her sister ship Olympic, and that most photographs thought to show Titanic's construction actually show Olympic, since Harland and Wolff did not document Titanic as thoroughly. The missing crow's nest binoculars are explored: when Second Officer David Blair was removed in a last-minute crew reshuffle, he left without handing over where the binoculars were stored. The episode covers the recruitment of over 700 crew from Southampton and the social world of the Black Gang — Liverpool Irish firemen and coal trimmers descended from famine refugees — who powered the ship's engines in brutal conditions. Jimmy McGann, Paul McGann's great-uncle, only ended up on Titanic because a national coal strike had grounded other ships. The episode ends with the story of seven-year-old Eva Hart boarding after being unexpectedly transferred to Titanic, while her mother Esther had a premonition that something dreadful would happen.

As heard by us

A polished, forward-moving Titanic history story that keeps the ship large and the stakes plain.

Titanic: Ship of Dreams opens with the liner's rise still carrying the feel of triumph, moving from a Belfast shipyard through launch, fitting out, and the voyage that ends in disaster.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A dramatic start to Titanic's story, from Belfast's shipyards to the launch, fitting-out, and the voyage that ends in ice.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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