Fr Browne’s Titanic Album

June 8, 2012 in News

Eddie O’Donnell SJ (ed.)

Publisher: Messenger Publications

“The best Titanic photos in the world”, and taken by an Irishman, feature in a newly published edition of Fr Brown’s Titanic Album: The largest extant collection of photos taken on-board the Titanic have been digitalised for the first time and appear in this special edition which marks the centenary of the liner (1912).

Director James Cameron paid tribute to the photos by reconstructing scenes in his blockbuster Titanic movie exactly as they were captured in Fr Browne’s photos. His collection has also been used to settle disputed claims about what caused the sinking of the ship on that ill-fated journey.

The book, edited by Fr Eddie O’Donnell SJ, (who discovered the 42,000 photos by Fr Browne , taken over a lifetime), will be launched in the Cobh heritage centre on Wed 23 Nov at 7pm, 2011, by Ms Una O’Neill, Chair of the Belfast Titanic Society. Relatives of passengers on the ill-fated night, along with representatives from Harland and Wolff shipyard will attend.

The volume features a newly discovered article by Fr Browne, written for the now obsolete Cork Constitution newspaper, the only thing written by him about the ship before the sinking. And using the photos and memorabilia of Fr Browne’s personal Titanic album, it tells the full story of the great ship’s voyage from Southampton to Cherbourg to Cobh (Queenstown), her final port of call before disaster struck.