Titanic shipyard in Northern Ireland faces administration

LONDON – Harland and Wolff, the Belfast shipyard that built the Titanic, is facing administration.

The shipyard is facing bankruptcy after its Norwegian parent company Dolphin Drilling failed to find a buyer.

The shipyard was famed for constructing the doomed Titanic, which sank on its maiden transatlantic voyage in 1912 after striking an iceberg. The firm was one of UK’s key industrial producers during World War II and its massive yellow cranes, Sampson and Goliath, are considered landmarks of Belfast.

It once boasted a workforce of 30,000, but now employs only 125.

In recent years, they shipyard diversified to work on cruise liner retrofits and wind energy projects.

Workers demonstrated in hopes of persuading the government to step in to rescue the company, but the government has so far declined to intervene.