Samson and Goliath are the twin

shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other Watercraft, floating vessels. In modern times, it normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation th ...

gantry crane A gantry crane is a Crane (machine), crane built atop a wikt:gantry, gantry, which is a structure used to straddle an object or workspace. They can range from enormous "full" gantry cranes, capable of lifting some of the heaviest loads in the wor ...

s at Queen's Island,

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

. The cranes, which were named after the

Biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

figures Samson and

Goliath Goliath ( ) was a Philistines, Philistine giant in the Book of Samuel. Descriptions of Goliath's giant, immense stature vary among biblical sources, with texts describing him as either or tall. According to the text, Goliath issued a challen ...

, dominate the Belfast skyline and are landmark structures.

History

The cranes are situated in the

Harland and Wolff Harland & Wolff Holdings plc is a British shipbuilding and Metal fabrication, fabrication company headquartered in London with sites in Belfast, Arnish yard, Arnish, Appledore, Torridge, Appledore and Methil. It specialises in ship repair, ship ...

shipyard on the east side of Belfast Lough. They were made by the German engineering firm

Krupp Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp (formerly Fried. Krupp AG and Friedrich Krupp GmbH), trade name, trading as Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century as well as Germany's premier weapons manufacturer dur ...

and transported to Belfast. Goliath was erected in 1969 and Samson in 1974. Goliath stands tall, while Samson is a little taller at . Goliath sits further inland, closer to the city. The dry dock at the base of the cranes is the 11th largest in the world, measuring .

Lifting capacity

Each crane has a span of and can lift loads of up to 840

tonnes The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the s ...

to a height of . Their combined lifting capacity of almost 1,700 tonnes is one of the largest in the world. Prior to commissioning, the cranes were tested up to 1,000 tonnes, which bent the gantry downwards by over .

Harland & Wolff

At its height Harland & Wolff boasted 35,000 employees and a healthy order book, but in the years following the cranes' construction the workforce and business declined. The last ship to be launched at the yard to date was a roll-on/roll-off

ferry A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus ...

in March 2003. Since then the yard has restructured itself to focus less on shipbuilding and more on design and structural engineering, as well as ship repair, offshore construction projects and competing for other projects to do with metal engineering and construction. Initially there was concern that the now largely redundant cranes would be demolished. However, they were later scheduled as historic monuments under Article 3 of the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (Northern Ireland) Order 1995.

Northern Ireland Office The Northern Ireland Office (NIO; , Ulster-Scots: ''Norlin Airlann Oaffis'') is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for handling Northern Ireland affairs. The NIO is led by the Secretary of S ...

Minister of the time Angela Smith stated: "These cranes are an essential part of our city, our roots and our culture." The cranes are not, technically, ‘listed buildings’, but are recognised by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency as buildings of ‘architectural or historic interest’. Shipbuilding has declined in Belfast, but the cranes are to be retained as part of the existing dry dock facility within the restructured shipyard, situated adjacent to the Titanic Quarter, a business, light industrial, leisure and residential development on land now surplus to the heavy industrial requirements of the shipyard on Queen's Island. They were still (2015) kept in working order and used for heavy lifting by Harland & Wolff in its other activities.

Recent history

On 4 April 2007, Samson collided with the long jib of smaller rail-mounted "Henson"

tower crane A crane is a machine used to move materials both vertically and horizontally, utilizing a system of a boom, hoist, wire ropes or chains, and sheaves for lifting and relocating heavy objects within the swing of its boom. The device uses on ...

, sending the smaller crane tumbling to the ground. The smaller crane weighed 95 tonnes and stood at a height of , compared to Samson's . Three industrial painters working on another rail-mounted crane were close to the jib as it fell, eventually crashing onto the ground. Information about the incident was not released until mobile-phone footage of the event was published on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

. In October 2007, Goliath re-entered service after five years, an occurrence described by a company spokesman as underlining the yard's growing workload. In April 2020, during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the crane's horn was sounded for the first time in 20 years. Being the loudest siren in Belfast, it was heard all over the city whilst its populace were in lockdown. First shown in February 2021, Goliath appears repeatedly as part of series 1 of BBC One's drama ''Bloodlands'', with postcards of the crane a key clue in the murder investigation.

Gallery

Image:'Resolution' in Belfast - geograph.org.uk - 636807.jpg, The cranes lit up at night. Image:Industry, Belfast, February 2010 (02).JPG, View from Belfast City Airport. Image:Belfast, roofscape - geograph.org.uk - 612266.jpg, View across Belfast's city skyline. Image:Westlink approaching York Street - geograph.org.uk - 1484878.jpg, View from Westlink approaching York Street. Image:"Goliath", Belfast (3) - geograph.org.uk - 2247112.jpg, Krupp logo on the side of ''Goliath''.

Notes and references

External links

Curious Ireland: video of cranes' historyAn irreverent look at the cranesTitanic Quarter
{{Samson Buildings and structures in Belfast Individual cranes (machines) Shipyard cranes Goliath cranes