23 March 2012 Last updated at 18:30

Titanic: Icon of an Age

Titanic being manoeuvred away from Berth No. 44 in Southampton to begin her maiden voyage on 10 April 1912.

A new 'visual chronicle' of the story of Titanic is to be published in April, in time for the 100th anniversary of the ship's sinking. The author, Michael McCaughan, was a curator at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum for over 40 years and is the former head of transport at National Museums NI.

Wooden lifeboats under construction in Harland and Wolff’s boatbuilders’ shed in 1899. Each of Titanic’s large lifeboats was built to carry 65 persons.

Michael said that while the book was about the ship, "it's also about the people, especially the people who built Titanic". Titanic: Icon of an Age combines exclusive photographs from the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum's extensive archives with period advertisements and White Star publications.

The fitting of Titanic's starboard tailshaft, May 1911

"Titanic was the embodiment of the Edwardian world at sea," Michael says, "it's a modern parable about the relationship between man and machinery and implacable nature".

Workman’s ticket for the launch of Titanic.

In addition to exploring the story of the world's most famous ship, the book delves into other themes of the era - including the suffragette movement, the home rule question and labour strikes.

Titanic’s hull in readiness for launch day, 31 May 1911

"The Edwardian age was the emergence of the modern world as we know it. It was the beginning of the world of speed, that was the defining characteristic - speed and velocity, speed of change, speed of communication, speed of transport, the beginning of flight," Michael says.

The plight of the ship and all those on board is vividly documented through the Marconigrams transmitted and received between 12.15 a.m. and 2.17 a.m. when Titanic’s signals abruptly ended.

"There are really two Titanics," Michael said in trying to explain the doomed liner's enduring popularity.

First-class parlour suite B59, Titanic, March 1912

"There is the real Titanic which sank in 1912, and then there is the Titanic of the imagination which has sailed on after that period and is still underway today."

Original design drawings for Olympic and Titanic, prepared by Harland & Wolff and approved in Belfast on 29 July 1908 by Bruce Ismay and other White Star Line directors.

Titanic: Icon of an Age will be launched on 12 April at Cultra Manor, County Down and is published by Blackstaff Press.

Northern Ireland

Titanic: Icon of an Age

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