Una Reilly

 Born in Belfast in 1949, Una graduated from Queen’s University Belfast with a B.E. D (Bachelor of Education) in 1972. She took up teaching Maths & Physics but put her career on hold to have a family. When her two sons and one daughter were all old enough, Una returned to teaching but only when and if required. She has now retired from teaching.

 The Titanic has always been part of the family lore as Una’s great grandfather, John Arthurs, worked on the building of the ship as a cabinet maker in Harland & Wolff. The family have a chessboard he made from pieces of Titanic wood. This, of course, cannot be substantiated but it is treasured as such. Una co-founded the Ulster Titanic Society in 1992 when there wasn’t such a thing in her home city. The name was changed to the Belfast Titanic Society (BTTS  … “so good we named her twice”!) in 2003. Una feels very strongly that “Belfast can be proud of building Titanic. What happened to the ship was a disaster but she wasn’t”

  Una has organised talks, Titanic themed Dinners and schools programmes. In 1997 she was the driving force in organising, on behalf of the society, the first ever International Titanic Convention to be held in Belfast. Belfast City Council appointed her in 2001, as their Titanic consultant. In this role she has helped develop the annual ‘Titanic – Made in Belfast’ festival as a major Titanic tourist focus for the city. She has also been involved with creating Titanic walking trails, literature and researching historic content for council brochures and exhibitions.

Bill Miller from the website http://www.billmilleratsea.com/index.html

Bill Miller is considered an international authority on the subject of ocean liners & cruise ships. This includes those great ships of the past, those “floating palaces,” as well as the current generation of cruise ships, the “floating resorts”. Called “Mr. Ocean Liner,” he has written over 65 books on the subject: from early steamers, immigrant ships and liners at war to other titles on their fabulous interiors, in post card form and about the highly collectible artifacts from them. He has done specific histories of such celebrated passenger ships as the United States, Queen Mary, Rotterdam, France, Queen Elizabeth 2, Costa Victoria, Super Star Leo and Crystal Serenity.

In all, he has also written over 1,000 articles for newspapers, magazines and nautical journals & newsletters. He even has his very own ocean liner quarterly, the Millergram . He has made nearly 300 voyages to date: Atlantic crossings, tropical cruises, coastal runs and even trips on container cargo ships and exotic banana boats. He has appeared in some three dozen video & television series, both in the USA, Britain, Europe and Australia, including Castles of the Sea, The Floating Palaces, The Superliners, Inside the World of a Cruise Ship, Disasters at Sea and Deco: Age of Glamor . He has also appeared on The Today Show, CBS Evening News , CBS Sunday Morning , Good Morning America and many other news broadcasts. He has been guest lecturer aboard over 50 different liners, sailing with the likes of Crystal Cruises, Cunard, Carnival, Holland America, Princess, Radisson-Seven Seas, Saga Cruises and others. Miller was a public school teacher, in middle school and for social studies, for 32 years. He was named “Teacher of the Year” in 2002.

 Samuel W. Halpern

Chicago, IL, USA

 Sam is a systems engineer and analyst by profession, having started a career at Bell Laboratories in 1965 when he was hired on as a technician. In 1971, he received a Bachelor of Science degree from Monmouth University in Long Branch, New Jersey and,  two years later in 1973, an MSEE degree from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in New York. He then joined a systems engineering design group at Bell Laboratories that later went on to developed the first commercial cellular system in the United States. He holds two patents and has authored and presented many technical papers on wireless technology to the professional technical community. In March 1978, he received IEEE’s Vehicular Technology Group’s Paper of the Year Award and, in March 1984, received Bell Laboratories’ Distinguished Technical Staff Award. He is a member of the Eta Kapa Nu Electrical Engineering Honor Society.

Over the years, Sam’s interest expanded to other technical fields such as aerodynamics, hydrostatics and hydrodynamics, and naval architecture. He is now an avid Titanic researcher with particular interest in many of the unresolved issues dealing with the ship and its maiden voyage. Like so many others, his interest in the Titanic actually began far back in 1963 when I picked up a copy of Walter Lord’s A Night To Remember. Only in the last several years has he had the time to do serious research and analytical work on the subject. He has authored numerous research papers and articles related to Titanic and Olympic over the last several years, and authored a website at www.Titanicology.com. He also conducted a forensic study of the 1956 collision between Andrea Doria and Stockholm which he presented in November 2008 to a class on casualty analysis at the Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, ME, at the request of Capt. Les Eadie.

Some of Sam’s other interests include U.S. Fleet Class submarines of WW-II, and rigid airship design, construction and operation. He is a former yachtsman’s mate on a Catalina 25, and a holder of a Private Pilot Certificate with over 260 hours in single engine land aircraft.

 Senan Molony

Castleknock, Dublin, Ireland

 Senan is the political editor of the Irish Daily Mail. Born in 1963, he has over 25 years’ experience in journalism.

He has written and lectured extensively on the Titanic and other ships. He is the leading contributor of research articles to the website Encyclopedia Titanica – more than 50 in all – and has appeared in a number of maritime history documentaries.

He has authored several maritime books, among others. They include The Irish Aboard Titanic; Titanic and the Mystery Ship; Lusitania: An Irish Tragedy; Titanic: Victims and Villains; with the latest being Titanic Scandal: The Trial of the Mount Temple.

One of his uncles was a Merchant Marine captain in the Second World War, whose vessels were twice sunk by enemy action, and uncle became flag officer of the Irish Naval Service. Mr. Molony lives in Dublin, Ireland, with wife Brigid and three little scamps.