Titanic at City Hall We know that ships were being built in Belfast nearly 400 years ago, but it was a Scotsman, William Ritchie, who claimed credit for starting the industry in the 1790s on the County Antrim side of the Lough. In the 1860s, a boom caused by the American Civil War allowed the partnership of Edward Harland and Gustav Wolff to start the firm that eventually became the biggest ship b