Making Friends in Ulster
Text from Ships Of The Royal Navy No. 191
Northern Ireland is sadly accustomed to hitting headlines. But in happier mood, some of her links with the Royal Navy are spotlighted by the two latest additions to the Navy News list of 'Ships of the Royal Navy'.

Last month, this series told the action-packed story of the veteran HMS Ulster, adopted ship of Bangor, Co. Down.

This month HMS Antrim, latest 'recruit' to that powerful breed, the County Class guided missile destroyers, takes her turn.

New though she is (her first commissioning ceremony was at Portsmouth on March 30), the Antrim has already forged strong links with the county whose coat of arms she wears as a funnel badge.

Those links were strengthened with presentations and sea trips when she made her first journey to County Antrim, although her visit to Portrush (June 2-4) was somewhat restricted by the security situation.

Also in June, the commanding officer, Captain Hugo Hollins, and six ratings attended the opening of County Hall at Ballymena.

HMS Antrim has links with the Royal Irish Rangers and Sea Cadet units at Portrush, Carrickfergus, Larne and Campbell College, Belfast, and a cinema projector was presented to St Josephs Youth Club, Belfast, as a result of fund raising on board.

The ships link with the inter-denominational youth club, which serves children on a new housing estate outside Belfast, was developed after the ships company asked to be associated with a worthy cause in Co. Antrim.

The Antrim also carries a piece of the Giants Causeway. As chairman of the National Trust, the Earl of Antrim (whose motto and part of his coat of arms are incorporated in the ships badge) arranged for some stone to be cut for mounting in the ships main passageway named, appropriately, the Giants Causeway.

HMS Antrim, launched by Mrs Roy Mason (wife of the then Minister of Defence for Equipment) on October 19, 1967, was accepted by the Royal Navy from Upper Clyde Shipbuilders last November.

Since then, her programme of trials, training, testing and tuning weapons systems has also incorporated visits to Rotterdam, Glasgow, Haakonsvern (a Norwegian naval base near Bergen) and Antwerp.

She was among the ships open during Portsmouths Navy Days.

Like her seven sisters in the Navys 'County set,' the Antrims vital statistics are:
Length 520ft.
Beam 54ft.
Standard displacement 5,000 tons
Maximum speed over 30 knots.

She carries the improved Mk, II Seaslug surface-to-air guided weapon system, the Seacat system for close range anti-aircraft defence, four radar controlled semi-automatic 4.5-inch guns mounted in twin turrets, long range air and surface warning radars, the latest underwater detection equipment, and a Wessex anti-submarine helicopter armed with homing torpedoes.