Dromod to Sligo Great British Railway Journeys


Dromod to Sligo

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For Victorian Britons, George Bradshaw was a household name.

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At a time when railways were new,

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Bradshaw's guidebook inspired them to take to the tracks.

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I'm using a Bradshaw's Guide

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to understand how trains transformed Britain and Ireland,

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their landscape, industry, society, and leisure time.

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As I follow its routes, 130 years later,

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it helps me to discover these islands today.

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I'm moving northwest across Ireland,

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on a rail journey that began in Wexford.

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Discovering how, in the 19th century, a surge of pride

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in Irish culture accompanied a growth of nationalism.

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On this part of the journey, I hope to unearth a use for the potato,

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reveal Irish on the fiddle,

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and I will arise and then go then, and go to Innisfree.

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I began my journey on the coast at Wexford

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and then travelled up to the capital, Dublin,

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before turning west.

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Crossing this beautiful country, I'm uncovering Irish identity,

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forged in a time of political strife.

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I'll be ending my cultural exploration on the Atlantic coast.

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Today, I begin in the town of Dromod, County Leitrim,

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before travelling north to the county and coastal town of Sligo.

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Along the way, I try my hand at traditional Irish cuisine...

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-How's that looking, Timmy?

-You wouldn't be selling it now.

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You don't think a lot of customers would come and buy mine?

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Yours was very lumpy, you know what I mean?

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..see the landscape that inspired

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one of the 20th century's greatest poets, WB Yeats...

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It gave him the sense of where Celtic man, Irish man,

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had come up, off the landscape, and that drove him to believe that

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Ireland should have an independence.

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..and step in time, Sligo style.

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One, two, three...

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Michael Flatley had better watch out!

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I leave this train at Dromod.

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Bradshaw's says, "Where the railway projects

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"into the counties of Leitrim and Cavan,

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"its character varies, and the surface becomes rugged and uneven."

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I'm looking forward to some spectacular scenery.

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Despite the hunger and poverty of the mid-19th century,

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the railway boom in Ireland was as intense as it was in Great Britain.

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And in the 20th century, the closure of underused lines was as drastic.

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I'm alighting at Dromod,

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a stop on the old Midland Great Western Railway mainline

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from Dublin to Sligo.

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At the time of my guide, it was also the first station

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of the now-defunct Cavan and Leitrim Railway -

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a branch line that connected to Ireland's mining region.

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It's been one man's mission to restore part of the railway,

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Michael Kennedy.

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-Hello, Michael.

-Hello, Mike.

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What was the history of the Cavan and Leitrim railway?

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The Cavan and Leitrim Railway was built in 1887 and lasted until 1959.

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It ran all the way from Dromod, in the south,

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through Mohill, Ballinamore,

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Bawnboy, Ballyconnell and into Belturbet,

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with a branch from Ballinamore all the way to Drumshanbo and out to

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Arigna, where it met the coal mine.

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Coal mines are not very common in Ireland, are they?

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There's only two small coal mines in Ireland.

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One in Castlecomer, in County Kilkenny, and one up in Arigna.

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-Was the track always narrow gauge?

-Always narrow gauge.

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It was light railway.

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Running for almost 50 miles, the Cavan and Leitrim Railway

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opened up the coal and iron districts of Arigna and Lough Allen.

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And passengers made use of the same trains.

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The train left here with one carriage and a load of wagons

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and the steam engine on the front. It went to Mohill, it stopped,

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the engine came off the front, went round the back,

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shunted the wagons from the station that were to go on further

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and shunted the ones off that were to be left at the station.

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And took three hours to go from here to Belturbet, 35 miles.

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So, it wasn't a brilliant experience for the passengers.

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No, it took all day.

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It was obviously a very special railway.

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Yes, and it was all run by the locals,

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who drove the trains and were the crews.

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But the management were Anglo-Irish,

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so by the time the War of Independence came, they didn't get on with each other.

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There was a lot of friction between them.

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Queen Victoria was one of the smaller Stevenson locomotives,

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and the men didn't like driving this engine called Queen Victoria, so they took the name plates off

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and put them underneath a wood stack.

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The management found the name plates and put them back on again,

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so the lads drove the engine out to Drumshanbo, where the line went, took the name plates off

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a second time and put them down a deep well, where they're still supposed to be there to this day,

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and painted the engine green, white and orange and called it the Sinn Fein engine.

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Oh, my goodness.

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The line outlived most Irish narrow-gauge railways,

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running until 1959.

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Being the last steam tramway in Ireland to close.

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And that's a very natty bicycle you've arrived on,

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tell me about that.

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Yeah, well, that's our railway bicycle.

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A very smart machine.

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Now, this is all a nice bit of fun, but they had a serious purpose once?

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Yes, they were inspection cycles.

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There was a seat clipped onto the front,

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and the inspector sat on the seat and two men cycled along the line.

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And he would inspect the track as they went along.

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Well, I don't think there are any trains coming.

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-Shall we give it a go?

-Yes.

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# Daisy, Daisy,

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# Give me your answer, do...

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These bicycles fell out of use in the 1960s,

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as steam gave way to diesel

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and it became simply too dangerous to ride the rails.

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# ..of a bicycle made for two. #

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# Are you right there, Michael, are you right?

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# Do you think we'll get to Ballinamore tonight?

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# Oh, there's passengers for Creagh

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# And more from outside Fenagh

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# Still we might now, Michael, so we might. #

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Excuse me interrupting.

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It sounds like a song about late trains?

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It is, it's a song by the great Irish composer Percy French.

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He was scheduled to appear at a concert in Kilkee in County Clare.

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Unfortunately, when he arrived,

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and due to the poor way the train operated,

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by the time he arrived, all the people had gone home.

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So, he sued the railway company for loss of earnings

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and was awarded ten shillings.

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He composed the song, Are You Right There, Michael, Are You Right?

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immediately after the court case.

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But when it was published, the West Clare Railway Company

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actually sued Percy for libel.

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And the morning of court, Percy arrived late.

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The judge was very, very annoyed, and when he arrived in, he said,

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"You're late, Mr French."

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Percy duly explained, "I travelled by the West Clare Railway."

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So they say, "Case dismissed".

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A good story. And is that song still known in Ireland today?

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-It is indeed.

-It'd be one of the well-known Irish ballads

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that sung the length and breadth of Ireland in every house in Ireland.

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How does it continue?

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# You may talk of Columbus' sailing

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# Across the Atlantical Sea

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# But he never tried to go railing

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# From Ennis as far as Kilkee

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# You run for the train in the morning

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# The excursion train starting at eight

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# You're there when the clock gives the warning

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# And there for an hour you'll wait

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# And as you're waiting in the train

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# You'll hear the guard make this refrain

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# Are you right there, Michael, are you right?

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# Do you think we'll get to Ballinamore tonight?

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# Oh, there's passengers for Creagh

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# And more from outside Fenagh

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# Still we might now, Michael, so we might. #

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Well, I'm all right, after hearing that song.

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-Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

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I'm staying in Dromod,

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a town surrounded by lush, green countryside.

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Talking of the soil around here,

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Bradshaw's says it partly consists of good tillage ground

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and partly of mosses and bog.

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In the boggiest of years, the potato crop would rot in the ground,

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or be affected by blight.

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But in a good year,

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the potato could be mixed with a few modest ingredients

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to make a dish that could stave off starvation.

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I'm intrigued by a dish called boxty, a kind of potato pancake.

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It's associated with the counties around Leitrim

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and originated in the 1800s.

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The family-run Dromod Bakery

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supplies much of north and western Ireland with its boxty.

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I've come to meet the Faughnan family at their home bakery

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in the hope of getting a taste.

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So, I have come here to talk about boxty.

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Well, you've come to the right place, anyway.

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Boxty is made of raw potatoes and flour

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and salt and milk and a drop of water.

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And how did you learn to make it?

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I learned from seeing me mother making it.

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The minute she had it fried in the pan,

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we were like little pups, getting up after her, taking it off the plate.

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Apart from your mother making it,

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do you know what the older origin of it is?

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The older origin would have been back in the famine times

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when the people had nothing to eat, only potatoes.

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That is where boxty, I think, originated from.

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How do you like to eat it?

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You can have it in a number of different ways.

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You can use it as a wrap, like, to put stuff in.

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Use it that way. You can use it as part of a fry,

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so like with bacon and sausages and egg.

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Timmy, maybe enough talking about it, would you like to show me

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-how it's made?

-Sure, Michael. Right.

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-Get up there, your apron is there.

-Thank you.

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Now, Michael, this is the ingredients of the boxty.

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So, just need to grate the potato, presumably very finely?

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Yeah, that's grand. Ah, you've done this before.

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-Now we'll put in the flour, OK?

-Yes.

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-Mix this in fairly gradually, I suppose?

-Yeah, yeah.

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And a drop of water to make it...

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Bind it in.

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And there's the drop of milk.

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A pinch of salt.

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-How's that looking?

-That's good.

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That will come out more lumpy

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or a rougher boxty than we make ourselves,

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because our liquidiser cuts it down very fine, you know.

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That's made the real, traditional way.

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Does this remind you of your mother then?

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Oh, it does remind me, yeah.

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You think she's here now.

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Only difference, she's not here now with a stick

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to keep you away from taking it.

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Now, that's ready for the pan.

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We'll bring it up to the bakery.

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In the tradition of a cottage industry,

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the commercial kitchen is attached to the family home.

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So, there's the hotplate.

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-Yeah.

-So will I just pour it on there, will I?

-Yeah.

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How's that looking, Timmy?

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You wouldn't be selling it now.

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Yours is very lumpy, you know what I mean?

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-You don't think a lot of customers would come and buy mine?

-No, no.

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It might be nice when you're eating it.

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-Timmy, have we got to flip that, have we?

-You have, yeah.

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Just a flick of the wrist.

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Wahey!

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-That is smelling brilliant, Timmy.

-Yeah.

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It just needs a couple of minutes on each side to cook.

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Hello, Angela. Hi, Niall.

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We're back. And that is my effort.

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It's not a bad effort, but you tend to let the flavours come out

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a bit more after a couple of hours, so here's one we made earlier,

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so it might just taste a little bit better. But good effort.

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I feel slightly crestfallen, but...

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So that is what it is meant to look like?

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-Yeah.

-Well, let's have a go at that.

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Wow, that is good.

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So, even though it sadly came out of the famine, it's a very good food,

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-isn't it?

-A very good food, yeah.

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There's a rhyme that goes with boxty.

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There's boxty on the griddle, boxty on the pan

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If you never eat boxty, you'll never be a man.

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Well, I've come of age today.

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Bradshaw's tells me that Sligo is the capital of a county.

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"The River Garavogue runs through the town,

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"carrying off the surplus waters from Lough Gill

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"on a plain among fine hills."

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And certainly the high ground here is more muscular, more rocky,

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and somehow, Ireland's universal green is even more intense here.

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Located between the mountains and the Atlantic Ocean,

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the town of Sligo marks my arrival on the western coast.

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During the great famine of the mid-19th century,

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over 30,000 people emigrated through its port.

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When the railway from Dublin arrived in 1862,

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the town could grow once again.

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Sligo, Bradshaw's says,

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has several public housings dotted about its outskirts,

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the county infirmary, fever hospital, soldiers barracks,

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workhouse and this, the district lunatic asylum.

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For 140 years, it housed up to 1,000 patients,

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pioneered some relatively enlightened new techniques,

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was so solidly built by the Victorians that today,

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it makes a capacious and fine hotel,

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and my asylum for the night.

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It's a new day, and this morning, I'm taking a walk through Sligo,

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a place famed as much for its cultural and literary associations

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as for its beauty.

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Sligo occupied an important place in the heart

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of Ireland's outstanding 20th-century poet, WB Yeats,

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who drew great inspiration from its landscape.

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I'm making my way to the Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery to find out more

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about him from Yeats enthusiast and guide, Damian Brennan.

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Here we are in Carrowmore, and you could believe yourself to be very

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remote, but actually, we are just at the edge of the town of Sligo.

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Yeats had the opportunity to come here when?

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During the early years of his life, he was born in 1865.

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He lives largely in London, but he comes to Sligo

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to his maternal grandparents frequently.

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And roves out into this landscape

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and discovers all of this ancient space.

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So, in his early days, he's inspired by landscape like this -

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who would not be? - and what sort of poetry does he write?

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In the beginning, he's writing ballads,

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but much of it inspired by the whole folklore

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and fairy lore of this landscape.

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For instance, he's inspired by Queen Meave,

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the legendary Queen of Connaught -

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buried on Knocknarea, behind us here -

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and he writes, The wind has bundled up the cloud

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High over Knocknarea

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And thrown the thunder on the stones

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For all that Meave can say.

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Angers that are like noisy clouds

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Have set our hearts abeat

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But we have all bent low and low

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And kissed the quiet feet of Cathleen

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The daughter of Houlihan.

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So, what did this ancient history mean to Yeats?

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It gave him a sense of where Celtic man, Irish man,

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had come up out of the landscape and had lived in the landscape

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for all that length of time.

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And that drove him to believe that Ireland should have an independence

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and should have its own art and drama and poetry and literature.

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Yeats belonged to the Protestant Anglo-Irish minority

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who ruled Ireland, yet he strongly identified with Irish nationalism.

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The call for Irish nationhood and independence

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was subliminal within his poetry, and emerged through his evocation

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of a rich Celtic past.

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Ireland gallops towards independence over a very short number of years

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at the beginning of the 20th century.

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Can you say what kind of role literature and maybe Yeats

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play in that process, in your view?

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Well, he himself asked after 1916,

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"Did that play of mine send some men out to die?"

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He worries about that, because he was part of a romantic group

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who coalesced with the left-wing

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and had the very unlikely but very pivotal 1916 uprising.

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The Easter Rising of 1916 was a six-day armed rebellion

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by Irish Republicans against the British in Dublin.

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The rebels failed to establish an independent Ireland.

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Hundreds were killed in the fighting.

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Much of Dublin was destroyed and ringleaders were executed.

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How does Yeats feel about the 1916 Rising when it happens?

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Well, he's taken by surprise. He doesn't anticipate it.

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He's in London at the time.

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He writes his great poem, Easter 1916,

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and suppresses it for three years,

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because he's not quite sure how it'll work out.

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He refers to the Easter 1916 as, "A terrible beauty is born."

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Yeats' contribution to Irish self-consciousness and independence?

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He's absolutely central.

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He called for it.

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He wrote about it.

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He's the towering figure behind even the military movement, because it's

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his voice and his words that stand the testimony of time.

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When Ireland established its right to self-government in 1921,

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WB Yeats joined the Irish Senate,

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where he argued for artistic freedom

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and against the social conservatism of the Catholic administration.

0:19:370:19:41

Time and again, he returned to this landscape.

0:19:430:19:45

Time for me to go to Innisfree,

0:19:500:19:53

to the lake isle that inspired his most quoted verse.

0:19:530:19:56

Guiding me across Lough Gill, George McGoldrick.

0:20:060:20:09

George.

0:20:160:20:17

-Hello.

-Hello, Michael. You're very welcome.

0:20:170:20:20

Innisfree, what does it mean?

0:20:210:20:23

Inis Fraoigh is the Gaeilge, the Irish.

0:20:230:20:26

It means "heathery island".

0:20:260:20:28

Heathery island. And do you know the poem?

0:20:280:20:31

-I do indeed.

-Would you mind saying it for me today, please?

0:20:310:20:34

I'll give it a go for you, surely.

0:20:340:20:35

I will arise and go now

0:20:360:20:39

And go to Innisfree

0:20:390:20:41

And a small cabin build there

0:20:410:20:44

Of clay and wattles made

0:20:440:20:46

Nine bean rows will I have there

0:20:470:20:50

A hive for the honeybee

0:20:500:20:52

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

0:20:520:20:56

And I shall have some peace there

0:20:570:21:00

For peace comes dropping slow

0:21:000:21:04

Dropping from the veils of the morning

0:21:040:21:07

To where the crickets sing

0:21:070:21:09

There midnight's all a glimmer

0:21:090:21:12

And noon a purple glow

0:21:120:21:14

And evening full of the linnet's wing.

0:21:140:21:17

I will arise and go now

0:21:180:21:21

For always night and day

0:21:210:21:23

I hear lake water lapping

0:21:230:21:25

With low sound by the shore

0:21:250:21:28

While I stand on the roadway

0:21:280:21:31

Or on the pavements grey

0:21:310:21:33

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

0:21:330:21:37

A poet in distant London, yearning for his beloved island.

0:21:380:21:42

Indeed.

0:21:430:21:44

It's extraordinary to me that, out of this natural beauty,

0:21:470:21:52

an emotion could be born that became an idea,

0:21:520:21:56

the idea of an Ireland, independent of Britain.

0:21:560:22:00

And that was expressed in language, in poetry,

0:22:010:22:06

which inspired men to take up arms,

0:22:060:22:09

to be willing to die, and which led to an independent Ireland.

0:22:090:22:14

Extraordinary, the power of an idea.

0:22:150:22:19

As Yeats said, "A terrible beauty is born."

0:22:190:22:23

Sligo's rich cultural associations extend further.

0:22:320:22:37

World famous Irish fiddler Michael Coleman

0:22:370:22:40

was a Sligo-born musician who exerted a huge influence

0:22:400:22:44

on traditional Irish music.

0:22:440:22:47

A FIDDLE PLAYS A REEL

0:22:470:22:50

I'm visiting the Coleman Heritage Centre

0:22:550:22:58

to meet renowned fiddler Oisin Mac Diarmada

0:22:580:23:00

and traditional Irish dancer, Samantha Harvey.

0:23:000:23:04

Hello. That was delightful.

0:23:120:23:14

Now, I imagine the fiddle must have been part of Irish music

0:23:140:23:17

-for a very long time?

-It certainly was, yeah.

0:23:170:23:19

It came out of 17th-century Italy primarily, the instrument,

0:23:190:23:22

but it very quickly spread over to Ireland because there were so many

0:23:220:23:25

fiddles, violins being made.

0:23:250:23:27

And fortunately, they were not that expensive to purchase.

0:23:270:23:30

Some people could even make their own.

0:23:300:23:31

And so it became very quickly one of the most popular instruments

0:23:310:23:34

on which traditional music was played.

0:23:340:23:35

I'm following a guidebook around Ireland from the late-19th century.

0:23:350:23:38

What was the state of fiddling music by then?

0:23:380:23:41

Fiddle would have been a very strong instrument at that time.

0:23:410:23:45

It would have been played stylistically quite different

0:23:450:23:47

in various parts of Ireland, predominantly because people didn't

0:23:470:23:51

travel very much outside a five to ten mile radius.

0:23:510:23:54

So you had very distinctive voices, styles,

0:23:540:23:57

a little bit like regional dialects of speech.

0:23:570:24:00

This, I believe, is a replica of the cottage of Michael Coleman.

0:24:000:24:03

What part did he play in all this?

0:24:030:24:06

He's very much the god of Irish fiddling.

0:24:060:24:08

He played the most amazing fiddle music,

0:24:080:24:11

that we still learn from and aspire to play like now, 100 years later.

0:24:110:24:15

Born in 1891, Michael Coleman journeyed across the Atlantic

0:24:180:24:23

to America at the age of 23.

0:24:230:24:25

He joined the vaudeville circuit in New York,

0:24:250:24:28

playing to audiences of thousands.

0:24:280:24:30

And was the first Irish fiddler to make recordings of his work.

0:24:300:24:33

What was it that he did that was new or striking?

0:24:370:24:41

He took what were fundamentally simple dance tunes

0:24:410:24:43

and he put a lot of musical detail into that music.

0:24:430:24:46

One of the first tunes he recorded was a tune called Reidy Johnson's,

0:24:460:24:50

it's a reel.

0:24:500:24:51

If you take the structure of a tune like that...

0:24:510:24:54

A JAUNTY REEL

0:24:540:24:55

What Michael did with the tune is he filled in a lot of details

0:25:000:25:04

and ornamentation in those notes and variations.

0:25:040:25:06

THE SAME REEL WITH MORE NOTES

0:25:060:25:09

And on and so forth.

0:25:180:25:19

He's reputed not really to have ever played the tune the same twice.

0:25:190:25:22

His recordings travelled back to Ireland and around the world.

0:25:250:25:29

His fast bowing technique became known as the Sligo style

0:25:290:25:33

and has come to dominate traditional Irish music.

0:25:330:25:36

Sligo must be rather proud of its place in Irish music history?

0:25:380:25:42

It certainly is. This area is often known as Coleman Country,

0:25:420:25:45

and it reflects not only Coleman's genius, but the magical music

0:25:450:25:49

that so many people played in this particular area.

0:25:490:25:52

Well, Michael, I hear you've danced all over the world.

0:25:520:25:56

You could hardly come to Ireland and not do a step.

0:25:560:25:59

I have made a fool of myself all over the world.

0:25:590:26:02

-Will you show me, Samantha?

-I sure will.

0:26:020:26:04

Heel, toe,

0:26:040:26:06

one-two-three,

0:26:060:26:07

and heel-toe-heel,

0:26:070:26:09

one-two-three.

0:26:090:26:10

And heel, toe,

0:26:100:26:12

one-two-three.

0:26:120:26:14

And heel-toe-heel,

0:26:140:26:16

one-two-three. Excellent!

0:26:160:26:17

-And what do I do with my arms?

-You can keep them down by your side.

0:26:170:26:21

They sometimes keep them very stiff, don't they?

0:26:210:26:23

-They sure do!

-Right.

0:26:230:26:25

-Maestro, some music.

-That's it.

0:26:250:26:27

MID-PACED REEL

0:26:270:26:29

Five, six, seven, eight.

0:26:310:26:33

Heel, toe,

0:26:330:26:34

one-two-three.

0:26:340:26:35

Heel-toe-heel, one-two-three.

0:26:350:26:38

Heel, toe...

0:26:380:26:39

Perfect!

0:26:480:26:49

Michael Flatley had better watch out!

0:27:000:27:02

The failure of the potato crop in the 1840s was a cause of the famine

0:27:130:27:17

which gave an enormous boost to Irish nationalism

0:27:170:27:21

and was blamed on Anglo-Irish landowners.

0:27:210:27:24

Ironically, a poet who didn't speak Irish,

0:27:250:27:28

from a middle-class Protestant family, William Butler Yeats,

0:27:280:27:32

gave the Irish nation its voice,

0:27:320:27:35

as surely as the fiddle gave it its music and dance.

0:27:350:27:39

A LIVELY REEL

0:27:390:27:42

Next time...

0:28:000:28:01

Things heat up with an unusual Victorian health treatment...

0:28:010:28:05

Steam is rising all around me.

0:28:060:28:09

..I learn of the terrible tragedy at Clew Bay...

0:28:090:28:12

A lot of the young people got very excited because they'd never seen a steamer before

0:28:120:28:16

and they all went to one side, and unfortunately the boat capsized.

0:28:160:28:20

..and stretch my skills at a woollen mill.

0:28:200:28:22

I'm involved in a delicate industrial process.

0:28:230:28:26

I'm on tenterhooks.

0:28:260:28:28

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