Episode 9 The Arts Show


Episode 9

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Hello! The Arts Show is in Dublin,

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a city steeped in Vikings and Guinness,

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James Joyce and stag weekends.

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Its rich history echoes through these streets, built on words

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and supercharged by a culture clash of poetry, prose and politics.

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A bit like The Arts Show.

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Writer Lucy Caldwell on why Charlotte Bronte

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may have kept on her brassiere, but burned the rule book

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for generations of women writers.

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Fermanagh actor Ciaran McMenamin

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tells us about the art that first blew his mind.

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From the River Foyle to the River Styx, we journey into the Underworld

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with the brilliant Seamus Heaney as our guide

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and the BBC weatherman, Barra Best, channels

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his inner Swayze and gets creative behind a potter's wheel.

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I'm on Twitter now at BBC Arts Show.

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Dublin is, of course, firmly in the spotlight this year,

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with the centenary of the Easter Rising just around the corner.

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1916 saw politics and culture violently collide,

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with the General Post Office, or GPO, at the centre of events,

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as the headquarters of the Irish Volunteers during Easter week.

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While the rising itself failed,

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it did put in motion a series of events that would ultimately

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see the formation of an independent Irish Republic.

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But when the new government issued its first banknotes in 1928,

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I wonder, did its citizens realise that the emblematic face

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representing Ireland was that of a British society hostess?

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When the Free State was established

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they wanted, obviously, a new currency,

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'they wanted to move away from the notes

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'with the Royal figurehead.

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'And they went, instead,'

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to looking at somebody who would symbolise Ireland,

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a personification of what was an Irish beauty,

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what was an Irishwoman of the time.

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'Of course, ironically, we know now that it was an American

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'who never lived in Ireland who ended up on that currency.'

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Kathleen Ni Houlihan, the emblematic face of the new Free State,

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was painted in 1927,

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but artist Sir John Lavery began painting Irish political figures

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in 1916.

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John always believed that he was commissioned to paint

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the image of Eire for the new Irish Free State currency

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because of their involvement in the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

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He just took a painting that he had of his wife

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and he repainted it, placed a black shawl around her

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and had her with all the emblems,

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the Killarney Lakes in the background,

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leaning on the harp, but at the end of the day, for those who knew,

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it was just a reworking of yet another portrait of his wife.

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She would have entered London society

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when her husband was already well established.

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He was friends with Asquith,

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who was the British Prime Minister at the time.

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He was painting society ladies.

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He'd already painted a very well-known portrait

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of the visit of Queen Victoria to Glasgow

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and he'd made his name painting the portraits of the Royal family,

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people from established society, and he was very personable,

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so he really was well accepted.

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Hazel had a really lovely introduction.

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He already had a studio in South Kensington,

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located on Cromwell Place,

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so they had a lot of really well-known neighbours,

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and Hazel very quickly became the muse for a number of poets,

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a number of artists, and, of course, that meant

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she automatically had her picture constantly in The Tatler

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and The Sketch and all these women's magazines,

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so she became very, very well known, really, really quickly.

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It was said that one of the groups of women, who were

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so put out that their husbands always wanted to spend time

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with Hazel Lavery, set up a husband-protection society.

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At one stage, he actually painted her as The Madonna for a triptych

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that he was doing for Belfast St Patrick's Church

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and this was on display, when their visitors would come

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and see it. Of course, a lot of the other society ladies used to gossip

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and complain, because they would see she had seen herself as The Madonna.

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John's interest in Ireland

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was always at a remove in those early years.

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His connection to Ireland happened

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really around the time of the 1916 rising.

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He was given the opportunity,

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whilst into commission, he was given the opportunity

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to paint the appeal of Sir Roger Casement, who had been convicted

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of treason, for his involvement in the run-up to the rising.

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He was very aware of the political situation that had developed.

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Well, Hazel was interested in Ireland.

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She became hugely interested in Irish politics

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and she used the circle that she had developed,

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the influences that she had with British parliamentarians,

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talking to them and trying to bring together connections.

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The Anglo-Irish Treaty was being negotiated

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and, of course, the famous Scarlet Pimpernel of that time,

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Michael Collins, was the one that every society hostess wanted to get.

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He'd been elusive, he'd been talked about, nobody knew who he was.

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He had been leading this war of independence,

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and, of course, Hazel had the absolute in.

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She knew his sister, Hannie Collins.

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Some people have considered them to have been, maybe, lovers,

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but in whatever the exact nature of the relationship is,

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there was a lot of correspondence between them.

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He wrote her poetry, he spoke to her in a very loving way.

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They exchanged books,

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they used to attend mass together in the Brompton Oratory

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and she is, in fact, the woman who managed to get him to go

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and see Lloyd George at that critical moment.

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Michael Collins, of course, was killed in the early stages

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of the Civil War.

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In fact, when he had signed the treaty,

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he described it as having signed his own death warrant.

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And that came to pass.

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The Laverys were in Ireland when he was killed.

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Hazel was distraught.

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It turned out that he had letters from Hazel Lavery on his body.

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They were returned to her by Collins' sister in later years.

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In fact, you can see the bloodstain on that letter.

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And she, obviously, treasured those scraps and those fragments.

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John himself, actually, commemorates Collins' death

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and he paints, the very famous now,

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Love Of Ireland, where he paints him on his deathbed,

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draped with the tricolour,

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which has become a very symbolic and important image.

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While Hazel attended the funeral, he's painting the funeral.

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Hazel had always suffered from ill health.

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She was so much younger than John. She suffered with nephritis.

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Kidney disease, combined with a weakened heart

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meant that she had a long and slow and painful death

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and, in the last two years of life, she was mainly confined to bed.

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It was very difficult for her, because she was now out of society,

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so John set up a canvas, to keep her company,

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and he painted away in her room

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and the painting that he produced is so sad,

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because it actually sees the, sort of, the demise of the woman

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that he loves, the tiny figure in this massive bed.

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And then, when she died, before her coffin was taken for her funeral,

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he painted her coffin in her bedroom.

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He had lost the love of his life,

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who he had depicted from the moment he had met her through his art.

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Thanks to her, we have a wonderful body of work from her husband,

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Sir John Lavery.

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What an incredible story.

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Well, I'm in Collins Barracks, the National Museum of Ireland,

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which is hosting a major exhibition to commemorate the events of 1916.

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Among the exhibits,

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some of which have never been on display before, is the actual

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proclamation of the New Republic and the table it was signed upon,

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the original signed orders and letters of surrender,

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the flag which flew over the GPO during the rising,

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Roger Casement's coat and even James Connolly's bullet-ridden hat.

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Now, Fermanagh actor Ciaran McMenamin is currently appearing

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in a new production of After Miss Julie.

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The Arts Show caught up with him, to find out what arts

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and culture shaped him.

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The first piece of music

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that, literally, blew my mind...

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was when I accidentally found

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my dad's old Thin Lizzy, Bad Reputation LP,

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buried under my mum's Neil Diamond LPs.

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And I didn't know what it was.

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I would imagine I was about 11,

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and I lifted this black album covered with these three...

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sexy, scary-looking men in shades, staring out at me,

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and I put it on and, er...

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it actually did, literally, blew my mind.

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I was playing air guitar on my back on the floor.

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DRUMS AND GUITAR MUSIC

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My sister Aine and I

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sneaked into the Ardhowen Theatre, underaged,

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to watch David Lynch's Wild At Heart.

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I'd never seen anything like it, the music,

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the sex, er...

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the violence, the reality, erm...

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the dark humour, this strange Wizard Of Oz theme.

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That was a moment when I went, wow.

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Erm, cinema can be something completely different

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and completely exciting.

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The piece of art that made a huge impression on me

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was Turner's The Fighting Temeraire.

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I had been aware of Turner's work. I had saw

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photographs, documentaries about his work,

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but when I first, actually,

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in the flesh,

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saw his use of light,

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and stood in the National Gallery,

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trying to get my mind to work out how someone had done that

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with a brush and some paint

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hundreds of years ago, before photography,

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literally, did kind of cause my mind to fall apart.

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For a piece of theatre that made a huge impression on me,

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I'm going to choose something from later on.

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I'd, kind of, fallen out of love with theatre a little bit,

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cos I hadn't seen anything I'd liked.

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I hadn't done it myself for a while,

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and I went to The Lyric a couple of years ago to see

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my fellow Fermanagh man, Adrian Dunbar,

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in Brendan At The Chelsea,

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and it genuinely, genuinely inspired me

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to come back to the theatre,

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for various reasons, but mainly because he managed to...

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tell me something important about alcoholism

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and completely entertain me, at the same time.

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So, you, literally, had that, kind of, crying and laughing

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in the same evening.

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I also thought I'd mention it because,

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for anybody that didn't see it, it's coming back.

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It's a really amazing night at the theatre and it actually did,

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in a weird way, save the theatre for me.

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So, thanks, Adrian.

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Book VI of Virgil's Aeneid is an incredible story,

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full of as much drama and suspense as any TV box set

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we might watch today.

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It's a powerful poem, in which the young hero Aeneas battles the demons

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and the undead, to travel deep into the underworld,

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to meet the spirit of his father.

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But in a strange way, Aeneas's most recent journey starts

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right here in what was once St Columb's College,

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where a young Seamus Heaney was first introduced to Virgil

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in the 1950s by his Latin teacher, Father Michael McGlinchey.

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"Next comes a grinding scrunch and screech of hinges

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as the dread doors open and you see what waits inside,

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the shape and threat of the guard who haunts the threshold.

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Farther in and more ruthless, still, the Hydra lurks, monstrous

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with her 50 gaping mouth-holes and black gullets

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and beyond the sheer plunge of Tartarus down to the depths,

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to darkness, a drop twice as far beneath the earth,

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as Olympus appears to soar above it."

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Book VI six of The Aeneid wasn't on the A-level curriculum in 1957.

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It was Book IX instead,

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but Heaney remembers his teacher pining for his favourite Virgil.

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In the foreword to his new translation, Heaney says

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that McGlincey was forever sighing,

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"Oh, boys, I wish it were Book VI."

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"But seeing Aeneas come wading through the grass towards him,

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he reached his two hands out in eager joy,

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his eyes filled up with tears and he gave a cry,

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At last! Are you here at last?

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I always trusted that your sense of right would prevail

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and keep you going to the end.

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And am I now allowed to see your face, my son,

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and hear you talk, and talk to you myself?"

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This is a poem that Heaney would return to

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at key moments in his life, first translating passages from it

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after his own father's death in the '80s

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and on the birth of his first grandchild in 2007.

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And he was finalising work on it right up to his own death in 2013.

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Seamus Heaney has called Book VI a constant presence.

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Now with its posthumous publication,

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it marks the end of his own poetic journey.

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"There are two gates of sleep,

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one of which they say is made of horn

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and offers easy passage to true visions.

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The other has a luminous dense ivory sheen,

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but through it to the sky above,

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the spirits of the dead send up false dreams.

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Anchises, still guiding and discoursing,

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escorts his son and the Sibyl on their way

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and lets them both out by the ivory gate.

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Aeneas hurries to the ships and rejoins his comrades,

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then sails, hugging the shore to the port of Caietae.

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Anchors are cast from the prow, stern cushion on sand."

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Last May, I picked this up for a radio documentary I was making.

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It had been 25 years since I'd last played it. I dusted it off,

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even rejoined my old orchestra, met friends that I hadn't seen

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in decades and, best of all, my children now hear me play.

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You know what? It has been the best thing that I have done in years.

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So, if like me, you want to dust something off,

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or like Barra Best here, you want to create something new,

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BBC Get Creative is a one-stop shop for all your creative needs.

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-Barra.

-We're giving it a go.

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It's the first time I've ever done pottery.

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Always wanted to have a go at it.

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I'm not too sure I'm the best at it, but Helen's give me a few good tips

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-to get me underway.

-Helen, how's it going so far?

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Well, the clay's still on the weave, so it's a good start.

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But so far, so good.

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My clothes are still clean.

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Of course I had to wear a white shirt today, as well.

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It's a little bit easier than I thought it would be.

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I thought I was going to be all over the place.

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It's just good to do something different and be a bit creative.

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I don't get a lot of opportunity to do

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-that at the moment, I'm so busy.

-Is the weather not creative?

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Well, it can be in this country, definitely!

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It's all over the show, so that keeps me busy,

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but I don't think I'll give up the weather for this just yet.

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So, can you explain to me

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where this pot is going at the moment, Barra.

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-That's not going on!

-It's not happening! THEY LAUGH

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-By the time you come back, that's going to be a masterpiece.

-A masterpiece, OK.

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-OK, I believe you. I believe you.

-Yes.

-Well done, well done.

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So, leave Barra and head across here to where other work has gone on,

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and Rebecca, you are one of the creative champions,

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what's going on here?

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Well, Get Creative is a UK-wide initiative, it's run by the BBC

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and by voluntary arts and it's all about celebrating creativity,

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in all its shapes and sizes.

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I've encouraged people to get involved, do something different,

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or take up something they loved doing when they were children.

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-So, how do you do it?

-We encourage people particularly to take up

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crafts and have a go at that.

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We have an online resource called a Craft Map and a craft directory

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of makers and that's all on our website, which is craftni.org.

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You can go and find your local arts venue

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or local maker and find out what's happening near you.

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Rebecca, thank you so much and thank you, everybody, for coming today.

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Barra, how are you getting on?

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-Here you go. Look at that for a masterpiece.

-That's not bad.

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-I'm not even lying, it's one I prepared earlier.

-You really did.

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-I absolutely did.

-In true Blue Peter style.

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Yes, and I'm bringing it home. You're not having it.

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Well done, fella. Don't give up the day job just yet.

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OK, I'll stick with the weather.

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And there is a Get Creative Day on April 2.

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Barra Best, thank you so much.

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The Abbey Theatre famously played a role in the Easter Rising,

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with actors, playwrights and stagehands all taking part

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in the very real-life drama that was unfolding in the streets outside.

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The theatre is at the centre of another controversy. The lack

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of female writers in its programming for 2016 has caused a huge storm.

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The online #Wakingthefeminists kick-started a very public

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conversation about why it was mainly all male writers' work on stage.

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Charlotte Bronte lived well before Twitter,

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but she was a trailblazer for women in literature.

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We gave Belfast-born writer Lucy Caldwell a little more

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than 140 characters to explore.

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"I am no bird and no net ensnares me.

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"I am a free human being with independent will."

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These are the captivating words of an unlikely pioneer

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who lived at a time when women were barely allowed to express

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themselves. Their author blazed a way for women writing today.

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200 years ago this April, a baby girl was born to a curate

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and his wife.

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It's here at this small parsonage in Yorkshire that she grew up

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to become one of the world's greatest writers

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in the English language.

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Her name was Charlotte Bronte and she emerged at a time

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when the world of letters was no place for a respectable woman.

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She changed the course of literature.

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I feel greatly indebted to her.

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So where did this revolutionary voice come from?

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The world-famous Bronte sisters,

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Charlotte, Emily, and Anne are actually half Irish.

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Even in her teenage years, Charlotte was described by

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a classmate as speaking with a strong Irish accent.

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Their story begins in County Down.

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Charlotte's father Patrick was born here in this two-room cottage.

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From these humble roots, he earned himself a place at Cambridge,

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with the help of local clergymen, who saw his potential.

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He went on to instil in his own children the same

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sense of the magic of books.

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He finally settled in this Pennine village on the edge of Howarth Moor,

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where he went on to raise one of the world's most literary families.

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To celebrate Charlotte's bicentenary, the Parsonage Museum

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is featuring an exhibition, Charlotte Great & Small.

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I met the curator and award-winning writer Tracy Chevalier.

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When I went up to the parsonage to look around they said,

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"What would you like to see?"

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I thought, "I'd like to see one of those miniature books that

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"the Bronte children made when they were teenagers."

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Then, I started looking at other things, like little watercolours

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and little needlework and then, I discovered Charlotte was tiny,

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-she was four foot ten, if that.

-That's tiny.

-Yeah.

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Her hands were tiny, her feet were tiny - everything about her.

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At the same time, I was rereading her novels and, in them,

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she is expressing always this huge desire

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and I thought I'd like to contrast those two things -

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the small things in her life with the huge ambition.

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There is a wonderful anecdote of Charlotte's father after

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the publication of Jane Eyre

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summoning his offspring into his study and saying, "Children,

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-"it seems that Charlotte has written a book."

-Yes.

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It's so... It's amazing, but it's a little painful, too,

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because really very little was expected of women at that time.

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It was not expected that they would ever have a career,

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the way we can now. We take it for granted now,

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but you couldn't take it for granted back then.

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There's a lovely quotation from one of her letters, where she says

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people of talent know full well the excellence that's in them.

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She, from a very early age, knew that she wanted to do great things.

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When she was 18, she wrote to Robert Southey,

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who was Poet Laureate at the time saying, "Here are some of my poems,

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"what do you think of them?" Remarkably he wrote back,

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a very famous letter where he says women should not write.

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Even that was not enough to deter Charlotte,

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because she wrote back to him.

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She wrote back and said, "If ever I have any of those crazy ideas

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"to write I'll think of Southey and I will calm down."

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It's just, the tone is very funny.

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It's very subtle, because there's nothing you can point out to

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say she was being rude to him, but actually, there is an undertone of

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"I'm going to do just what I like."

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You've also edited an anthology called Reader, I Married Him,

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stories inspired by Jane Eyre.

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Would all of these writers be writing

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if it weren't for Charlotte Bronte?

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You know that's why I've asked women to write rather than men in this

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book because I think we owe her a debt of gratitude for being

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such a trailblazer for women.

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In a world where women had restricted liberties,

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writing was an escape for Charlotte and her siblings.

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This is a tiny little book made by Charlotte Bronte in 1829.

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She would have been 13 when she wrote this.

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You can see the date on the cover.

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Oh, my goodness. The writing is...

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It could have been done like needlepoint.

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Yes. This would have been made with a quill pen

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and the tiny writing became a secret code amongst

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the siblings so that if their father came across any of these tiny books,

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he wouldn't be able to read the contents.

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So they've got stories, poems and reviews.

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If we turn to the back, you will see that there are even advertisements.

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"To be sold, 1,000 horses by Gerald."

0:25:180:25:22

One of the things I love about the Bronte sisters is,

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I'm one of three sisters myself, and we grew up making magazines,

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making manuscripts, writing secret codes and stories.

0:25:300:25:34

It's absolutely extraordinary to look at.

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What is it, an inch and a half?

0:25:360:25:38

Yes. This looks like it's made from a scrap of an old sugar bag.

0:25:380:25:43

But they used wallpaper, whatever they could lay their hands on.

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I love the idea of the sisters writing at this very table.

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They would work feverishly

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until the clock struck nine at which point they would get up

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and start walking round the table, reading their work aloud

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and discussing their latest plots.

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It's amazing to think it was here that they wrote such

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classics as Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey.

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Charlotte went on to create some of the most unconventional

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characters in literary history like Jane Eyre

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and my personal favourite, Lucy Snowe.

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Like her, they are small, plain and introverted, yet they lead

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rich inner lives and rage against injustice.

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Once, after an argument with her sisters, she said,

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"I will prove to you that you are wrong.

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"I shall write a heroine as plain and small as myself

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"and she will be as interesting as any of yours."

0:26:530:26:57

Defiant in her life and revolutionary in her writing,

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Charlotte Bronte will long be esteemed as a fearless

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pioneer of women writers.

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And this is where the Rising came to an end,

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the Royal College of Surgeons on St Stephen's Green.

0:27:230:27:27

The rebels signed the letters of surrender here.

0:27:270:27:30

The building remains unchanged and bears the bullet marks to this day.

0:27:300:27:35

And that's it for tonight.

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We're on BBC Radio Ulster, Tuesdays to Fridays at 6.30pm

0:27:470:27:51

and online and Twitter too.

0:27:510:27:54

You can't miss us. Until then, goodnight.

0:27:540:27:56

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