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It is almost impossible to imagine the horror of what happened | 4:52:17 | 4:52:22 | |
here 100 years ago. | 4:52:22 | 4:52:24 | |
But in this sleepy part of provincial northern France | 4:52:24 | 4:52:27 | |
is where one of the bloodiest battles of World War I was fought. | 4:52:27 | 4:52:32 | |
Much of what I know about war is not just from history books. | 4:52:32 | 4:52:36 | |
It's from the war poets, the songs, the paintings, the photography. | 4:52:36 | 4:52:41 | |
The artists who fought on these battlefields, | 4:52:41 | 4:52:44 | |
and who tried to interpret and make sense of it all. | 4:52:44 | 4:52:47 | |
These days, when conflict can be settled at a remove by drones, | 4:52:47 | 4:52:52 | |
do we still need artists to hold a mirror up to humanity | 4:52:52 | 4:52:56 | |
at its worst and its best? | 4:52:56 | 4:52:59 | |
This is Thiepval Wood, where the Ulster Division was stationed | 4:53:07 | 4:53:10 | |
before going over the top on 1st July early morning. | 4:53:10 | 4:53:15 | |
This is the Ulster Memorial Tower, | 4:53:15 | 4:53:17 | |
an exact replica of Helen's Tower in Bangor. | 4:53:17 | 4:53:21 | |
There really feels like an echo of home here. | 4:53:21 | 4:53:24 | |
These are the trenches which held the Ulstermen | 4:53:29 | 4:53:32 | |
who inspired Frank McGuinness's seminal play, | 4:53:32 | 4:53:35 | |
Observe The Sons Of Ulster Marching Towards The Somme. | 4:53:35 | 4:53:39 | |
Answer me why we did it. | 4:53:46 | 4:53:48 | |
Why we let ourselves be led to extermination. | 4:53:50 | 4:53:53 | |
In the end, we were not led. | 4:53:56 | 4:53:58 | |
We led ourselves. | 4:53:59 | 4:54:01 | |
We claimed we would die for each other in battle. | 4:54:03 | 4:54:06 | |
To fulfil that claim, we marched into the battle that killed us all. | 4:54:07 | 4:54:11 | |
Why did you write this play? | 4:54:12 | 4:54:15 | |
Well, it's over 30 years ago since I started researching it | 4:54:15 | 4:54:18 | |
and writing it. | 4:54:18 | 4:54:20 | |
I think it's basically a consequence of a time | 4:54:20 | 4:54:24 | |
that I spent in my very first job, which was lecturer of English | 4:54:24 | 4:54:27 | |
in Coleraine with the University of Ulster. | 4:54:27 | 4:54:30 | |
I had never really lived in a largely Protestant community before, | 4:54:30 | 4:54:34 | |
and I had never really had any great access to the history and culture | 4:54:34 | 4:54:39 | |
of the Protestant people before. | 4:54:39 | 4:54:41 | |
At that time, I was spending some time in Coleraine, | 4:54:41 | 4:54:45 | |
some time in Enniskillen, some time in Derry, | 4:54:45 | 4:54:48 | |
and one linking factor between all those big towns | 4:54:48 | 4:54:51 | |
was the war memorial. | 4:54:51 | 4:54:53 | |
And that war memorial really didn't mean anything to me | 4:54:53 | 4:54:56 | |
because at school we were not really taught anything | 4:54:56 | 4:54:59 | |
about either of the great wars of the 20th century. | 4:54:59 | 4:55:02 | |
Bit by bit, I started to get a fascination with it | 4:55:02 | 4:55:05 | |
and started to make a connection with it. | 4:55:05 | 4:55:07 | |
-But it wasn't your natural background. -No. | 4:55:07 | 4:55:10 | |
I mean, you're a Catholic from Donegal. | 4:55:10 | 4:55:13 | |
Yes, I was immensely aware of the border, and of the other side, | 4:55:13 | 4:55:17 | |
and of the six counties, and we were the Free Staters. | 4:55:17 | 4:55:20 | |
So I had this strong awareness of division, | 4:55:20 | 4:55:24 | |
and of alienation from each other. | 4:55:24 | 4:55:26 | |
And I think, like a lot of people in the '70s and '80s, | 4:55:26 | 4:55:31 | |
I was determined to do something to bridge the gap, | 4:55:31 | 4:55:34 | |
the cultural gap, between us and them, | 4:55:34 | 4:55:38 | |
and not to accept that ridiculous difference | 4:55:38 | 4:55:42 | |
and ridiculous lack of contact which our education on both sides | 4:55:42 | 4:55:45 | |
had very deeply ingrained in us. | 4:55:45 | 4:55:49 | |
I wanted to really react against that. | 4:55:49 | 4:55:51 | |
SHOUTING | 4:55:51 | 4:55:54 | |
What the hell do yous two think you're doing? | 4:55:54 | 4:55:56 | |
-Defending this part of the realm. -Keep your defending for where it's needed across the water. | 4:55:56 | 4:56:00 | |
-Let that lad go! -He's a Catholic bastard, he's no place in this. | 4:56:00 | 4:56:03 | |
-He's no Catholic, he's one of ours. -Look at his eyes. | 4:56:03 | 4:56:05 | |
-Are you a Catholic, son? -No! -Let him go, do you hear? | 4:56:05 | 4:56:08 | |
He said, do you hear?! | 4:56:08 | 4:56:09 | |
I hear. I hear clearly. | 4:56:11 | 4:56:13 | |
The Boyne and the Somme, | 4:56:14 | 4:56:16 | |
what parallels did you want to draw with those seismic battles? | 4:56:16 | 4:56:22 | |
Yes, and it was a tremendous coincidence that the two | 4:56:22 | 4:56:26 | |
great days in the history of Ulster Protestantism is, by a quirk | 4:56:26 | 4:56:30 | |
of the calendar, they actually were fought on the same day. | 4:56:30 | 4:56:33 | |
I mean, that really was screaming at me, actually, | 4:56:33 | 4:56:37 | |
that there is this tremendous metaphor for, if you like, | 4:56:37 | 4:56:41 | |
the energy of the culture. | 4:56:41 | 4:56:43 | |
But I really wanted to make use of that very potent connection | 4:56:43 | 4:56:48 | |
in deliberating what it is to be of the Protestant mind. | 4:56:48 | 4:56:53 | |
Were people questioning you, saying, "Why is Frank McGuinness | 4:56:53 | 4:56:56 | |
"writing this play about our heritage, our boys?" | 4:56:56 | 4:57:00 | |
I don't thing I got too much of that, really, | 4:57:00 | 4:57:04 | |
and I would have had an answer for it. | 4:57:04 | 4:57:07 | |
And that answer was, "Look, it's a great story. | 4:57:07 | 4:57:09 | |
"It's a ferocious, terrifying, heartbreaking story, | 4:57:09 | 4:57:13 | |
"and if you didn't do it, I was going to do it." | 4:57:13 | 4:57:16 | |
We're here, we're here! | 4:57:16 | 4:57:18 | |
No cause for panic, ladies. The men are here. | 4:57:18 | 4:57:22 | |
And these eight men, very strong male characters, | 4:57:22 | 4:57:27 | |
women are mentioned but never appear in the play. | 4:57:27 | 4:57:29 | |
I did make a very conscious decision that I would concentrate | 4:57:29 | 4:57:34 | |
exclusively on men because they have to fulfil the role | 4:57:34 | 4:57:37 | |
that normally they assign to women. | 4:57:37 | 4:57:39 | |
They have to become protectors, | 4:57:39 | 4:57:41 | |
nurturers, they have to become defenders. | 4:57:41 | 4:57:43 | |
They have to love each other. | 4:57:43 | 4:57:45 | |
The whole variety of ways of loving each other | 4:57:45 | 4:57:47 | |
that normally they depend on a woman to do. | 4:57:47 | 4:57:50 | |
Do you feel that Observe The Sons Of Ulster | 4:57:50 | 4:57:52 | |
sits in the pantheon of great Unionist plays? | 4:57:52 | 4:57:54 | |
Would you consider that? | 4:57:54 | 4:57:56 | |
No, I don't think it's a Unionist play. | 4:57:56 | 4:57:59 | |
I don't think it's a Republican play, | 4:57:59 | 4:58:01 | |
or a Catholic play, or a Protestant play. | 4:58:01 | 4:58:03 | |
It's a play that I hope genuinely makes an effort to understand | 4:58:03 | 4:58:07 | |
why we are what we are, | 4:58:07 | 4:58:09 | |
and I hope it does its job in terms of bringing an audience with it, | 4:58:09 | 4:58:13 | |
through its beginning, middle and end, | 4:58:13 | 4:58:16 | |
to a place of great tragedy and great loss. | 4:58:16 | 4:58:19 | |
I feel a tremendous sense of grief at the loss of so much life | 4:58:19 | 4:58:24 | |
and so much potential. | 4:58:24 | 4:58:26 | |
But that's what I hope the play is, | 4:58:26 | 4:58:28 | |
it is a great cry for peace. | 4:58:28 | 4:58:31 | |
The soldiers in Frank's play would have known | 4:58:39 | 4:58:42 | |
nurses like Newry woman Olive Swanzy. | 4:58:42 | 4:58:45 | |
She not only saved lives, she also saved a unique | 4:58:45 | 4:58:49 | |
collection of drawings, poems and sketches, | 4:58:49 | 4:58:52 | |
created by the soldiers in her care, | 4:58:52 | 4:58:54 | |
which lay undisturbed in an attic for 75 years. | 4:58:54 | 4:58:57 | |
The story has been brought to the stage by Kabosh. | 4:58:57 | 4:59:01 | |
"The miser crept out of his hole, | 4:59:01 | 4:59:04 | |
"his bags of clink he clunk, | 4:59:04 | 4:59:06 | |
"and many a smile that miser smole | 4:59:06 | 4:59:09 | |
"and many a wink he wunk." | 4:59:09 | 4:59:12 | |
Private A Bligh. | 4:59:12 | 4:59:14 | |
Not a natural poet, I think we can agree. | 4:59:14 | 4:59:16 | |
It's just spoofy, that's soldiers for you. | 4:59:16 | 4:59:19 | |
Tomfoolery is their speciality, | 4:59:19 | 4:59:20 | |
in the hospital with nothing to do all day, | 4:59:20 | 4:59:22 | |
that's all they were at from dawn to dusk. | 4:59:22 | 4:59:25 | |
They poured their droll humour into this book. | 4:59:25 | 4:59:28 | |
Much of the humour is black humour, | 4:59:33 | 4:59:36 | |
and there's much else that isn't humorous at all | 4:59:36 | 4:59:39 | |
in this poignant scrapbook kept by nurse Olive Swanzy, | 4:59:39 | 4:59:43 | |
who served in France during World War I. | 4:59:43 | 4:59:47 | |
It's a collection of over 100 poems and sketches by soldiers | 4:59:47 | 4:59:51 | |
she was caring for. | 4:59:51 | 4:59:53 | |
It's a first-hand account of the thoughts that preoccupied the men | 4:59:53 | 4:59:57 | |
as they lay in a field hospital, contemplating an uncertain future. | 4:59:57 | 5:00:01 | |
"I want to go home, | 5:00:03 | 5:00:05 | |
"where you can't hear the cannons rumble and roar. | 5:00:05 | 5:00:09 | |
"I don't want to go to the trenches no more. | 5:00:09 | 5:00:12 | |
"Take me over the seas where the Germans, they can't get at me. | 5:00:12 | 5:00:16 | |
"Oh, my, I don't want to die. | 5:00:17 | 5:00:20 | |
"I want to go home." | 5:00:20 | 5:00:22 | |
The daughter of a Church of Ireland minister, | 5:00:24 | 5:00:26 | |
Olive's nursing career began in 1915, | 5:00:26 | 5:00:30 | |
when she left her home in Newry to join | 5:00:30 | 5:00:32 | |
the Volunteer Aid Detachment, and was posted to Portsmouth. | 5:00:32 | 5:00:36 | |
It was here the injured were sent for treatment | 5:00:36 | 5:00:39 | |
and often returned to the front. | 5:00:39 | 5:00:41 | |
At 7:30am, on 1st July 1916, the Battle of the Somme began. | 5:00:43 | 5:00:49 | |
No-one could have imagined it would be the bloodiest day | 5:00:49 | 5:00:53 | |
in British military history. | 5:00:53 | 5:00:55 | |
The number of casualties was so enormous | 5:00:55 | 5:00:58 | |
that more nurses were urgently needed. | 5:00:58 | 5:01:01 | |
Olive found herself at Field Hospital Number 12 | 5:01:01 | 5:01:06 | |
on the racetrack outside Rouen in France. | 5:01:06 | 5:01:09 | |
"I could smell the ether, it sickened me, I hated it. | 5:01:09 | 5:01:13 | |
"And the noise. | 5:01:13 | 5:01:15 | |
"The noise the men make when they first come in, mashed up, | 5:01:16 | 5:01:19 | |
"bandaged, bewildered." | 5:01:19 | 5:01:21 | |
Despite the horrendous conditions, | 5:01:22 | 5:01:25 | |
Olive found relief from day-to-day stresses | 5:01:25 | 5:01:28 | |
by painting her surroundings, | 5:01:28 | 5:01:30 | |
the tainted landscape of Rouen hospital. | 5:01:30 | 5:01:33 | |
What she was practising was her own form of occupational therapy, | 5:01:33 | 5:01:39 | |
an idea scarcely known at the time, | 5:01:39 | 5:01:42 | |
and which also led her to encourage her patients to draw and to write. | 5:01:42 | 5:01:47 | |
One of the contributors was Fergus McCain, | 5:01:48 | 5:01:52 | |
an illustrator from New York. | 5:01:52 | 5:01:54 | |
This early cartoon is a comic treatment of his own wounding | 5:01:54 | 5:01:58 | |
at the Battle of Delville Wood, nicknamed Devil's Wood. | 5:01:58 | 5:02:04 | |
McCain would later create a series of cartoon postcards | 5:02:04 | 5:02:08 | |
depicting life in the trenches, known as A Tommy's Life In France. | 5:02:08 | 5:02:13 | |
Troops were encouraged to buy them and send them home. | 5:02:13 | 5:02:17 | |
Humour was surprisingly common in the sketches, | 5:02:18 | 5:02:21 | |
and while the battlefront does feature, | 5:02:21 | 5:02:24 | |
many of the artists had different people and places in mind. | 5:02:24 | 5:02:29 | |
The First World War is, for many people, a male narrative. | 5:02:30 | 5:02:35 | |
It's about men, who mostly were the ones who suffered in the trenches, | 5:02:35 | 5:02:41 | |
and who died. | 5:02:41 | 5:02:42 | |
But it's also a women's war. | 5:02:42 | 5:02:45 | |
So what we get with Nurse Swanzy's story | 5:02:45 | 5:02:51 | |
is a woman's outlook on the war, | 5:02:51 | 5:02:54 | |
and in particular, the way that she cherished the men sufficiently | 5:02:54 | 5:02:59 | |
to want them to record a little bit of themselves. | 5:02:59 | 5:03:02 | |
Why did they do it? | 5:03:02 | 5:03:04 | |
The relationship between a nurse and a soldier, | 5:03:04 | 5:03:07 | |
a wounded soldier in particular, at the front, was a rather special one. | 5:03:07 | 5:03:13 | |
Because these young men, during the course of a war, | 5:03:14 | 5:03:17 | |
were in male environments. | 5:03:17 | 5:03:19 | |
They very rarely encountered women. | 5:03:19 | 5:03:23 | |
And suddenly you're in a position where you're in the hospital ward, | 5:03:24 | 5:03:27 | |
you're away from the sound of the guns, and there is this | 5:03:27 | 5:03:30 | |
angel of the wards who is maybe doing very intimate things. | 5:03:30 | 5:03:35 | |
She's washing you if you're unable to wash yourself. | 5:03:35 | 5:03:38 | |
She's helping you to dress. She's there. | 5:03:38 | 5:03:42 | |
She's a kindly voice, and she may well remind you of the mother | 5:03:42 | 5:03:46 | |
that you maybe write to, | 5:03:46 | 5:03:48 | |
the mother that you've maybe written a poem about | 5:03:48 | 5:03:52 | |
in order to celebrate how much she means to you. | 5:03:52 | 5:03:55 | |
And she's there almost as a sister, | 5:03:55 | 5:03:57 | |
or perhaps even an imagined lover. | 5:03:57 | 5:03:59 | |
Who knows? | 5:03:59 | 5:04:01 | |
Some of them who write in this book of Olive's die in the war. | 5:04:01 | 5:04:05 | |
They go back to the front and die, | 5:04:05 | 5:04:08 | |
and the little poem that they leave, the little sketch, is perhaps all | 5:04:08 | 5:04:12 | |
we have as we look at it 100 years later, all we have of their lives. | 5:04:12 | 5:04:17 | |
If I want to live now, in this bright, shining present, | 5:04:17 | 5:04:21 | |
the past must go, starting with this autograph book and the sketch pad. | 5:04:21 | 5:04:25 | |
They can go into the fire. | 5:04:25 | 5:04:27 | |
Think how long your patients took making their entries, | 5:04:27 | 5:04:30 | |
doing their drawings. They wanted them kept. | 5:04:30 | 5:04:33 | |
They wanted something they made to be held on to by you. | 5:04:33 | 5:04:37 | |
Lock it away in a box, out of sight. | 5:04:37 | 5:04:40 | |
And that's exactly what Olive did. | 5:04:42 | 5:04:44 | |
The poems and sketches were hidden away in The Manse in Newry, | 5:04:44 | 5:04:48 | |
and in her later home in Rostrevor for nearly 70 years. | 5:04:48 | 5:04:53 | |
In 1974, Olive died, | 5:04:54 | 5:04:56 | |
but it was another 16 years before the collection was discovered. | 5:04:56 | 5:05:00 | |
Now, at last, the words and pictures created by wounded men, | 5:05:01 | 5:05:05 | |
can be seen more widely than their creators ever imagined. | 5:05:05 | 5:05:10 | |
And Olive's collection is currently on show in the Ulster museum. | 5:05:16 | 5:05:20 | |
Now, each war has its own unique soundtrack, | 5:05:20 | 5:05:23 | |
be it Jimi Hendrix in Vietnam, or Vera Lynn in World War II. | 5:05:23 | 5:05:27 | |
Michael, what was the sound of World War I? | 5:05:27 | 5:05:31 | |
Although there were phonographs and some recorded material, | 5:05:31 | 5:05:36 | |
the vast majority of the songs came from the music hall. | 5:05:36 | 5:05:39 | |
You've got the classic things like | 5:05:39 | 5:05:43 | |
We Don't Want To Lose You, But We Think You Ought To Go... | 5:05:43 | 5:05:46 | |
# Oh, we don't want to lose you... # | 5:05:46 | 5:05:52 | |
It's all part of the patriotic feel that they were trying | 5:05:52 | 5:05:56 | |
to instil, which is why there were so many people who were enlisting. | 5:05:56 | 5:06:00 | |
So when they get here, we're in Thiepval Woods at the moment, | 5:06:00 | 5:06:04 | |
and they're in these trenches, what songs are they listening to here? | 5:06:04 | 5:06:08 | |
What are they singing? | 5:06:08 | 5:06:10 | |
The classic one, the one that everyone knows, | 5:06:10 | 5:06:12 | |
is It's A Long Way To Tipperary. | 5:06:12 | 5:06:14 | |
# It's a long way to Tipperary | 5:06:14 | 5:06:18 | |
# It's a long way to go... # | 5:06:18 | 5:06:23 | |
This was sung as the expeditionary force were landing in 1914, | 5:06:23 | 5:06:28 | |
and it just happened that the Daily Mail correspondent was there | 5:06:28 | 5:06:32 | |
when they were singing that song as they came off the ship. | 5:06:32 | 5:06:35 | |
Had he been a mile down the road, | 5:06:35 | 5:06:37 | |
they could have been singing another song. | 5:06:37 | 5:06:39 | |
But it was a marching song, | 5:06:39 | 5:06:41 | |
and one of the key things about this song was, could you march to it? | 5:06:41 | 5:06:45 | |
# Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag | 5:06:45 | 5:06:50 | |
# And smile, smile, smile... # | 5:06:50 | 5:06:53 | |
Pack Up Your Troubles is a really interesting one | 5:06:53 | 5:06:56 | |
because that was 1915, and in fact a competition was held, | 5:06:56 | 5:07:02 | |
and the guys who wrote the song thought it was piffle | 5:07:02 | 5:07:07 | |
and thought it was hilarious that it was then being | 5:07:07 | 5:07:10 | |
used as the troops were marching off to war. | 5:07:10 | 5:07:13 | |
So when it goes from marching and patriotic songs, | 5:07:13 | 5:07:17 | |
it starts to become quite sentimental and nostalgic. | 5:07:17 | 5:07:21 | |
You get more and more sentimental songs from around 1915, 1916. | 5:07:21 | 5:07:26 | |
You know, Home Sweet Home, actually, was extremely popular. | 5:07:26 | 5:07:32 | |
# Be it ever so humble | 5:07:33 | 5:07:40 | |
# There's no place like home... # | 5:07:40 | 5:07:47 | |
Say here in Thiepval Woods, they're singing songs, | 5:07:48 | 5:07:52 | |
they're so close to the enemy front line. | 5:07:52 | 5:07:54 | |
They wouldn't do that. It was discouraged on the front line, | 5:07:54 | 5:07:57 | |
for obvious reasons, | 5:07:57 | 5:07:59 | |
and also, moving up to the front line, they didn't sing. | 5:07:59 | 5:08:02 | |
# The bells of hell go ting-a-ling, for you but not for me. # | 5:08:02 | 5:08:07 | |
Apparently it was sung as the troops were marching away from the front | 5:08:07 | 5:08:11 | |
to the guys who were going into the front line, | 5:08:11 | 5:08:13 | |
and they would emphasise the word "you". | 5:08:13 | 5:08:16 | |
They weren't prescriptive in what they were doing. | 5:08:16 | 5:08:18 | |
They just sang whatever was in the head. | 5:08:18 | 5:08:21 | |
# Here we are, here we are here we are again | 5:08:21 | 5:08:25 | |
# Hello! Hello! | 5:08:25 | 5:08:29 | |
# Hello, hello, hello... # | 5:08:29 | 5:08:33 | |
It's not just about keeping the spirits up of the troops here, | 5:08:33 | 5:08:37 | |
of course - it's keeping the spirits up of the families at home. | 5:08:37 | 5:08:41 | |
# Has anybody here seen Kelly... # | 5:08:41 | 5:08:44 | |
I love the fact that it was surrounded by birdsong, | 5:08:44 | 5:08:48 | |
and, you know, nature will always find a way through. | 5:08:48 | 5:08:52 | |
-But to imagine those songs... -It's pretty overwhelming. | 5:08:52 | 5:08:56 | |
As well as music, war has its own defining images. | 5:09:03 | 5:09:08 | |
In a world of 24-hour rolling news, | 5:09:08 | 5:09:11 | |
should the interpretation of war be left to artists? | 5:09:11 | 5:09:15 | |
War is something that most of us | 5:09:17 | 5:09:20 | |
probably only ever experience through here, the newsroom. | 5:09:20 | 5:09:23 | |
And since the Vietnam War, the sight of news crews | 5:09:23 | 5:09:27 | |
bunkering down with troops has become common. | 5:09:27 | 5:09:29 | |
But before television, | 5:09:29 | 5:09:31 | |
governments found a different method of capturing battle, | 5:09:31 | 5:09:34 | |
commissioning war artists | 5:09:34 | 5:09:36 | |
to experience and interpret what they encountered. | 5:09:36 | 5:09:40 | |
In 2002, professor of photography | 5:09:40 | 5:09:43 | |
and head of the Belfast School of Art, Paul Seawright, | 5:09:43 | 5:09:46 | |
was sent to Afghanistan as a war artist. | 5:09:46 | 5:09:49 | |
What is the role of the war artist? | 5:09:49 | 5:09:52 | |
Well, the idea of the war artist is kind of counter to the media, | 5:09:53 | 5:09:56 | |
I guess, is probably the best way to think about that. | 5:09:56 | 5:09:59 | |
Wars are photographed and filmed by the media. | 5:09:59 | 5:10:01 | |
That's how we encounter war mostly. | 5:10:01 | 5:10:04 | |
The war artist tries to bring a different voice to that, | 5:10:04 | 5:10:07 | |
something, I guess maybe more poetic or slower, | 5:10:07 | 5:10:11 | |
less informed or directed by other agencies. | 5:10:11 | 5:10:14 | |
The idea of the independent artist going to a war | 5:10:14 | 5:10:17 | |
to give us something that's perhaps more reflective, | 5:10:17 | 5:10:20 | |
more complex in terms of what it does than the media might do. | 5:10:20 | 5:10:23 | |
But why would a government or a body invest in an artist | 5:10:23 | 5:10:27 | |
to capture their experience of war? | 5:10:27 | 5:10:29 | |
I think it's essential that governments face up | 5:10:30 | 5:10:33 | |
to their responsibility | 5:10:33 | 5:10:35 | |
of trying to somehow document | 5:10:35 | 5:10:37 | |
in a much more emotive and open, unattached way, | 5:10:37 | 5:10:41 | |
to the kind of things... | 5:10:41 | 5:10:42 | |
These are huge issues in the world. | 5:10:42 | 5:10:44 | |
I mean, war... We send people off to fight and die. | 5:10:44 | 5:10:47 | |
For that just to be recorded in an official capacity by the government | 5:10:47 | 5:10:50 | |
or the military themselves, would be a disaster for us. | 5:10:50 | 5:10:53 | |
Having independent people in those situations is crucial. | 5:10:53 | 5:10:56 | |
When I did the Afghanistan commission, | 5:10:56 | 5:10:58 | |
I had a lovely note from Seamus Heaney saying how essential | 5:10:58 | 5:11:01 | |
he thought it was that writers, poets, playwrights, painters, should | 5:11:01 | 5:11:06 | |
go to war because their account of that war will be absolutely unique. | 5:11:06 | 5:11:10 | |
As we know with looking at war art from the First World War now, | 5:11:10 | 5:11:14 | |
it's an insight into that war | 5:11:14 | 5:11:15 | |
that you cannot get from any other mediation of it. | 5:11:15 | 5:11:18 | |
Are they truly independent, though? | 5:11:19 | 5:11:22 | |
What's the crossover between an official war artist | 5:11:22 | 5:11:26 | |
and pure propaganda? | 5:11:26 | 5:11:27 | |
Originally, it was called the official war artist. | 5:11:27 | 5:11:31 | |
That term became very contentious. | 5:11:31 | 5:11:33 | |
Artists were turning down the commissions | 5:11:33 | 5:11:35 | |
because they didn't want to be an official anything. | 5:11:35 | 5:11:37 | |
It runs against the grain of being an artist. | 5:11:37 | 5:11:40 | |
So the "official" thing going was quite important, | 5:11:40 | 5:11:42 | |
and the independence of the artist | 5:11:42 | 5:11:44 | |
is really crucial to that whole project being successful. | 5:11:44 | 5:11:47 | |
The only way I'd ever have accepted doing a commission like that | 5:11:47 | 5:11:50 | |
was to have complete independence. | 5:11:50 | 5:11:52 | |
The way the process works, and I'm on the commissioning committee | 5:11:52 | 5:11:55 | |
at the Imperial War Museum, is you identify artists | 5:11:55 | 5:11:57 | |
whose work might be suitable, and then they make proposals. | 5:11:57 | 5:12:00 | |
All the commissioning committee does is facilitate your project. | 5:12:00 | 5:12:04 | |
Can these be artworks in their own right? | 5:12:04 | 5:12:06 | |
I'm thinking of official war artists from the Great War, | 5:12:06 | 5:12:09 | |
like Sir John Lavery, or William Connor. | 5:12:09 | 5:12:12 | |
Their work clearly was intended as propaganda, | 5:12:12 | 5:12:15 | |
but as time has gone on, we can look at it very differently now. | 5:12:15 | 5:12:18 | |
A lot of that art doesn't feel like propaganda now. At the time it was. | 5:12:18 | 5:12:21 | |
Look at some of those paintings, and they're quite celebratory almost. | 5:12:21 | 5:12:25 | |
Blue skies and very rich colours. | 5:12:25 | 5:12:27 | |
But at the same time, there are people producing paintings | 5:12:27 | 5:12:30 | |
in the very same capacity that are very black and sombre and difficult. | 5:12:30 | 5:12:35 | |
I think it's to do with the individual. | 5:12:35 | 5:12:37 | |
The more versions we have, the more narratives we have, | 5:12:37 | 5:12:40 | |
the more voices we have, be it artists, journalists, be it writers, | 5:12:40 | 5:12:44 | |
anyone at all, it's all of value. | 5:12:44 | 5:12:46 | |
And in fact it will all impact, I think, eventually | 5:12:46 | 5:12:49 | |
on how we might engage or not engage in conflicts in the future. | 5:12:49 | 5:12:53 | |
Men from right across the island of Ireland | 5:13:06 | 5:13:09 | |
fought here on these battlefields, | 5:13:09 | 5:13:11 | |
including Francis Ledwidge from Slane in County Meath. | 5:13:11 | 5:13:15 | |
Now, Slane is probably best known these days for its rock concerts, | 5:13:15 | 5:13:19 | |
but it was also the home place of this Irish poet, | 5:13:19 | 5:13:22 | |
whose work, arguably, should be as well known as Wilfred Owen's | 5:13:22 | 5:13:27 | |
or Siegfried Sassoon's. | 5:13:27 | 5:13:29 | |
When I was young I had a care | 5:13:29 | 5:13:32 | |
Lest I should cheat me of my share | 5:13:32 | 5:13:35 | |
Of that which makes it sweet to strive | 5:13:35 | 5:13:37 | |
For life, and dying still survive, | 5:13:37 | 5:13:39 | |
A name in sunshine written higher | 5:13:39 | 5:13:42 | |
Than lark or poet dare aspire. | 5:13:42 | 5:13:44 | |
When we think of the great war poets, | 5:13:47 | 5:13:49 | |
we think of Owen, Sassoon, Kipling. | 5:13:49 | 5:13:53 | |
But here in Slane in County Meath lived one of the finest, | 5:13:53 | 5:13:57 | |
yet lesser-known Irish poets - | 5:13:57 | 5:13:59 | |
Francis Ledwidge. | 5:13:59 | 5:14:00 | |
He was born in August 1887 | 5:14:02 | 5:14:04 | |
in this very cottage in Janeville, Slane in Ireland. | 5:14:04 | 5:14:08 | |
The eighth of nine children in a poverty-stricken family. | 5:14:08 | 5:14:11 | |
Francis was only five when his father, Patrick, | 5:14:11 | 5:14:14 | |
died prematurely, which forced his wife | 5:14:14 | 5:14:17 | |
and the children out to work at an early age. | 5:14:17 | 5:14:20 | |
Strongly built with striking brown eyes and a handsome face, | 5:14:20 | 5:14:24 | |
Ledwidge was a keen poet, writing wherever he could, | 5:14:24 | 5:14:28 | |
sometimes even on gates and fence posts. | 5:14:28 | 5:14:31 | |
While working as a road labourer, | 5:14:32 | 5:14:34 | |
he won the patronage of the writer Lord Dunsany, | 5:14:34 | 5:14:38 | |
after he wrote to him enclosing copybooks of his early work. | 5:14:38 | 5:14:42 | |
Dunsany, a man of letters already well-established in Dublin | 5:14:42 | 5:14:46 | |
and London literary circles, promoted Ledwidge in Dublin, | 5:14:46 | 5:14:50 | |
where he introduced him to the burgeoning literary scene | 5:14:50 | 5:14:53 | |
and the Abbey Theatre. | 5:14:53 | 5:14:54 | |
He encouraged the young writer to become a fixture at the theatre, | 5:14:55 | 5:14:59 | |
to absorb the plays and the actors' interaction with the written word, | 5:14:59 | 5:15:03 | |
thus expanding his own horizons. | 5:15:03 | 5:15:05 | |
Ledwidge was a keen patriot and Nationalist | 5:15:07 | 5:15:10 | |
and a founding member, with his brother Joseph, | 5:15:10 | 5:15:12 | |
of the Slane branch of the Irish Volunteers, | 5:15:12 | 5:15:15 | |
a Nationalist force sworn to defend the introduction of Home Rule | 5:15:15 | 5:15:19 | |
for Ireland, by force if need be. | 5:15:19 | 5:15:21 | |
On the outbreak of war in August 1914, | 5:15:27 | 5:15:30 | |
and on account of Ireland's involvement in the war, | 5:15:30 | 5:15:33 | |
the Irish Volunteers split into two factions - | 5:15:33 | 5:15:37 | |
the National Volunteers, | 5:15:37 | 5:15:38 | |
who supported John Redmond's appeal to join Irish regiments | 5:15:38 | 5:15:41 | |
in support of Great Britain's war efforts, | 5:15:41 | 5:15:44 | |
and those who did not. | 5:15:44 | 5:15:45 | |
Francis was originally of the latter party, | 5:15:46 | 5:15:49 | |
but changed his mind, | 5:15:49 | 5:15:50 | |
declaring that it was because "Britain stood between Ireland | 5:15:50 | 5:15:54 | |
"and an enemy common to our civilisation, | 5:15:54 | 5:15:57 | |
"and I would not have her say she defended us | 5:15:57 | 5:16:01 | |
"while we did nothing at home but pass resolutions." | 5:16:01 | 5:16:04 | |
In October 1914, Francis enlisted in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, | 5:16:06 | 5:16:12 | |
initially serving in Turkey and Serbia, | 5:16:12 | 5:16:14 | |
and was promoted to Lance Corporal. | 5:16:14 | 5:16:16 | |
While recovering from injury in Manchester, | 5:16:18 | 5:16:20 | |
news reached him of the Easter Uprising | 5:16:20 | 5:16:23 | |
and the execution of his good friend and fellow poet Thomas MacDonagh. | 5:16:23 | 5:16:27 | |
He became angry and disillusioned | 5:16:27 | 5:16:30 | |
and was finally court-martialed | 5:16:30 | 5:16:31 | |
and demoted for overstaying his home leave, | 5:16:31 | 5:16:34 | |
though his corporal stripes would be restored when he went back to war. | 5:16:34 | 5:16:39 | |
What is certainly true is that Frank's views were | 5:16:40 | 5:16:43 | |
crystallised by the deaths of his friends | 5:16:43 | 5:16:45 | |
after the Rising executions, of course, by the British Army. | 5:16:45 | 5:16:49 | |
It's worth saying as well that he was court-martialed | 5:16:49 | 5:16:51 | |
after the Rising, I think, for insubordination. | 5:16:51 | 5:16:53 | |
During the court martial, he was accused of being a traitor. | 5:16:53 | 5:16:56 | |
He reacted extremely strongly to that, | 5:16:56 | 5:16:58 | |
because, of course, that's a multivalent term, | 5:16:58 | 5:17:01 | |
it's got many meanings, | 5:17:01 | 5:17:02 | |
particularly for an Irishmen in British uniform at that time. | 5:17:02 | 5:17:05 | |
How did Frank's attitude to war change after 1916 | 5:17:05 | 5:17:09 | |
and the executions? | 5:17:09 | 5:17:11 | |
Well, let's not forget that Frank had the chance to be invalided out. | 5:17:11 | 5:17:14 | |
He was given the means to do so and refused. | 5:17:14 | 5:17:17 | |
He never waivered, as far as I can see, from his writings, | 5:17:17 | 5:17:21 | |
from his views that he was fighting against a great evil. | 5:17:21 | 5:17:25 | |
An enemy, as he put it, of civilisation. | 5:17:25 | 5:17:28 | |
Ledwidge endured harsh conditions in Gallipoli in 1915, | 5:17:28 | 5:17:32 | |
however, his poetry evokes a sense of peace and simplicity, | 5:17:32 | 5:17:36 | |
not violence. | 5:17:36 | 5:17:37 | |
A sentiment which appealed to many readers during the war. | 5:17:37 | 5:17:41 | |
Then in the lull of midnight, gentle arms | 5:17:41 | 5:17:44 | |
Lifted him slowly down the slopes of death | 5:17:44 | 5:17:48 | |
Lest he should hear again the mad alarms | 5:17:48 | 5:17:50 | |
Of battle, dying moans, and painful breath. | 5:17:50 | 5:17:54 | |
And where the earth was soft for flowers we made | 5:17:54 | 5:17:56 | |
A grave for him that he might better rest. | 5:17:56 | 5:18:00 | |
So, Spring shall come and leave it sweet arrayed, | 5:18:00 | 5:18:04 | |
And there the lark shall turn her dewy nest. | 5:18:04 | 5:18:08 | |
As one critic commented about the poems and songs of the fields, | 5:18:10 | 5:18:15 | |
they are the spontaneous expression | 5:18:15 | 5:18:17 | |
of his simple love of the Irish fields, | 5:18:17 | 5:18:19 | |
and the feeling of these songs is sincere enough | 5:18:19 | 5:18:22 | |
to take us back from the present fields of war. | 5:18:22 | 5:18:25 | |
On the 31st of July 1917, | 5:18:28 | 5:18:29 | |
a group from Ledwidge's battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers | 5:18:29 | 5:18:33 | |
were road laying in preparation for an assault | 5:18:33 | 5:18:36 | |
during the third Battle of Ypres. | 5:18:36 | 5:18:38 | |
While Ledwidge was drinking tea in a mud hole with his comrades, | 5:18:38 | 5:18:42 | |
a shell exploded alongside, killing the poet and five others. | 5:18:42 | 5:18:46 | |
Ledwidge's poetic legacy, what Seamus Heaney calls | 5:18:46 | 5:18:50 | |
the "twilit note" was, | 5:18:50 | 5:18:52 | |
like his political life, unseen for many decades. | 5:18:52 | 5:18:57 | |
Now, however, he is being heralded as a man of our times, | 5:18:57 | 5:19:01 | |
one in whom "All the strains crisscross". | 5:19:01 | 5:19:04 | |
And now I'm drinking wine in France, | 5:19:06 | 5:19:08 | |
The helpless child of circumstance. | 5:19:08 | 5:19:11 | |
Tomorrow will be loud with war, | 5:19:11 | 5:19:14 | |
How will I be accounted for? | 5:19:15 | 5:19:18 | |
It is too late now to retrieve | 5:19:18 | 5:19:20 | |
A fallen dream, too late to grieve | 5:19:20 | 5:19:24 | |
A name unmade, but not too late | 5:19:24 | 5:19:27 | |
To thank the gods for what is great; | 5:19:27 | 5:19:31 | |
A keen-edged sword, a soldier's heart, | 5:19:31 | 5:19:35 | |
Is greater than a poet's art. | 5:19:35 | 5:19:38 | |
And greater than a poet's fame | 5:19:38 | 5:19:41 | |
A little grave that has no name. | 5:19:41 | 5:19:44 | |
Whence honour turns away in shame. | 5:19:44 | 5:19:48 | |
Belfast poet Michael Longley's dad Richard fought in these fields | 5:19:54 | 5:19:59 | |
and survived. | 5:19:59 | 5:20:00 | |
This place has been a constant inspiration in Michael's work. | 5:20:00 | 5:20:04 | |
Here he is reading the poem Harmonica. | 5:20:04 | 5:20:07 | |
From the Western Front and The Arts Show, goodnight. | 5:20:07 | 5:20:12 | |
A tommy drops his harmonica in No Man's Land. | 5:20:24 | 5:20:28 | |
My dad like old Anaximines breathes in and out | 5:20:29 | 5:20:35 | |
Through the holes and reeds and finds this melody. | 5:20:35 | 5:20:40 | |
Our souls are air. They hold us together. Listen. | 5:20:41 | 5:20:49 | |
A music-hall favourite lasts until the end of time. | 5:20:49 | 5:20:55 | |
My dad is playing it. His breath contains the world. | 5:20:55 | 5:21:02 | |
The wind is playing an orchestra of harmonicas. | 5:21:02 | 5:21:07 |