:00:10. > :00:12.From the island of Iona on the west coast of Scotland, a mysterious
:00:13. > :00:20.cargo arrives in Northern Ireland. This is Derry-Londonderry, the city
:00:21. > :00:25.with two names and two histories, Catholic and Protestant.
:00:26. > :00:29.Today people have come together from all over the city to celebrate the
:00:30. > :00:34.fictional return of Colmcille, their patron saint. Looking around today,
:00:35. > :00:35.you'd never know for decades Derry-Londonderry was a violently
:00:36. > :00:51.divided city. When my family lived here in the
:00:52. > :00:54.'60s and '70s it seemed like the Troubles would never end, that the
:00:55. > :01:03.violence and hatred were here for good.
:01:04. > :01:13.And yet here we are today, one crowd having one big celebration.
:01:14. > :01:19.This year, Derry-Londonderry became the first ever UK City of Culture.
:01:20. > :01:24.Over the past 12 months, poets, artists and performers have been
:01:25. > :01:28.piling in through the 17th century city gates, the same gates that have
:01:29. > :01:33.witnessed siege and conflict for 400 years.
:01:34. > :01:41.Yes, this is Derry-Londonderry. But in 2013, in this UK City of Culture,
:01:42. > :01:44.nowhere is no-go any more. But can arts and culture really end
:01:45. > :02:05.centuries of sectarian violence and hatred?
:02:06. > :02:10.The seventh century ring fort of Greenan Ely in Donegal is only a
:02:11. > :02:12.stone's throw from Derry-Londonderry, and yet it's in
:02:13. > :02:29.another country, the Republic of Ireland.
:02:30. > :02:37.Look at this. It's so beautiful up here today in this weather. There's
:02:38. > :02:38.nowhere more beautiful. See the shadows moving over the hills and
:02:39. > :02:50.the gorse. This is all Donegal, part of the
:02:51. > :02:52.Republic of Ireland. And in this direction is Derry-Londonderry,
:02:53. > :02:57.Northern Ireland, that's part of the UK. There's a kind of invisible
:02:58. > :03:00.porous border that you drive from one field to the next field,
:03:01. > :03:05.suddenly you're in a different country. I think growing up in this
:03:06. > :03:09.landscape, this kind of contested territory, it's very hard not to
:03:10. > :03:14.have an identity crisis. The question arises about which
:03:15. > :03:23.direction you face. This way or that way.
:03:24. > :03:34.I grew up in Cookstown in County Tyrone, during the dark days of the
:03:35. > :03:38.troubles and left in 1994, the year of the cease-fires. I want to see
:03:39. > :03:41.how Derry, a city I know well, is dealing with its troubled past.
:03:42. > :03:45.Guildhall Square, the heart of the city. We're all here to see what's
:03:46. > :03:51.in the box that arrived earlier from Iona.
:03:52. > :03:54.It's the centrepiece of the Return of Colmcille, the city's celebration
:03:55. > :04:15.of its wayward patron saint. For in the box? It a secret!
:04:16. > :04:19.The story goes that Colmcille got into a violent dispute with another
:04:20. > :04:24.saint, thousands were killed and he was exiled to Scotland. When Frank
:04:25. > :04:27.Cottrel Boyce, writer of the London 2012 opening ceremony, was invited
:04:28. > :04:33.to write The return of Colmcille, he knew he'd found a new hero.
:04:34. > :04:37.This is a divided city. We've got two very different, or very
:04:38. > :04:42.contentious traditions, but Colmcille belongs to both. And also,
:04:43. > :04:46.you know, from my point of view, what a fantastically rich story. A
:04:47. > :04:49.story about revenge and you know can you do something good after you've
:04:50. > :04:52.done something very bad, which is Colmcille's story. And an amazing
:04:53. > :04:56.bank of beautiful images, because he's responsible for, ultimately for
:04:57. > :05:00.the Book of Kells which I think is possibly the most beautiful thing
:05:01. > :05:05.any human being has ever created. When he arrived on Iona, Colmcille
:05:06. > :05:11.founded a monastery. His followers went on to write the Book of Kells
:05:12. > :05:18.in the ninth century. It's one of the earliest masterpieces of western
:05:19. > :05:22.calligraphy and Celtic design. It's one of the wonders of the world.
:05:23. > :05:25.You've talked about the redemption of Colmcille, someone who had done
:05:26. > :05:29.something bad and tried to make up for it with something good.
:05:30. > :05:33.I can see why that applies to Derry in a lot of ways, but is it slightly
:05:34. > :05:37.strange to pick someone who is such a man of religion and violence, two
:05:38. > :05:40.things that Derry has maybe had enough of? But he'd had enough of
:05:41. > :05:44.it, and moved on. You'll meet people here who are doing great work in the
:05:45. > :05:48.council who've got quite murky pasts. So I think he's a good figure
:05:49. > :05:51.for Derry. And also he's a man of enormous learning, man who created
:05:52. > :05:54.enormous beauty, someone who, you know... The Roman Empire had
:05:55. > :05:57.collapsed, Europe was plunging into this mire, and this tiny group of
:05:58. > :06:02.men, on this remote island, set a light that brought everything back,
:06:03. > :06:07.an amazing, amazing achievement. He's a colossal figure, and I don't
:06:08. > :06:11.think people really appreciate that. How the Irish saved civilisation?
:06:12. > :06:14.They really did, they really did. The people who followed Colmcille
:06:15. > :06:18.ended up being advisers to Charlemagne and all that stuff, and
:06:19. > :06:38.the reach of that little island is astonishing.
:06:39. > :06:45.So this is it. The big moment, the reason we're all here.
:06:46. > :06:50.We've made a puzzle of it, and people thought, there was lots of
:06:51. > :06:55.phoning in and guesses about what was in the box. I was worried that
:06:56. > :06:59.it would be an anticlimax, cos the rumour was it was going to be Dana.
:07:00. > :07:03.Right. That would have been an anticlimax. The surprise, admittedly
:07:04. > :07:08.lost on some of the audience, was a giant pantomime Book of Kells.
:07:09. > :07:12.With most of us still none the wiser, the carnival monk draws a map
:07:13. > :07:20.of the city. And mostly that was really about
:07:21. > :07:24.getting people to walk, because during the Troubles there were
:07:25. > :07:27.routes that you couldn't walk. Right, the idea of no-go. You know,
:07:28. > :07:39.we're on the walls, you couldn't walk the walls.
:07:40. > :07:45.Do you feel like you know him now? Yes. He organised the weather, after
:07:46. > :07:53.all. I know him. Colmcille is a great cheer leader for the city of
:07:54. > :07:56.culture. He's a patron saint to both Catholics and Protestants. But he's
:07:57. > :07:59.actually not that saintly. But I can't forget that this is still
:08:00. > :08:01.Derry-Londonderry, the city of two names and two stories.
:08:02. > :08:04.What story that is depends on whether you are Catholic or
:08:05. > :08:10.Protestant, Irish or English, a nobleman or a peasant. But one thing
:08:11. > :08:14.everyone agrees on is it's a story of war and a story of bloodshed. And
:08:15. > :08:23.it goes back a very long way. These walls were built 400 years ago
:08:24. > :08:29.by English and Scottish settlers to fend off Irish insurgents who
:08:30. > :08:31.opposed the plantation. And the struggle for the control of Ireland
:08:32. > :08:46.has rumbled on through the centuries.
:08:47. > :08:54.I think it's down to the right. It's either that one or the next one. No,
:08:55. > :08:59.this is not the right way, sorry. I'm trying to find where my parents
:09:00. > :09:01.lived in the late '60s and '70s when the conflict between Catholic
:09:02. > :09:05.republicans and Protestant loyalists erupted violently.
:09:06. > :09:08.Just here, in here, in this house, there's a wee shed out in the back
:09:09. > :09:16.here where my father bred budgies and black sable rabbits, just there.
:09:17. > :09:19.During internment, they could hear all the bin lids being bashed across
:09:20. > :09:28.the river from the Creggan estate. This is Bogside, one of the city's
:09:29. > :09:33.many no-go areas during the Troubles.
:09:34. > :09:38.Here's the famous "you are now entering free Derry". And yet today
:09:39. > :09:39.tourists come here in their coachloads to photograph the famous
:09:40. > :09:51.republican murals. This is Bogside on January 30 1972,
:09:52. > :10:02.a date everyone know as Bloody Sunday.
:10:03. > :10:15.This mural painted in 1997 is based on news footage of the day.
:10:16. > :10:23.It's a powerful piece, this way the priest is kind of cowering waving
:10:24. > :10:27.the white hankerchief. This is Father Edward Daley, who went on to
:10:28. > :10:31.become the Bishop of Derry. I don't know what I think about these
:10:32. > :10:35.murals, to be honest. They're wonderful in some way and they
:10:36. > :10:39.commemorate history. But they also commemorate events that happened 40
:10:40. > :10:42.years ago. I'd like to see some murals celebrating the Good Friday
:10:43. > :10:48.Agreement or 20 years of relative peace.
:10:49. > :10:53.Many of the artists and performers in the City of Culture have been
:10:54. > :10:58.touched, directly or indirectly, by the Troubles. I've come to Picturing
:10:59. > :11:04.Derry, a photo exhibition that faces it head-on. Sean and Jim were young
:11:05. > :11:15.lads in the '80s when they joined Camerawork, a community photography
:11:16. > :11:22.project in Bogside. Sean, I think you were here on the day. Yes,
:11:23. > :11:24.that's me there. A lot more hair. Jim took this photograph himself
:11:25. > :11:28.during a Bloody Sunday commemorative rally in 1986. The image is black
:11:29. > :11:34.and white, but things were very grey then. The weather seemed to be more
:11:35. > :11:40.miserable as well. They were more hard times, more difficult times as
:11:41. > :11:44.well. So a lot of the memories that it reawakens in me were quite sad.
:11:45. > :11:49.But it's good now after the passage of time to revisit them. Because
:11:50. > :12:05.they do serve as a kind of image of what we actually went through as a
:12:06. > :12:07.people. They bear witness. Not all the photographers in the
:12:08. > :12:10.exhibition were personally involved. It brings together work by local and
:12:11. > :12:13.professional photographers from both sides of the sectarian divide, and
:12:14. > :12:16.photojournalists from around the world.
:12:17. > :12:22.Gilles Caron was a French photo journalist who travelled to Derry on
:12:23. > :12:27.12 August 1969. The morning was quiet and peaceful.
:12:28. > :12:31.It's strange how you can follow the narrative of that now through
:12:32. > :12:36.Caron's photographs, this almost bucolic scene of people marching
:12:37. > :12:38.with the rolling hills behind. Very sedate sort of elderly marchers, and
:12:39. > :12:41.then suddenly the kind of apocalypse.
:12:42. > :12:46.By the afternoon, this was the scene.
:12:47. > :12:56.This would become known as the Battle of the Bogside.
:12:57. > :13:01.The fact that she is so centred within the piece and so kind of
:13:02. > :13:05.unaware of the photograph, and within her face you see this look of
:13:06. > :13:07.complete and utter kind of alienation from her everyday
:13:08. > :13:08.surroundings that within an afternoon have just exploded into
:13:09. > :13:16.destruction. When local police were powerless to
:13:17. > :13:17.control the riots that spread to Belfast, British Troops were brought
:13:18. > :13:26.in. The same thing with these amazing
:13:27. > :13:33.shots of the soldiers' faces which are in colour, and they appear to be
:13:34. > :13:39.stripped from the war maybe. They do, and the fact that they are
:13:40. > :13:46.wearing camouflage, looks like it is straight out of Darren Sammy. And
:13:47. > :13:57.you can see the kind of shock in their face -- straight out of Dad's
:13:58. > :14:03.Army. And you can see the total terror in their face. As Jim said,
:14:04. > :14:07.those were sad times for Derry. But we are here now, and we are
:14:08. > :14:17.talking about the Troubles is history. This has to be a sign that
:14:18. > :14:27.we are moving on. I am going to visit the home of the apprentice
:14:28. > :14:32.boys of Derry. The same Protestant organisation that Caron
:14:33. > :14:42.photographed. That is some view. The river used to
:14:43. > :14:49.cut down here. It left Marshland behind, so that is where we get the
:14:50. > :15:02.name of Bogside. And the water for the city was kept outside the city
:15:03. > :15:07.walls, and the Bishop drank it and said it tasted as good as brandy.
:15:08. > :15:13.When I was growing up, the sectarian divide seemed unbridgeable, but this
:15:14. > :15:24.new piece Ridge is helping to change that. In the foreground you can see
:15:25. > :15:27.the Piece bridge. The two communities come together from the
:15:28. > :15:34.east bank to the West Bank -- the peace Bridge. The two sides have
:15:35. > :15:40.come together. Nearly 2 million people have walked across it since
:15:41. > :15:44.it was built. The 17th century city walls were out of bounds during the
:15:45. > :15:48.Troubles. They are free for anyone to walk now. To commemorate their
:15:49. > :15:54.400 year anniversary, Mark-Anthony Turnage was commissioned to compose
:15:55. > :16:01.the music for a new cantata with words by poet Paul Muldoon. It is
:16:02. > :16:06.called At Sixes And Sevens. Doire, the druids at their core.
:16:07. > :16:15.The sacred oak, en dair. The oak so stalwart it stands for
:16:16. > :16:20.All we've stood for thus far. One of the things which really
:16:21. > :16:24.fascinated me about this was the connection between the name Derry,
:16:25. > :16:36.which is a corruption of the gay lick phrase chrome, the word for an
:16:37. > :16:40.oak grove, the Gaelic phrase. Durability, the quality for which so
:16:41. > :16:52.many people in Northern Ireland are devoted. Being a hard man. The poem
:16:53. > :16:56.At Sixes And Sevens has also been reproduced in a limited edition book
:16:57. > :17:08.with illustrations by the Belfast artist Rita Duffy. Heard drawings
:17:09. > :17:15.engage with Muldoon's phrases. For the worshipful greyhound walk
:17:16. > :17:20.KERS, the worshipful and of big talkers, the worshipful and on the
:17:21. > :17:25.dole. One of the things I am interested in in song in particular,
:17:26. > :17:31.and in poetry as well, is the extent that when one sees a repeated
:17:32. > :17:38.phrase, a refrain, that each time one meets it it means something
:17:39. > :17:42.slightly different. It has a slightly new charge, text any
:17:43. > :17:50.direction. The worshipful of shirt seamers, the worshipful Company of
:17:51. > :17:55.the faces of ill board adds, the worshipful of daydreamers, the
:17:56. > :18:00.worshipful and of likely lads. There is a tradition in Ireland from
:18:01. > :18:04.WB Yeats to Seamus Heaney, of poetry becoming entangled in public life.
:18:05. > :18:10.Did Muldoon feel like he was addressing a crowd rather than a
:18:11. > :18:14.single reader? Despite the differences in the country, from one
:18:15. > :18:20.end of it to the other, it is still a very small place. I still think
:18:21. > :18:25.there is a little bit of a tribal sensibility, I would say rather a
:18:26. > :18:33.large tribal sensibility in Ireland. I think for that reason, people look
:18:34. > :18:37.to the poets for news. During the height of the Troubles in Northern
:18:38. > :18:44.Ireland, there were constant calls saying, couldn't you write a poem
:18:45. > :18:48.about this? Isn't it a fine thing that most people didn't get involved
:18:49. > :18:53.in that, particularly when at the end of the day, the positions that
:18:54. > :18:59.were being espoused are no longer espoused by some of the
:19:00. > :19:03.politicians, you know? At Sixes And Sevens takes on Derry-Londonderry's
:19:04. > :19:09.history playfully with one eyebrow raised. Rita Duffy illustrated it so
:19:10. > :19:14.beautifully and has been omissions to make her own work for the City of
:19:15. > :19:16.Culture celebrations. I am on my way now to the city shirt factory which
:19:17. > :19:21.is this monumental redbrick building. It is the same factory
:19:22. > :19:29.where my mother worked in the early 70s. In 2013, Derry has been
:19:30. > :19:35.transformed and part of that transformation is that this building
:19:36. > :19:39.is now art galleries. Duffy's piece is installed here. It draws on a
:19:40. > :19:44.very different history from the walls. Derry-Londonderry's wealth
:19:45. > :19:47.was founded on fine linen. Either middle of the 19th century, it was
:19:48. > :19:54.the largest manner that shirts in Europe. 30 redbrick factories which
:19:55. > :20:04.once dominated the city's skyline were once filled with women.
:20:05. > :20:10.When I stepped into Rita Duffy's installation, it felt like I had
:20:11. > :20:24.entered a dream version of the city floor.
:20:25. > :20:30.I have always been interested in garments and shirts and obviously,
:20:31. > :20:34.coming from Belfast, that whole linen industry and weaving, my
:20:35. > :20:38.mother was a weaver, my father worked in weaving machinery, so I
:20:39. > :20:42.feel like I am part of that garment story somewhere. These shirts you
:20:43. > :20:48.have hanging up, they catch the light beautifully. They are Derry
:20:49. > :20:53.shirts. They are beautiful. It is nice for people to see what made
:20:54. > :21:02.this city famous. It is a particular shirt made three fine linen and
:21:03. > :21:07.beautifully crafted. Yes. I like the idea of responding to the space like
:21:08. > :21:11.a pop-up museum so you would have a museum feel, a gallery feel over
:21:12. > :21:16.there, and here you would have a sense of industry and working and
:21:17. > :21:21.creating. There is a sewing machine sitting there, and old sewing
:21:22. > :21:26.machine sitting threaded up for anyone who wants to have a go. I
:21:27. > :21:32.might knock up a shirt. Maybe not knock up a shirt but you could put
:21:33. > :21:35.in a few stitches. As with all museums, there is also the shop.
:21:36. > :21:40.But look closer at the merchandise and you will see it has been branded
:21:41. > :21:44.with Duffy's dry sense of humour. I like these. These are washing
:21:45. > :21:49.powders for the city side, predominantly the Catholic area and
:21:50. > :21:56.the Waterside, predominately Protestant. It says this poetic
:21:57. > :22:03.laundry powder has been designed to remove the gathered stains of life.
:22:04. > :22:06.There is something very poetic and mythological nearly about the idea
:22:07. > :22:14.of people coming down to the shore to wash away, to cleanse will stop
:22:15. > :22:18.to go down to the river to pray. To go down to the river to pray, to go
:22:19. > :22:31.down to the river to wash their bloody hands.
:22:32. > :22:36.As I travelled around the city, I saw young boys preparing to
:22:37. > :22:45.symbolically burned the union with Britain. And here is the Loyalist
:22:46. > :22:48.retort. In a city and country where symbols mean so much, it is said
:22:49. > :22:53.that the can that poets and artists like Muldoon and Duffy can
:22:54. > :23:28.renegotiate the terms of those symbols and find humour in them.
:23:29. > :23:36.This is the fleadh. From the first time since it was founded in 1951,
:23:37. > :23:40.it is being held north of the border and it is being held in
:23:41. > :23:46.Derry-Londonderry. The streets are packed and alive with the sound of
:23:47. > :23:49.guitars, flutes, fiddles and the macro. It is a big moment for the
:23:50. > :23:57.city and a big moment for the fleadh.
:23:58. > :24:00.The fleadh is a massive international event but in
:24:01. > :24:08.Derry-Londonderry it is also an intimate family affair.
:24:09. > :24:18.The competition to find the world's best musicians in every field are
:24:19. > :24:22.fierce. For most of the 300,000 people here this week, it is about
:24:23. > :24:29.the sheer joy of playing and listening to music.
:24:30. > :24:37.Martin McGinnley is the editor of the local paper, the Derry Journal,
:24:38. > :24:43.but he is also passionate about traditional Irish music. My first
:24:44. > :24:47.fleadh was in the 1970s and they go back to 1951. It is a massive
:24:48. > :24:52.celebration of Irish music and song. It is a great boost to the city and
:24:53. > :24:58.great that it is coming to the north for the first time ever. But in this
:24:59. > :25:02.city, it is not surprising that music is contentious. However, it
:25:03. > :25:08.was not the Protestant community who objected to the fleadh coming here.
:25:09. > :25:13.I know there was some resistance to it coming north of the border. A
:25:14. > :25:20.group of people called dissident republicans objected that it was
:25:21. > :25:23.happening under the umbrella of the UK City of Culture. They do not like
:25:24. > :25:28.the UK bit. There are still a number of people who would not like that
:25:29. > :25:37.designation UK, but that is part of life. You are not going to have
:25:38. > :25:43.complete consensus. If fiddles and pipes are these just sound of
:25:44. > :25:46.Catholic tradition in Derry, then flutes and lambeg drums are the
:25:47. > :25:55.defining sound of a Protestant marching band. What about the cross
:25:56. > :26:00.community aspect of this fleadh? That is a thing I have noticed over
:26:01. > :26:07.the past several years that there is a conscious effort being made to
:26:08. > :26:10.reach out to the community, the Unionist Protestant community who
:26:11. > :26:14.would not normally be associated with traditional Irish music, to
:26:15. > :26:19.reach out to them and give them a space for the music associated with
:26:20. > :26:20.their tradition. I think Derry has gone further than any previously in
:26:21. > :26:41.doing that. Before I left Derry-Londonderry, I
:26:42. > :26:46.wanted to meet Marty Melarky. His long commitment to the City of
:26:47. > :26:52.Culture helped to win the bid. What sort of legacy do hope will grow
:26:53. > :26:59.from it? I think they're all sorts of legacies, in times of people's
:27:00. > :27:03.perceptions, not just as a conflict zone or the city of the Troubles.
:27:04. > :27:09.Young people do not even have any real memories of that. They were not
:27:10. > :27:13.alive then. One of Marty's projects is the digital Book of Kells.
:27:14. > :27:25.Amazingly, these kids wrote, shot and edited their own animations.
:27:26. > :27:35.About 150 cows were used to make the Book of Kells. They are bringing
:27:36. > :27:40.books alive, bringing them alive with movement and colour and
:27:41. > :27:45.animation. I think with schools, the possibility of looking to the
:27:46. > :27:51.future, future in which arts and culture is centred in their lives. I
:27:52. > :27:55.think that is a legacy for us. This year, the City of Culture celebrated
:27:56. > :28:00.all that is best about Northern Ireland, its resilience and humour,
:28:01. > :28:05.its wonderful traditions of theatre, music and art, and of course,
:28:06. > :28:08.poetry. But we are what we are. Northern Ireland has deep political
:28:09. > :28:15.divisions which are not going away that easily. There is still the low
:28:16. > :28:21.rumble of the same old, same old, riots and murders and bombings.
:28:22. > :28:24.Organised crime, political skulduggery and all of that
:28:25. > :28:29.accompany anxiety and fear. Maybe it is less than it was but still here.
:28:30. > :28:34.It is great to see the two sides can celebrate what we have and what we
:28:35. > :28:38.have in common. And hopefully, the more we do this, the harder it will
:28:39. > :28:43.be to disagree so violently and viciously. Being out here on the
:28:44. > :28:48.walls so early in the morning reminds me of a wonderful poem by
:28:49. > :28:58.Derek Mahon. It is called fittingly, Derry Morning.
:28:59. > :29:03.Here it began, and here at last it fades into a finite past, or seems
:29:04. > :29:10.to. Clattering shadows what mechanically over pub and shop. A
:29:11. > :29:12.strangely pastoral silence rules. The shining roves and murmuring
:29:13. > :29:15.schools. For this is how the centuries work.
:29:16. > :29:16.Two steps forward, one step