0:00:02 > 0:00:05"America has been the New World in all tongues,
0:00:05 > 0:00:07"to all peoples,
0:00:07 > 0:00:10"not because this continent was a new-found land,
0:00:10 > 0:00:12"but because all those who came here
0:00:12 > 0:00:17"believed they could create upon this continent a new life -
0:00:17 > 0:00:19"a life that should be new in freedom."
0:00:20 > 0:00:22With these words,
0:00:22 > 0:00:25Franklin D Roosevelt summed up the reason millions of people
0:00:25 > 0:00:28have been drawn to this new world
0:00:28 > 0:00:30from the 1500s to the present day,
0:00:30 > 0:00:34among them, men and women from the north of Ireland.
0:00:40 > 0:00:43This is the story of people from Ulster who came here
0:00:43 > 0:00:45before the United States was even formed,
0:00:45 > 0:00:50and found themselves at the very heart of the American experience.
0:00:50 > 0:00:53In every walk of life, at every great juncture
0:00:53 > 0:00:54in this nation's history,
0:00:54 > 0:00:57they've made an extraordinary contribution,
0:00:57 > 0:00:59helping to shape its culture,
0:00:59 > 0:01:02its economy, its democracy and its values,
0:01:02 > 0:01:07and in doing so, they and their children became Americans.
0:01:30 > 0:01:34This is the Gateway Arch in St Louis, Missouri,
0:01:34 > 0:01:35a symbol of the city's role
0:01:35 > 0:01:38in the westward expansion of the United States,
0:01:38 > 0:01:42and a monument to the pioneers of the West.
0:01:42 > 0:01:43In many ways,
0:01:43 > 0:01:46modern America, with all its power and ambition,
0:01:46 > 0:01:48started right here.
0:01:50 > 0:01:53In 1804, President Thomas Jefferson
0:01:53 > 0:01:57commissioned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
0:01:57 > 0:01:59to find the Northwest Passage,
0:01:59 > 0:02:01a water route to the Pacific Ocean
0:02:01 > 0:02:05that would open up trade and clear the way for settlement
0:02:05 > 0:02:07west of the Mississippi.
0:02:10 > 0:02:12When Jefferson became President,
0:02:12 > 0:02:15two-thirds of the population of the United States
0:02:15 > 0:02:18lived within 50 miles of the Atlantic Ocean.
0:02:18 > 0:02:21St Louis represented the extremity
0:02:21 > 0:02:23of the mapped American world.
0:02:23 > 0:02:27Anything west of here was as unknown to them
0:02:27 > 0:02:29as the far side of the moon.
0:02:33 > 0:02:36To undertake this journey into the unknown heart of America,
0:02:36 > 0:02:40Lewis and Clark selected 35 volunteers.
0:02:40 > 0:02:42Soldiers and frontiersmen,
0:02:42 > 0:02:44such as Patrick Gass and John Coulter,
0:02:44 > 0:02:48who, like Clark himself, came from an Ulster Scots background.
0:02:56 > 0:02:59I've come to the mouth of the Missouri River
0:02:59 > 0:03:02to meet Scott Mandrell, who in 2003
0:03:02 > 0:03:05recreated the journey taken by Lewis and Clark
0:03:05 > 0:03:07200 years earlier.
0:03:09 > 0:03:12You obviously have an incredible passion for this story.
0:03:12 > 0:03:13How did you first get into it?
0:03:13 > 0:03:16I grew up sort of staring up the Missouri River,
0:03:16 > 0:03:19paddling, riding horses and that sort of thing,
0:03:19 > 0:03:22and when the opportunity came along
0:03:22 > 0:03:24to retrace this path, I felt like I...
0:03:24 > 0:03:26It was something I couldn't pass up.
0:03:26 > 0:03:29- You mean that literally, retrace it? - Literally.- How much did you retrace?
0:03:29 > 0:03:34We were able to retrace about 90% of every mile.
0:03:34 > 0:03:37And that was every mile on the right day at the right time
0:03:37 > 0:03:40- of the original expedition. - 90% of 8,000 miles.
0:03:40 > 0:03:42Every bit of that.
0:03:42 > 0:03:46Can you describe the first day? What would it have looked like?
0:03:46 > 0:03:50Well, after they would have left the eastern shore
0:03:50 > 0:03:53of the Mississippi River, just about seven miles down,
0:03:53 > 0:03:56and entered the mouth of the Missouri,
0:03:56 > 0:03:59they would have felt an incredible force.
0:03:59 > 0:04:02The Missouri was running at a fairly good flow rate.
0:04:02 > 0:04:05And they would have been largely poling
0:04:05 > 0:04:07the vessel up the river, where they...
0:04:07 > 0:04:09On the keelboat and the pirogues, they would have
0:04:09 > 0:04:13essentially walked the boat with long poles
0:04:13 > 0:04:16and forced themselves upstream.
0:04:16 > 0:04:19And with it being 5 to 7 feet tall,
0:04:19 > 0:04:21in some cases they were also cordelling.
0:04:21 > 0:04:25Cordelling was to actually use a rope to pull the boat.
0:04:25 > 0:04:28So, the men would have been in the water, on the boats poling,
0:04:28 > 0:04:31and they would have been the largest boats
0:04:31 > 0:04:34to have ever went up the Missouri River ever in history.
0:04:36 > 0:04:39Do we know much about the people who made up that expedition...
0:04:39 > 0:04:41- We do.- ..and their backgrounds?
0:04:41 > 0:04:43- A great deal about them, actually.- Yeah?
0:04:43 > 0:04:46It's believed that about 11 members of the expedition
0:04:46 > 0:04:49were what we referred to here as Scots Irish,
0:04:49 > 0:04:52and had a background that was from the northern British Isles.
0:04:52 > 0:04:54- So nearly a third of them? - That's right.
0:04:54 > 0:04:57You know, they weren't necessarily always the nicest guys.
0:04:57 > 0:04:59This was a pretty rough and tumble crew.
0:04:59 > 0:05:02And they had to be. I mean they were
0:05:02 > 0:05:06completely unsupported from the time they,
0:05:06 > 0:05:10you know, got maybe 16 miles west of St Louis.
0:05:10 > 0:05:14There was no going back, and there was no Walmart.
0:05:14 > 0:05:16In addition to finding a route to the Pacific,
0:05:16 > 0:05:20expedition members were to keep a written account of the journey,
0:05:20 > 0:05:23the Native American tribes they encountered,
0:05:23 > 0:05:26and the new plants and animals they discovered.
0:05:26 > 0:05:29I can tell you, having taken the trip myself,
0:05:29 > 0:05:32there were mornings where I'd read the journey entry every morning,
0:05:32 > 0:05:34and then I would read that day's journey entry every night,
0:05:34 > 0:05:38and there were so many days that, at the end of the day,
0:05:38 > 0:05:39I would have this epiphany,
0:05:39 > 0:05:41and an understanding of that journal entry
0:05:41 > 0:05:43that I didn't have in the morning.
0:05:43 > 0:05:45For example, when they saw the Little Rockies.
0:05:45 > 0:05:48The Little Rockies are east of Great Falls, Montana.
0:05:48 > 0:05:51It's an outcropping of the Rocky Mountains.
0:05:51 > 0:05:53They thought they were at the mountains,
0:05:53 > 0:05:55because you're down in the river and you see the outcropping,
0:05:55 > 0:05:59this little bit of the Rocky Mountains off in the distance.
0:05:59 > 0:06:01And they thought "Oh, surely we're there."
0:06:01 > 0:06:05Well, they weren't. There were still another 400 miles, you know?
0:06:07 > 0:06:10The journals also reveal how Lewis and Clark
0:06:10 > 0:06:13drew on the local knowledge of the Native Americans.
0:06:13 > 0:06:16A 16-year-old Shoshone girl, Sacagawea,
0:06:16 > 0:06:20later became famous for her role as their guide and interpreter.
0:06:20 > 0:06:24Did the expedition depend on the help of the Native Americans?
0:06:24 > 0:06:27I think they might have indeed survived.
0:06:27 > 0:06:31Whether or not they would have accomplished their roles,
0:06:31 > 0:06:34that's a different thing.
0:06:34 > 0:06:37I think that that might be a less likely answer.
0:06:37 > 0:06:39Was the expedition successful?
0:06:39 > 0:06:41I believe it was,
0:06:41 > 0:06:46because by Lewis and Clark making this trip with the men,
0:06:46 > 0:06:50they made this land crossing, so when they did this, they sort of
0:06:50 > 0:06:54gave a concrete fruition to Jefferson's vision
0:06:54 > 0:06:55of a continental nation.
0:06:55 > 0:06:57There were, you know...
0:06:57 > 0:07:02I think it was 122 different species of animal,
0:07:02 > 0:07:06178 plants, approximately, that were
0:07:06 > 0:07:08recorded for the first time.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11There was a lot of really ground-breaking things that just
0:07:11 > 0:07:14happened through their exploration and understanding of the continent,
0:07:14 > 0:07:17the topography, the geology and all of those things.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20So, I think of it as the first chapter
0:07:20 > 0:07:23in the book of our history as a nation.
0:07:28 > 0:07:29The Lewis and Clark expedition,
0:07:29 > 0:07:33or the Corps of Discovery, as it became known, changed America.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36It opened up the West for farmers and merchants,
0:07:36 > 0:07:40and families hungry for land and a new life.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43And the descendants of people from Ulster were central
0:07:43 > 0:07:46to this defining moment in American history,
0:07:46 > 0:07:51and to the westward expansion it created all the way to California.
0:07:56 > 0:08:00Yet 30 years after the Lewis and Clark expedition,
0:08:00 > 0:08:03only a handful of the hardiest pioneers
0:08:03 > 0:08:05had travelled to the west coast.
0:08:05 > 0:08:08All that changed in 1848,
0:08:08 > 0:08:11with the discovery of gold in California.
0:08:16 > 0:08:18Prospectors came from all over the world
0:08:18 > 0:08:21in the hope of striking it rich.
0:08:21 > 0:08:24Among them was 21-year-old James Irvine
0:08:24 > 0:08:26from Annahilt in County Down.
0:08:26 > 0:08:30He and his brother emigrated to New York in 1846
0:08:30 > 0:08:33at the height of the famine in Ireland.
0:08:33 > 0:08:36But when news of the gold rush reached the east coast,
0:08:36 > 0:08:38James headed west.
0:08:44 > 0:08:47James Irvine didn't make his money from gold.
0:08:47 > 0:08:50But by selling goods to other miners,
0:08:50 > 0:08:52he amassed a big enough fortune
0:08:52 > 0:08:56to buy a stake in a 100,000-acre ranch
0:08:56 > 0:08:58here in Southern California,
0:08:58 > 0:09:02and just below me is the city that today bears his name.
0:09:14 > 0:09:18How does a town get to be named after a man from Northern Ireland?
0:09:18 > 0:09:21That's a really interesting story!
0:09:21 > 0:09:24I think... Well, it comes from the name James Irvine,
0:09:24 > 0:09:27the man who came here in 1864.
0:09:27 > 0:09:30And he came here from San Francisco
0:09:30 > 0:09:32with three other investors,
0:09:32 > 0:09:34and they purchased this land.
0:09:34 > 0:09:36It was about 110,000 acres.
0:09:36 > 0:09:39And he was able to buy out the other partners, eventually?
0:09:39 > 0:09:43He did. In 1876, he got full control of the land here.
0:09:43 > 0:09:46He bought out his partners and became sole owner of what was about
0:09:46 > 0:09:50one-fifth of what would later become Orange County.
0:09:50 > 0:09:54James Irvine had a lot of land and a lot of influence,
0:09:54 > 0:09:56but he wasn't afraid to make enemies,
0:09:56 > 0:10:00as the Southern Pacific Railway Company found out.
0:10:00 > 0:10:03People were so anxious to have the railroad line come in so they could
0:10:03 > 0:10:06sell their crops, get them to market,
0:10:06 > 0:10:07and travel themselves.
0:10:07 > 0:10:09So at the time,
0:10:09 > 0:10:12railroads like the Southern Pacific were very used to being able to just
0:10:12 > 0:10:15lay tracks and build and go wherever they wanted.
0:10:15 > 0:10:18And in order to get from Los Angeles to San Diego,
0:10:18 > 0:10:21you had to come across the Irvine Ranch.
0:10:21 > 0:10:23And so they just kind of started
0:10:23 > 0:10:26what they did in a lot of places, which is laying down tracks.
0:10:26 > 0:10:30But when they came across the Irvine Ranch, they had a bit of an issue.
0:10:31 > 0:10:35James Irvine REALLY didn't like the owner of the Southern Pacific,
0:10:35 > 0:10:39and he refused him permission to lay a railroad through his land.
0:10:41 > 0:10:46A final confrontation happened in 1887, when the Southern Pacific...
0:10:46 > 0:10:48Irvine had died, the land was in trust
0:10:48 > 0:10:50waiting for his son to inherit it,
0:10:50 > 0:10:52and so, they thought this is the perfect time.
0:10:52 > 0:10:54There's nobody here mining the ranch.
0:10:54 > 0:10:57And they started laying tracks.
0:10:57 > 0:10:59But what happened was, George Irvine,
0:10:59 > 0:11:03James Irvine's brother, who was the ranch manager at the time,
0:11:03 > 0:11:05met them at the tracks, the workers,
0:11:05 > 0:11:09with rifles and shotguns and got them off the land,
0:11:09 > 0:11:11and stopped them from laying the tracks,
0:11:11 > 0:11:16and stopped the Southern Pacific from coming across the Irvine Ranch.
0:11:16 > 0:11:19Shortly after that, the Santa Fe was given the right,
0:11:19 > 0:11:23their rival was given the right to go across the Irvine Ranch.
0:11:23 > 0:11:27So, James Irvine posthumously got his right of way.
0:11:27 > 0:11:29THEY LAUGH
0:11:29 > 0:11:33When James died, the ranch was passed his son,
0:11:33 > 0:11:35James Harvey Irvine.
0:11:35 > 0:11:38He's the one who really kind of turned this into a large-scale
0:11:38 > 0:11:40agricultural operation.
0:11:40 > 0:11:44They had some wonderful success with growing lima beans here.
0:11:44 > 0:11:47At one point, the Irvine Ranch was the number one
0:11:47 > 0:11:50private producer of lima beans in the world.
0:11:50 > 0:11:51After the Second World War,
0:11:51 > 0:11:53the Irvines came under increasing pressure
0:11:53 > 0:11:55to sell their land for development.
0:11:55 > 0:11:59And in the 1960s, they came up with a remarkable plan...
0:11:59 > 0:12:01to build their own city.
0:12:01 > 0:12:04- A master plan.- A master plan, exactly.
0:12:04 > 0:12:06They wanted to create a community,
0:12:06 > 0:12:08they wanted to create a lifestyle here.
0:12:08 > 0:12:11So it was an interesting time in the...
0:12:11 > 0:12:151960, that point of time in America was a very optimistic time.
0:12:15 > 0:12:19And the main focus and the impetus of getting it all started
0:12:19 > 0:12:23was the University of California was looking for a new campus.
0:12:23 > 0:12:24So, this was the perfect timing.
0:12:24 > 0:12:26They needed a new campus,
0:12:26 > 0:12:29the Irvine company was kind of looking for something
0:12:29 > 0:12:31to focus their development here.
0:12:31 > 0:12:33And it was a good marriage.
0:12:33 > 0:12:36Do you ever wonder what
0:12:36 > 0:12:38James Irvine would have made of all that?
0:12:38 > 0:12:40Well, you know, I've thought about that a lot,
0:12:40 > 0:12:43about what James Irvine would have thought of
0:12:43 > 0:12:46what has happened in this town that has his name.
0:12:46 > 0:12:49I think he would really enjoy the fact that there was a city
0:12:49 > 0:12:50so founded on education.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53It was definitely a very important thing in the Irvine family,
0:12:53 > 0:12:56for education, so I think they would like the fact that
0:12:56 > 0:13:00a city named after them was based on a university
0:13:00 > 0:13:02and the whole foundation of learning that's here.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15Despite having made his money in business,
0:13:15 > 0:13:20ultimately it was land that mattered to James Irvine.
0:13:20 > 0:13:23That commodity, so treasured by Ulster migrants.
0:13:23 > 0:13:25He arrived in America,
0:13:25 > 0:13:29one of hundreds of thousands fleeing the famine in Ireland,
0:13:29 > 0:13:33but such was his contribution to Southern California
0:13:33 > 0:13:37that his name will be remembered here for generations to come.
0:13:47 > 0:13:49Those Ulster Scots settlers of the 19th century
0:13:49 > 0:13:52could not have imagined a place like Hollywood.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55Yet it, too, is part of the story of Ulster migration,
0:13:55 > 0:13:59a magnet for our brightest stars of stage and screen,
0:13:59 > 0:14:03and home to one of the most revered magicians of his generation -
0:14:03 > 0:14:05a former medical graduate from Belfast
0:14:05 > 0:14:07called Billy McComb.
0:14:07 > 0:14:09This is for golfers.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12You will love this. This is, would you believe, a hole in one.
0:14:12 > 0:14:13There's the one.
0:14:13 > 0:14:15There is the hole.
0:14:15 > 0:14:20Born in 1922 into a middle-class Presbyterian family,
0:14:20 > 0:14:24educated at Portora Royal School and Queen's University,
0:14:24 > 0:14:26Billy gave up a career in medicine
0:14:26 > 0:14:29to pursue a dream that would lead him here,
0:14:29 > 0:14:31to the Magic Castle in Hollywood.
0:14:42 > 0:14:44This seems like a very special place. Where are we?
0:14:44 > 0:14:48Well, this is the clubhouse for the Academy of Magical Arts.
0:14:48 > 0:14:49It's called the Magic Castle.
0:14:49 > 0:14:53This was created as a place for magicians just to be able to
0:14:53 > 0:14:55hang out and do card tricks for their friends.
0:14:55 > 0:14:58So, it's known worldwide,
0:14:58 > 0:15:02and everybody wants to have performed at the Magic Castle.
0:15:03 > 0:15:07How important was the Magic Castle to Billy McComb?
0:15:07 > 0:15:11Well, it really became I would say the second half of his life.
0:15:11 > 0:15:15He first came to the States in the 1960s.
0:15:15 > 0:15:17But in 1976, he won
0:15:17 > 0:15:20the Visiting Magician of the Year Award here.
0:15:20 > 0:15:23He went on to join the board of directors.
0:15:23 > 0:15:25He won a Creative Fellowship,
0:15:25 > 0:15:29a Performing Fellowship and also the Masters Fellowship,
0:15:29 > 0:15:32which is the highest honour the Academy of Magic Arts
0:15:32 > 0:15:33can give to a performer.
0:15:33 > 0:15:36That's how much esteem he was held in by the Academy.
0:15:38 > 0:15:42What was distinctive about his approach to magic?
0:15:42 > 0:15:47Billy, although most of his tricks were standard effects,
0:15:47 > 0:15:51he would perform them with twists and turns,
0:15:51 > 0:15:54first of all, that you'd never seen before, so it would fool you.
0:15:54 > 0:15:56But then he would...
0:15:56 > 0:16:00He had this running commentary that you were never quite sure -
0:16:00 > 0:16:04are you seeing a comedian or are you seeing a magician?
0:16:04 > 0:16:09Billy is remembered by the fraternity of magicians
0:16:09 > 0:16:12for his contributions and his style.
0:16:12 > 0:16:14We've all taken pieces of Billy.
0:16:14 > 0:16:17Or that Billy has given us, actually.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23Billy worked with some of the biggest names in show business,
0:16:23 > 0:16:25appeared in films and on television,
0:16:25 > 0:16:29and was still performing until his death in 2006.
0:16:29 > 0:16:33Billy McComb did what every aspiring artist
0:16:33 > 0:16:35who comes to Hollywood hopes to do.
0:16:35 > 0:16:37He realised his dream,
0:16:37 > 0:16:40and for him that was a life creating magic,
0:16:40 > 0:16:43and sharing his passion for the art of illusion
0:16:43 > 0:16:46with audiences here and around the world.
0:16:49 > 0:16:52But not every migrant finds the new life they are looking for.
0:16:52 > 0:16:54100 miles north of Hollywood
0:16:54 > 0:16:58is a reminder of the dark side of the American Dream.
0:16:58 > 0:17:01A time when California tried to turn migrants away,
0:17:01 > 0:17:05and a story that was brought to the attention of the world
0:17:05 > 0:17:09by a Nobel Prize-winning writer with roots in Ulster.
0:17:13 > 0:17:14This is Arvin Camp,
0:17:14 > 0:17:17built by the federal government to house migrants
0:17:17 > 0:17:21arriving in California during the Great Depression,
0:17:21 > 0:17:24and immortalised in John Steinbeck's novel,
0:17:24 > 0:17:25The Grapes Of Wrath.
0:17:25 > 0:17:27# That old dust storm
0:17:27 > 0:17:29# Killed my baby
0:17:29 > 0:17:31# But it can't kill me, Lord
0:17:31 > 0:17:33# And it can't kill me
0:17:33 > 0:17:35# That old dust storm... #
0:17:35 > 0:17:39Steinbeck tells the story of the biggest internal migration
0:17:39 > 0:17:41in US history.
0:17:41 > 0:17:43Between 1931 and 1940,
0:17:43 > 0:17:46more than 2.5 million people
0:17:46 > 0:17:49were driven by drought and dust storms
0:17:49 > 0:17:51to abandon their farms in Oklahoma,
0:17:51 > 0:17:54Kansas, Colorado and Texas,
0:17:54 > 0:17:57and many headed west to California in search of work.
0:18:00 > 0:18:05He describes that great movement west as a biblical exodus,
0:18:05 > 0:18:08a people suffering squalor, exploitation,
0:18:08 > 0:18:11hunger and violence
0:18:11 > 0:18:13as they travel to the promised land.
0:18:13 > 0:18:17Then, when he turns to Route 66, the main migration road,
0:18:17 > 0:18:22he says, "66 is the path of a people in flight.
0:18:22 > 0:18:25"Refugees from dust and shrinking land,
0:18:25 > 0:18:29"from the thunder of tractors and shrinking ownership,
0:18:29 > 0:18:33"from the desert's slowly northward invasion,
0:18:33 > 0:18:35"from the twisting winds."
0:18:35 > 0:18:39# ..Lord, and it can't kill me... #
0:18:41 > 0:18:42Like Steinbeck himself,
0:18:42 > 0:18:44many of the migrants he wrote about
0:18:44 > 0:18:47were the descendants of farmers from Ulster.
0:18:47 > 0:18:50His own grandfather came from a farm outside Ballykelly
0:18:50 > 0:18:52in County Londonderry,
0:18:52 > 0:18:55and settled in the Salinas Valley in California,
0:18:55 > 0:18:58known as the salad bowl of the world.
0:19:02 > 0:19:04To find out more about Steinbeck
0:19:04 > 0:19:06and his maternal grandfather, Sam Hamilton,
0:19:06 > 0:19:09I've come to the Steinbeck home in Salinas
0:19:09 > 0:19:12to meet historian Carol Robles.
0:19:12 > 0:19:16Well, Sam was born, as we know, in Northern Ireland.
0:19:16 > 0:19:20And the story goes that he lied about his age
0:19:20 > 0:19:21to get on a ship to go to New York.
0:19:21 > 0:19:24And he arrived in New York, 1846.
0:19:24 > 0:19:26So, you know, that's an important time in American history.
0:19:26 > 0:19:30Gold was discovered, it was green, it was wonderful.
0:19:31 > 0:19:34Many of the things that Steinbeck put into Grapes Of Wrath
0:19:34 > 0:19:37about why the Okies came to California,
0:19:37 > 0:19:41the green, the pastures, everything growing, prosperity,
0:19:41 > 0:19:44so I'm sure Sam was hearing that in New York
0:19:44 > 0:19:47in the mid-1800s.
0:19:47 > 0:19:49So, he came to California.
0:19:49 > 0:19:53So, a migrant farmer who settles in the west coast of America
0:19:53 > 0:19:55and within two generations
0:19:55 > 0:19:58produces a grandson who wins a Nobel Prize for Literature.
0:19:58 > 0:20:02- It's one incredible story, isn't it? - Well, it certainly is.
0:20:02 > 0:20:05And I think a lot of that credit goes to the family.
0:20:05 > 0:20:07Even though they were farming,
0:20:07 > 0:20:09they were storytellers.
0:20:09 > 0:20:12And John makes reference in East Of Eden to Sam
0:20:12 > 0:20:14appreciating good literature.
0:20:14 > 0:20:17We know that the family really cared about education.
0:20:17 > 0:20:21To go to high school in the late 1800s
0:20:21 > 0:20:23was unusual,
0:20:23 > 0:20:26but he sent his kids to school.
0:20:26 > 0:20:28So, we have here a person
0:20:28 > 0:20:31of a strong character.
0:20:31 > 0:20:34"I'm not going to put him to work on the farm,
0:20:34 > 0:20:37"they're going to get an education first."
0:21:05 > 0:21:07This is Sam Hamilton's ranch.
0:21:07 > 0:21:10It's a place John Steinbeck knew very well.
0:21:10 > 0:21:13He spent a great deal of his childhood here.
0:21:13 > 0:21:16And in 1952, he set both the ranch and his grandfather
0:21:16 > 0:21:20at the heart of one of his best-known novels, East Of Eden.
0:21:24 > 0:21:26It is his most ambitious novel,
0:21:26 > 0:21:28a story of good and evil,
0:21:28 > 0:21:30of legacy and destiny,
0:21:30 > 0:21:33in which the character of Sam Hamilton
0:21:33 > 0:21:36stands for the integrity and strength
0:21:36 > 0:21:39of those early settlers in the Salinas Valley.
0:21:44 > 0:21:47Steinbeck writes that young Samuel Hamilton
0:21:47 > 0:21:50came from the north of Ireland, and so did his wife.
0:21:50 > 0:21:52He was the son of small farmers,
0:21:52 > 0:21:54neither rich nor poor,
0:21:54 > 0:21:56who had lived on one land hold
0:21:56 > 0:21:59and in one stone house for hundreds of years.
0:22:02 > 0:22:05"When Samuel and Liza came to the Salinas Valley," he wrote,
0:22:05 > 0:22:08"All the level ground was taken.
0:22:08 > 0:22:11"But there was still marginal land to be homesteaded.
0:22:11 > 0:22:15"Taking a quarter section for himself, his wife,
0:22:15 > 0:22:17"and his subsequent children,
0:22:17 > 0:22:21"the ranch eventually grew to almost 2,000 acres."
0:22:23 > 0:22:27Sam Hamilton thought of himself as a frontiersman and a pioneer.
0:22:27 > 0:22:30He didn't look back to his roots in Ireland.
0:22:30 > 0:22:33As Steinbeck puts it, "He was a busy man.
0:22:33 > 0:22:35"He had no time from nostalgia.
0:22:35 > 0:22:38"The Salinas Valley was the world."
0:22:43 > 0:22:47But in 1952, the same year East Of Eden was published,
0:22:47 > 0:22:50John Steinbeck travelled to Northern Ireland
0:22:50 > 0:22:53in search of his ancestral home.
0:22:53 > 0:22:56John looked forward to and dreaded the visit to Ireland.
0:22:56 > 0:22:59He didn't know in what he was going to see.
0:22:59 > 0:23:02He wrote a story in Collier's magazine in January of 1953
0:23:02 > 0:23:06about his visit to Ireland, and he says,
0:23:06 > 0:23:10"Every person that has even a drop of Irish blood
0:23:10 > 0:23:13"has to come to Ireland and see it."
0:23:14 > 0:23:17So, I think inside of him
0:23:17 > 0:23:20was this desire to see his roots.
0:23:20 > 0:23:24He had been writing about the Hamiltons through East Of Eden,
0:23:24 > 0:23:28East Of Eden had been published, 1952,
0:23:28 > 0:23:31so, "OK, I've been reading about all this,
0:23:31 > 0:23:34"I've been writing about all this, let's go see."
0:23:34 > 0:23:36And he tells about writing...
0:23:36 > 0:23:40driving through the little area where his family was really from
0:23:40 > 0:23:42and he said, "We didn't even know we'd gone through.
0:23:42 > 0:23:44"It was four houses!"
0:23:46 > 0:23:50But that visit to Ballykelly had a profound effect on him.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53He would describe it as, "The seat of my culture,
0:23:53 > 0:23:56"the soil of my background,
0:23:56 > 0:24:00"the one full-blown evidence of a thousand years of family."
0:24:03 > 0:24:07The Salinas Valley became John Steinbeck's creative universe.
0:24:07 > 0:24:10It was here that he found his voice as a writer.
0:24:10 > 0:24:13Eventually, some would describe him
0:24:13 > 0:24:15as the voice of America.
0:24:15 > 0:24:16An America of stories,
0:24:16 > 0:24:20including the story of a young farm lad
0:24:20 > 0:24:21from the north of Ireland
0:24:21 > 0:24:23who settled here in California.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46150 years ago, it was gold that lured people
0:24:46 > 0:24:48from all over the world to California,
0:24:48 > 0:24:51and when immigrants left the north of Ireland,
0:24:51 > 0:24:53they often said goodbye for ever.
0:24:53 > 0:24:57Today, it's Silicon Valley that brings entrepreneurs here,
0:24:57 > 0:25:00and the world has never been so connected.
0:25:03 > 0:25:05I've come to San Francisco to meet a woman
0:25:05 > 0:25:08from Sion Mills in County Tyrone
0:25:08 > 0:25:11who works at the very heart of the modern-day gold rush.
0:25:11 > 0:25:14Sarah Friar is the chief financial officer
0:25:14 > 0:25:17of the global payments company, Square.
0:25:19 > 0:25:22Can we start with how you got to America, when you came to America...
0:25:22 > 0:25:24- Sure.- ..and why you stayed?
0:25:24 > 0:25:27- Yeah.- So I came in '98.
0:25:27 > 0:25:30It was... I didn't really realise at the time,
0:25:30 > 0:25:33but the dot-com boom was really starting to take off.
0:25:33 > 0:25:36And I came out to go to Stanford, to go to business school.
0:25:36 > 0:25:39That was me, '98, straight off a plane into, you know...
0:25:39 > 0:25:42I thought it was the Garden of Eden I'd landed in.
0:25:42 > 0:25:44It was the most beautiful place.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47Tech is a wonderful industry to work in,
0:25:47 > 0:25:49because you're working with, you know,
0:25:49 > 0:25:53this total melting pot of people who've come from all over the world.
0:25:53 > 0:25:56That's the amazing part of Silicon Valley's journey,
0:25:56 > 0:25:59is that it does just draw these people
0:25:59 > 0:26:02who believe that they can start companies,
0:26:02 > 0:26:05they can do crazy things, self-driving cars, you name it.
0:26:05 > 0:26:08You know, what we're going to see in our world
0:26:08 > 0:26:10over the next 10, 20 years,
0:26:10 > 0:26:13someone out there is thinking about it right now and maybe
0:26:13 > 0:26:16writing some lines of code that make it actually happen.
0:26:16 > 0:26:19Do you really like living in the United States?
0:26:19 > 0:26:22- I do. I do.- How different is it to what you're used to?
0:26:22 > 0:26:26You know, what I love about the US is I do feel
0:26:26 > 0:26:29that there is this ability to do anything you want.
0:26:29 > 0:26:31It's the amazing American Dream.
0:26:33 > 0:26:36I miss the sense of humour of the Northern Irish.
0:26:36 > 0:26:39So, I now, once in a while,
0:26:39 > 0:26:41will fall foul of my brother's deep sarcasm,
0:26:41 > 0:26:44where I'm not realising it's sarcasm,
0:26:44 > 0:26:46and I'm becoming very sincere
0:26:46 > 0:26:48and earnest about everything, and that's very American.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51- You had the irony bypass. - Yeah. Totally.
0:26:51 > 0:26:53It horrifies me.
0:26:53 > 0:26:55I see my husband wearing white socks a lot,
0:26:55 > 0:26:58and it doesn't bother me as much as it used to.
0:26:58 > 0:27:01I'm not sure how much you know about the history of Irish people,
0:27:01 > 0:27:03Northern Irish people, coming to America.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06Do you feel like you're part of that continuing story,
0:27:06 > 0:27:08or chain of stories?
0:27:08 > 0:27:11I think about, you know, more my mum's family.
0:27:11 > 0:27:14A whole bunch of them migrated to Canada.
0:27:14 > 0:27:17They're the classic Ulster Protestant farming stock,
0:27:17 > 0:27:21and those first couple of winters were so hard
0:27:21 > 0:27:25that they ultimately went back to Northern Ireland.
0:27:25 > 0:27:28It does make me, you know...
0:27:28 > 0:27:31Again, it comes back to how hard it is for that migrant group,
0:27:31 > 0:27:35and how strong they must have been to have just left,
0:27:35 > 0:27:37cos I can fly home and be home
0:27:37 > 0:27:40in 24 hours, door to door.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43And to just know that that wasn't available to you
0:27:43 > 0:27:46- is just almost heartbreaking, right? - Yeah.
0:27:46 > 0:27:49Because you never lose that part of you, right,
0:27:49 > 0:27:51that is still at home in Northern Ireland.
0:27:54 > 0:27:58On the face of it, Sarah has little in common with those early pioneers
0:27:58 > 0:28:01who forged a trail to the American West.
0:28:01 > 0:28:04Yet it's the ability of those Ulster Scots migrants
0:28:04 > 0:28:06to assimilate within their adopted country,
0:28:06 > 0:28:09along with the diversity of their experience
0:28:09 > 0:28:11and contribution to this land
0:28:11 > 0:28:13that links her story to theirs.
0:28:18 > 0:28:21The men and women from Ulster who made their home
0:28:21 > 0:28:24here in the United States did so for many different reasons.
0:28:24 > 0:28:27Someone were migrants desperate for a new life.
0:28:27 > 0:28:31Some were entrepreneurs pursuing a new opportunity.
0:28:31 > 0:28:33Some were dreamers exploring a new world.
0:28:33 > 0:28:38But however they got here, their influence is everywhere to be seen.
0:28:38 > 0:28:42In the literature, the music, the politics, the culture.
0:28:42 > 0:28:46The values of this, their brave new world.