0:00:10 > 0:00:15How does a whole community know when it's time to just go away?
0:00:17 > 0:00:19That their faces don't fit?
0:00:19 > 0:00:20That they are not wanted?
0:00:22 > 0:00:25When my father and his brothers and sisters were young,
0:00:25 > 0:00:28here in County Mayo in the West of Ireland,
0:00:28 > 0:00:31the world they belonged to was vanishing.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36But not everyone agreed to vanish with it.
0:00:37 > 0:00:41I asked them how they saw themselves but even as children,
0:00:41 > 0:00:44they each had a different story.
0:00:44 > 0:00:48My loyalties were all absolutely 100% for England.
0:00:48 > 0:00:51My country wasn't really Ireland, you see.
0:00:52 > 0:00:55We were rather like the steam packet company.
0:00:55 > 0:01:01Our mother would put British and Irish as nationality in guest books.
0:01:03 > 0:01:06That was her answer whenever she had to declare it.
0:01:08 > 0:01:13I was denounced once for rebel talk
0:01:13 > 0:01:18and asked defiantly by my mother, "Have you no loyalty?" And I said,
0:01:18 > 0:01:24"Yes, I have loyalty but loyalty to Ireland!"
0:01:27 > 0:01:29Can you read that?
0:01:31 > 0:01:32Can you see it, Ted?
0:01:34 > 0:01:39My loyalties were all to England but I know that I'm Irish.
0:01:39 > 0:01:44You were different anyway because you were a Protestant.
0:01:44 > 0:01:45Is that the eight there?
0:01:45 > 0:01:47That's the eight, yes.
0:01:48 > 0:01:53Yes, that's perfect, 1718.
0:01:53 > 0:01:55You can easily see it now.
0:02:11 > 0:02:13'These are my streets.
0:02:13 > 0:02:18'Suburban London is where I grew up and it's probably where I belong.'
0:02:19 > 0:02:22'But as a child I dreamt I was Irish.
0:02:22 > 0:02:26'I didn't want to live in an endless English suburb.
0:02:26 > 0:02:31'I was named after Celtic warriors and I wanted to have my father's
0:02:31 > 0:02:32'vivid Irish childhood.'
0:02:40 > 0:02:42'Though this is where he lives now,
0:02:42 > 0:02:47'he'd prefer you thought of him as a man of the fields and bogs.'
0:02:47 > 0:02:51- Hi, darling.- Ready?
0:02:51 > 0:02:55'But I began to sense that there was another side to our history.
0:02:55 > 0:03:01'In spite of my Irish name, we were the bad guys in the Irish storybook.
0:03:01 > 0:03:03'We were the offensive toffs.'
0:03:10 > 0:03:13Ireland had got rid of people like us -
0:03:13 > 0:03:17landed Protestants who spoke with English accents.
0:03:17 > 0:03:20As my father was growing up, one by one,
0:03:20 > 0:03:24the Anglo-Irish families were being ejected.
0:03:24 > 0:03:27It was a polite version of ethnic cleansing.
0:03:29 > 0:03:33My aunts and uncles went back with me to the West of Ireland
0:03:33 > 0:03:35to tell me about their childhood in the 1930s.
0:03:37 > 0:03:42My father is a city of London computer boffin. He is 83.
0:03:43 > 0:03:47It was a very comfortable life, really.
0:03:47 > 0:03:51The only thing we didn't have was a car and a telephone
0:03:51 > 0:03:53and electric light.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56Look at the poor old gate lodge falling down.
0:03:58 > 0:04:00Losing its plaster all over the place.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10My Uncle Richard is a poet.
0:04:10 > 0:04:13Ireland and its bitter history has been his subject.
0:04:18 > 0:04:22When we entered those gates,
0:04:22 > 0:04:24it was like an embrace.
0:04:26 > 0:04:28Possessive and jealous by turns.
0:04:29 > 0:04:32An intense surge
0:04:32 > 0:04:34of excitement and joy.
0:04:41 > 0:04:45My cousins are the only one-time Anglo-Irish family
0:04:45 > 0:04:47still around here farming their own land.
0:04:52 > 0:04:57We looked down this great green cathedral.
0:05:01 > 0:05:06We were still holding a fort,
0:05:06 > 0:05:08a kind of outpost of the British Empire.
0:05:10 > 0:05:14A kind of forlorn, last-survivor feeling.
0:05:16 > 0:05:20Surrounded by people who were different.
0:05:34 > 0:05:37When I first came to Milford aged seven I was told that
0:05:37 > 0:05:40Ancient Irish Princes married their demesnes -
0:05:40 > 0:05:42that's the house and land.
0:05:45 > 0:05:47I wondered if my father had wanted
0:05:47 > 0:05:49to marry the house when he was young.
0:05:51 > 0:05:55Here we are, the grand old entrance.
0:05:59 > 0:06:01- The Rangoon prints.- Yes.
0:06:03 > 0:06:06Richard gave the house its own voice -
0:06:06 > 0:06:08the voice of the Anglo-Irish -
0:06:08 > 0:06:13full of dread, in his poem about his own birth upstairs in the house.
0:06:14 > 0:06:19The house speaks as Richard is emerging from his mother.
0:06:19 > 0:06:22'I'd been expecting death by absentee owner's decay
0:06:22 > 0:06:26'or fire from a rebel match.
0:06:26 > 0:06:30'Too many old relations I'd seen die in the same bedroom.
0:06:30 > 0:06:34'Made me scared to watch.
0:06:34 > 0:06:36'And then your birth cry came
0:06:36 > 0:06:39'piercing through wall behind wall.
0:06:39 > 0:06:44'The sun transfigured all of us.'
0:06:44 > 0:06:48The first relation to live in the house was an English soldier.
0:06:48 > 0:06:51The Irish rebelled in 1641
0:06:51 > 0:06:55and Britain's New Model Army came to re-conquer the Catholic colony
0:06:55 > 0:06:58for Britain and for Protestants.
0:06:58 > 0:07:03It was the best fighting force in Europe. Led by Oliver Cromwell,
0:07:03 > 0:07:07it crushed all opposition swiftly and ruthlessly.
0:07:09 > 0:07:12But to secure long-term control in the decades that followed,
0:07:12 > 0:07:15officers were settled around the country.
0:07:16 > 0:07:19My ancestor identified the land,
0:07:19 > 0:07:23claimed it under the Adventurer's Act, and set up home
0:07:23 > 0:07:26over 300 years ago, in 1691.
0:07:28 > 0:07:30- Hi, Chris, hi, Richard, how are you? - Hello.
0:07:48 > 0:07:52My Aunt Mary arrived a few hours before her brothers.
0:07:52 > 0:07:55She is the eldest of the children to grow up in the house.
0:07:57 > 0:07:59She became an artist.
0:08:11 > 0:08:15'Once an imperial garrison drank here to a king.
0:08:15 > 0:08:18'Now the toast is republican.'
0:08:18 > 0:08:21There he is! Who do you think that is, Chris?
0:08:21 > 0:08:25Robert Miller, who acquired Milford, don't you think?
0:08:25 > 0:08:31But there was doubt raised in the 19th century about that.
0:08:31 > 0:08:35The first Robert Miller was a cornet.
0:08:35 > 0:08:37- He was only a cornet. - In the cavalry.
0:08:37 > 0:08:41A cornet was as junior as you could be, really.
0:08:41 > 0:08:44- I thought he was a quartermaster general.- Yeah.
0:08:46 > 0:08:51That's how he came to have amassed something of a fortune.
0:08:51 > 0:08:55Well, I think he obtained it because it was a wild part of the country
0:08:55 > 0:08:59and it was very easy to acquire an estate.
0:08:59 > 0:09:01Well, he certainly landed on his feet.
0:09:07 > 0:09:11The life of the Irish gentry involved a lot of hunting,
0:09:11 > 0:09:13shooting and fishing
0:09:13 > 0:09:15and quite often killing each other in duels.
0:09:18 > 0:09:20With Kitchener To Khartum. Hm.
0:09:23 > 0:09:27When Ireland got independence from Britain in 1921,
0:09:27 > 0:09:30my great grandfather, Tom Ormsby,
0:09:30 > 0:09:33like seven generations of his family before him,
0:09:33 > 0:09:38was a retired British army officer, being the gentleman
0:09:38 > 0:09:41with his wife Lucy at Milford.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44A year later a civil war started.
0:09:44 > 0:09:48The Ormsbys waited at home while the news spread of Anglo-Irish houses
0:09:48 > 0:09:51everywhere being torched by the IRA.
0:09:52 > 0:09:55I asked a neighbour, Francis Cunnorne,
0:09:55 > 0:09:57about the family in the civil war.
0:10:50 > 0:10:56Famously, Anglo-Irishmen spent life getting drunk and riding horses.
0:10:56 > 0:10:59But Good Tom, as my great grandfather was known,
0:10:59 > 0:11:01was extremely pious.
0:11:01 > 0:11:03But when his daughter Betty
0:11:03 > 0:11:08fell madly in love with a real Irishman, William Murphy,
0:11:08 > 0:11:12it was hard to forget 300 years of history.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16At least the boy was a Protestant - but not the type with acres, he was
0:11:16 > 0:11:21the type whose family had converted a hundred or so years earlier.
0:11:21 > 0:11:25My father had come up in the world through education.
0:11:26 > 0:11:29He'd passed this very, very stiff exam which covered
0:11:29 > 0:11:32the whole of the British Empire.
0:11:32 > 0:11:36William, my grandfather, went to Ireland's Protestant university,
0:11:36 > 0:11:40Trinity College Dublin, and got into the British Colonial Service.
0:11:41 > 0:11:43He lived in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka,
0:11:43 > 0:11:46enjoying the life the Anglo-Irish ascendency
0:11:46 > 0:11:49had aspired to for centuries.
0:11:49 > 0:11:51He didn't need to dwell on his own background.
0:11:51 > 0:11:53He didn't talk about his family at all
0:11:53 > 0:11:56because he had married into landed gentry.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06As a family we were snobbish socially.
0:12:12 > 0:12:16We were the Ormsby Bowen Millers and our father was
0:12:16 > 0:12:19the mayor of Colombo and so on, so we needn't be ashamed of being
0:12:19 > 0:12:21Murphy, even if it was the commonest name in Ireland
0:12:21 > 0:12:26and three pubs out of four had Edward Murphy or Mary Murphy
0:12:26 > 0:12:29written above the door.
0:12:29 > 0:12:31We were the Lindsay Murphys.
0:12:31 > 0:12:37Our mother wanted Billy to hyphenate his name.
0:12:37 > 0:12:39I think her aunts made her feel like this, that
0:12:39 > 0:12:43Murphy was a very common name and couldn't Billy change it?
0:12:45 > 0:12:49Common was code for Catholic.
0:12:49 > 0:12:52Billy Murphy was a Catholic name.
0:12:52 > 0:12:54In Ireland's permeable sort of apartheid,
0:12:54 > 0:12:59with luck and application, converts too could prosper in
0:12:59 > 0:13:02the English system, just like the proper Anglo-Irish.
0:13:02 > 0:13:04Like Arthur Wellesley,
0:13:04 > 0:13:06the First Duke of Wellington
0:13:06 > 0:13:09and Richard Bourke, Viceroy of India.
0:13:09 > 0:13:14However, the ancestral Prots didn't have Irish accents,
0:13:14 > 0:13:16which William did.
0:13:16 > 0:13:22With the wrong name and accent you were never allowed to forget it.
0:13:22 > 0:13:25My mother's aunts were very blue-blooded.
0:13:25 > 0:13:29They didn't like the idea of their dear little niece meeting
0:13:29 > 0:13:31a man called Murphy on the street.
0:13:33 > 0:13:37A man whose name couldn't be found in any of the books.
0:13:37 > 0:13:42The books being Debrett's Peerage or Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland.
0:13:45 > 0:13:49But the aunts weren't giving out the jobs in the Empire.
0:13:49 > 0:13:53William was preoccupied with creating naval bases in the Pacific
0:13:53 > 0:13:57and my grandmother was thrilled to discover that, as the mayor's wife,
0:13:57 > 0:13:59she had power
0:13:59 > 0:14:02She built a school and a hospital.
0:14:02 > 0:14:04They had five children.
0:14:05 > 0:14:09Daddy told us that it was
0:14:09 > 0:14:13so well ruled that it would probably last for a thousand years whereas
0:14:13 > 0:14:15the Roman Empire had collapsed
0:14:15 > 0:14:19after about five or six hundred due to its corruption.
0:14:22 > 0:14:24While William ruled, Betty got an MBE
0:14:24 > 0:14:29and the children played on the officer's beach with their nannies.
0:14:29 > 0:14:33But the idyll was short-lived for colonial children.
0:14:33 > 0:14:36I didn't want to leave Ceylon but my parents said it was time we went
0:14:36 > 0:14:40because in those days, when you reached the age of nine,
0:14:40 > 0:14:43you were supposed to get out of Ceylon or you'd die
0:14:43 > 0:14:45or get a disease or die or something if you were white.
0:14:45 > 0:14:53The belief of the civil service of the Empire was that it was very
0:14:53 > 0:15:01bad for children after approaching puberty and they must be sent home.
0:15:01 > 0:15:04The boys must be sent to boarding school to be properly educated
0:15:04 > 0:15:09so they could grow up to rule the world when our father retired
0:15:09 > 0:15:15and the girls must be got out of that climate
0:15:15 > 0:15:18before they reach puberty too soon.
0:15:19 > 0:15:22So when Mary was nine and my father was seven
0:15:22 > 0:15:26they were sent back to live with their grandparents in Ireland.
0:15:26 > 0:15:29Their grandfather Good Tom was now a rector.
0:15:29 > 0:15:34Their grandmother Lucy collected folklore and had artistic ambitions.
0:15:34 > 0:15:37Granny let me run quite wild.
0:15:37 > 0:15:40For instance, I didn't wear any underwear.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43I just pulled on my shorts and a shirt and a jersey.
0:15:43 > 0:15:49- Nobody supervised us at all. - One day Granny came to me and said,
0:15:49 > 0:15:52"I'm sorry, Chris, but I've got a letter from your mother.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55"You're going to have to wear underpants!"
0:15:55 > 0:15:59And I was scandalised and I said, "What for?" And she said,
0:15:59 > 0:16:02"Your mother insists and I'm afraid I've got to do it."
0:16:04 > 0:16:09Their grandmother Lucy had little regard for discipline.
0:16:09 > 0:16:12Granny's side, they were in the wilds of Connemara.
0:16:12 > 0:16:16Artistic and mischievous.
0:16:16 > 0:16:18Full of romance, as she called it.
0:16:18 > 0:16:24As Richard said, "In the lake of our heart we were islands where
0:16:24 > 0:16:28"wild asses galloped in the wind."
0:16:28 > 0:16:32This was the Ireland I wanted to be part of when I was a child.
0:16:33 > 0:16:36She was rather irresponsible, in a way.
0:16:37 > 0:16:44She encouraged people to go against whatever it was you were
0:16:44 > 0:16:46supposed to be doing, you know.
0:16:46 > 0:16:50Their grandmother Lucy was swept up in the ideas of the poet Yeats
0:16:50 > 0:16:52and romantic Ireland.
0:16:52 > 0:16:57Connemara, where she came from, symbolised all it stood for -
0:16:57 > 0:17:00the place where Ireland could unite around the Celtic myths
0:17:00 > 0:17:05and everyone could be poets instead of warriors.
0:17:05 > 0:17:09The Protestants like Yeats and Synge had dreamt a future for them all
0:17:09 > 0:17:13and more than anything, Lucy wanted the children to be part of it.
0:17:15 > 0:17:18So a battle for the soul of the family took place within
0:17:18 > 0:17:24the marriage of the children's grandmother and grandfather.
0:17:24 > 0:17:27He was an unromantic Ormsby.
0:17:27 > 0:17:31The Ormsbys were all hard-headed soldiers
0:17:31 > 0:17:34with not an ounce of romance.
0:17:34 > 0:17:38I don't think it was an extremely happy marriage
0:17:38 > 0:17:39as they were very different.
0:17:39 > 0:17:41Hello!
0:17:41 > 0:17:44Hello, Mary, how are you today?
0:17:44 > 0:17:45Nice to see your dogs.
0:17:51 > 0:17:56As a former colonel he valued discipline rather highly.
0:17:56 > 0:18:01But Granny was encouraging us in practical jokes
0:18:01 > 0:18:03such as making papier mache turds
0:18:03 > 0:18:06which we would then place on the stair carpet
0:18:06 > 0:18:09where Grandfather would spot it going up the stairs
0:18:09 > 0:18:12and goggle over it with his monocle and say,
0:18:12 > 0:18:15"Lucy! Lucy! One of your dogs!"
0:18:15 > 0:18:18Not very helpful really. I hated it
0:18:18 > 0:18:21because I adored my mother and
0:18:21 > 0:18:24I knew I wouldn't see either parent for two years.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28Just Christopher and me.
0:18:30 > 0:18:35'My own darling and lost, precious Mumsy, I don't want Gran to see that
0:18:35 > 0:18:40'I have been crying, so I have taken this letter upstairs with me.
0:18:40 > 0:18:44'I shall miss you in bed tonight but I shall bring your photo
0:18:44 > 0:18:47'and I have your surprise to look forward to.
0:18:47 > 0:18:50'I hope you don't get malaria.
0:18:50 > 0:18:55'Kiss, kiss, kiss. Hug, hug, hug.
0:18:55 > 0:18:57'Your own Mary.'
0:18:59 > 0:19:02The winter was a particularly wet one.
0:19:02 > 0:19:05Lo and behold,
0:19:05 > 0:19:09the ceilings in all the old houses started falling down.
0:19:09 > 0:19:14I actually thought, "Why can't we have a ceiling fall down?"
0:19:14 > 0:19:15I saw a place where I thought
0:19:15 > 0:19:18the ceiling looked a bit cracked and wonky
0:19:18 > 0:19:20so I got a great big pole and I jiggled it
0:19:20 > 0:19:22and I jiggled away and a great, big chunk came down.
0:19:24 > 0:19:27'The schoolroom ceiling fell in!
0:19:27 > 0:19:31'Poor Neno was there, but he wasn't hurt.
0:19:31 > 0:19:34'John Welsh said the drawing room ceiling would fall down too,
0:19:34 > 0:19:38'and the study and Grandfather's bedroom.
0:19:38 > 0:19:40'Do come home soon.'
0:19:42 > 0:19:46'Dearest Betty, things here have been very upset
0:19:46 > 0:19:49'and your mother has been worrying herself greatly.
0:19:49 > 0:19:52'Due to the loss on Milford, I have insufficient funds to meet
0:19:52 > 0:19:54'the overhead charges.
0:19:54 > 0:19:56'And as the dogs were not well
0:19:56 > 0:19:59'and the ceiling fell down it is very difficult to know what to say
0:19:59 > 0:20:03'or to keep off the subject of dogs, ceilings, or finance.
0:20:03 > 0:20:07'It is very unfortunate how everything has gone wrong
0:20:07 > 0:20:08'just at this time.'
0:20:10 > 0:20:13Everything was indeed going wrong.
0:20:13 > 0:20:16There was a threat to the house itself.
0:20:16 > 0:20:21In 1933 the new leader Eamon de Valera had been swept to power,
0:20:21 > 0:20:25promising to strip the underused Anglo-Irish estates
0:20:25 > 0:20:27of their remaining land.
0:20:27 > 0:20:31Milford had received a Compulsory Purchase Order.
0:20:31 > 0:20:35The house would be left with nothing, not even the home farm.
0:20:36 > 0:20:41The government was intent on righting ancient wrongs
0:20:41 > 0:20:47and was going to turn the tables on the old Protestant Ascendancy...
0:20:47 > 0:20:51Whether they like it or not, it becomes law over their heads.
0:20:51 > 0:20:56..which had grabbed all land from their ancestors.
0:20:58 > 0:21:02Grandfather went up to Dublin in a panic at the idea that
0:21:02 > 0:21:05Milford was going to be nationalised.
0:21:07 > 0:21:10The estate was no longer a rich man's establishment.
0:21:10 > 0:21:13The Land Commission had already whittled it down
0:21:13 > 0:21:18from 17,000 acres to under 500.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22But Tom Ormsby wanted to keep the home farm in the family.
0:21:23 > 0:21:27His appeal argued that he would farm his gentleman's demesne with
0:21:27 > 0:21:32all the vigour of any other farmer, providing food for Ireland
0:21:32 > 0:21:34and jobs on the land.
0:21:34 > 0:21:36It worked.
0:21:36 > 0:21:39Only half of the home farm went
0:21:39 > 0:21:41and the family set out to exploit
0:21:41 > 0:21:44the remaining 220 acres of useable land.
0:21:46 > 0:21:48He wanted to farm and try and make it pay,
0:21:48 > 0:21:51which it had never done in the past.
0:21:51 > 0:21:54And the Ormsbys did nothing for generation after
0:21:54 > 0:21:57generation except go into the army
0:21:57 > 0:22:02and draw income from their landed property in the west of Ireland.
0:22:02 > 0:22:05There had always been, an income.
0:22:08 > 0:22:11Do it yourself farming wasn't going to be easy.
0:22:11 > 0:22:14Most Anglo-Irish looked at their options
0:22:14 > 0:22:17and decided to take their chances in England.
0:22:18 > 0:22:21He works terribly hard.
0:22:21 > 0:22:26And they are the only people in Mayo now of the old places
0:22:26 > 0:22:29because everyone else has gone.
0:22:30 > 0:22:33Hollymount went when Bloomfield went, I think.
0:22:33 > 0:22:37And the Killdays across the way and then there was Hollymount house.
0:22:37 > 0:22:40They're all gone completely now. It's so sad.
0:22:41 > 0:22:43Just as everyone else was leaving,
0:22:43 > 0:22:47Betty realised, with the situation as it was,
0:22:47 > 0:22:50she had to come back from Ceylon.
0:22:50 > 0:22:52She arrived with her three youngest children
0:22:52 > 0:22:56and settled the family in Milford's East Wing.
0:22:56 > 0:23:01She sank all of William's savings into fixing it up.
0:23:01 > 0:23:03Financially, it was a very bad move
0:23:03 > 0:23:05because he didn't even own the house.
0:23:05 > 0:23:09That was her decision for her own wishes.
0:23:09 > 0:23:16It was a derelict ancestral demesne house miles from anywhere
0:23:16 > 0:23:18without even a motorcar.
0:23:20 > 0:23:23Betty knew that Milford would follow the male line.
0:23:23 > 0:23:25Her brother would inherit
0:23:25 > 0:23:29and the money they had put in could never be recouped.
0:23:29 > 0:23:33For the Murphys, the commitment was irrevocable.
0:23:40 > 0:23:46Milford was always this magical Shangri La in the background
0:23:46 > 0:23:50that we all aspired to go back to and felt we had sprung from.
0:23:50 > 0:23:54It was a demesne house, you see.
0:23:54 > 0:23:56We were somebody.
0:23:58 > 0:24:03My grandmother was very alert to how much class mattered.
0:24:03 > 0:24:07The move to Milford would ensure her children became ladies and gents,
0:24:07 > 0:24:12as she put it, which was easily worth all the money they had.
0:24:12 > 0:24:15William remained, alone in Ceylon.
0:24:17 > 0:24:19Liz was four-years-old when they all arrived.
0:24:21 > 0:24:23The first time I saw Milford,
0:24:23 > 0:24:27I walked in the front door and there were rabbits laid in braces
0:24:27 > 0:24:29all the way from the front door to the bottom of the stairs
0:24:29 > 0:24:34on both sides of the hall because my grandfather had been shooting.
0:24:34 > 0:24:37The place was always overrun with rabbits,
0:24:37 > 0:24:40so things were always being killed.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46Edward was the fifth child and he was two.
0:24:47 > 0:24:55There was 150 acres of woodland for shooting and
0:24:55 > 0:24:58the activities of having a good shoot
0:24:58 > 0:25:00was more important than farming.
0:25:05 > 0:25:10My mother really organised us like a disciplined little regiment.
0:25:10 > 0:25:14We had daily tasks and one thing and another.
0:25:14 > 0:25:18Bells were rung at different times for classes
0:25:18 > 0:25:21and then there were ructions if the four o'clock bell
0:25:21 > 0:25:24for starting class after tea,
0:25:24 > 0:25:27we were all out in the woods and just didn't appear.
0:25:31 > 0:25:33What was your accent?
0:25:35 > 0:25:39Oh, absolutely straight whatever the accent was that my parents had,
0:25:39 > 0:25:42except when we were playing with country people
0:25:42 > 0:25:45and then we could be as Irish as you please.
0:25:45 > 0:25:46But not in the house.
0:25:48 > 0:25:50So two accents?
0:25:50 > 0:25:52We didn't have two accents, we had two "us"s.
0:25:52 > 0:25:56We were with the children outside, and then at home
0:25:56 > 0:25:59we were just how our parents wanted us to be, without accents.
0:26:02 > 0:26:05I mean, after all, there you were as a two-year-old toddler
0:26:05 > 0:26:07and I had just been born.
0:26:07 > 0:26:11Standing with your bucket and spade in the pleasure ground saying,
0:26:11 > 0:26:14- ENGLISH ACCENT:- Bucket... - IRISH ACCENT:- Bucket...
0:26:14 > 0:26:18unable to understand which was the right name
0:26:18 > 0:26:20- for the toy you had in your hand. - Well, that's true.
0:26:20 > 0:26:25And you came back from the Joyce's and said to daddy,
0:26:25 > 0:26:28"I'm tired, God help me."
0:26:28 > 0:26:30I've never heard that.
0:26:30 > 0:26:34It has always been instilled in us
0:26:34 > 0:26:37that we should remember that
0:26:37 > 0:26:41we are gentlemen and we should behave like gentlemen.
0:26:41 > 0:26:46And they were called Master Christopher, Master Richard,
0:26:46 > 0:26:50Miss Mary, Miss Elizabeth and Master Edward,
0:26:50 > 0:26:52so you called them that.
0:26:54 > 0:27:01Chris and I did not feel happy being called Master but, from up above,
0:27:01 > 0:27:06they were corrected if they were caught not calling us Master.
0:27:06 > 0:27:09Many Anglo-Irish didn't allow their children
0:27:09 > 0:27:12to see their Irish neighbours at all.
0:27:12 > 0:27:15I wasn't encouraged to have friends
0:27:15 > 0:27:18among the townspeople when I was a child.
0:27:18 > 0:27:19My mother was very dubious
0:27:19 > 0:27:22and she said, "Are you sure, are they clean?"
0:27:22 > 0:27:25I can remember her saying, you know,
0:27:25 > 0:27:28"Be careful when you accept a drink or something.
0:27:28 > 0:27:32"Just make sure that the glass has been washed."
0:27:32 > 0:27:33Yes, well, we played with the Catholics,
0:27:33 > 0:27:38they were the most fun we had with the country children.
0:27:38 > 0:27:43There was John and there was Willie
0:27:43 > 0:27:50and there was Kathleen, Nancy and Joe and Barbara
0:27:50 > 0:27:53and my eldest brother was reared with my granny.
0:27:55 > 0:27:58My Mum would go out and open the gate
0:27:58 > 0:28:02and you'd go out and open that and you'd stand there and just wave.
0:28:04 > 0:28:07'Barefoot, a child skips from my heart
0:28:07 > 0:28:11'to touch the wrought, obsequious latch of lip service,
0:28:11 > 0:28:14'taking you in-between double gates
0:28:14 > 0:28:16'to reach beyond the ruts -
0:28:16 > 0:28:18'your mother's peerless place.'
0:28:19 > 0:28:22Your father's actual job was what?
0:28:22 > 0:28:26He worked as a labourer in the big house and he worked very hard.
0:28:26 > 0:28:29He had to work on a Sunday as well.
0:28:29 > 0:28:33And the money wasn't much in those days, you know?
0:28:33 > 0:28:36We had our own turf and everything like that
0:28:36 > 0:28:38and our own cow and all that
0:28:38 > 0:28:43and we used to make the churning and have our own butter and vegetables.
0:28:43 > 0:28:45So we were very happy there.
0:28:45 > 0:28:48And the rosary was said every night.
0:28:48 > 0:28:51You were not allowed to go out or go to bed
0:28:51 > 0:28:54without the rosary being said.
0:28:54 > 0:28:56The poor girls got paid nothing.
0:28:56 > 0:28:59I mean, Kathleen got paid £36 a year...
0:29:02 > 0:29:05..for working 12 hours a day, 365 days a year.
0:29:07 > 0:29:08Kathleen was the parlour maid,
0:29:08 > 0:29:13dressed up in a black and white apron and all that. Oh, yeah.
0:29:13 > 0:29:18We had cats and one of the cats spewed on the bed or something
0:29:18 > 0:29:21and the cat got severely beaten for spewing on the bed
0:29:21 > 0:29:25and so the wretched maid that beat the cat,
0:29:25 > 0:29:27we chased her round the garden with sticks.
0:29:32 > 0:29:35If you look at it in the context of what was happening in England,
0:29:35 > 0:29:39it wasn't quite as ghastly as it seems now, us looking back on it.
0:29:39 > 0:29:45One wonders how one could have been like that?
0:29:45 > 0:29:50How one? We weren't grinding the faces of the poor at Milford.
0:29:50 > 0:29:53We had maids who only what?
0:29:53 > 0:29:56- They got £12 a year pay.- £14. - Half a crown a week.
0:29:56 > 0:30:00And they walked up barefoot from their cottages to work for us.
0:30:00 > 0:30:03- Yeah.- Yeah.- What do you call that?
0:30:03 > 0:30:06And they used that loo down there, outside.
0:30:06 > 0:30:07- An earth closet.- Yes.
0:30:07 > 0:30:10And what did they get for Christmas?
0:30:10 > 0:30:13They got material to make a uniform to wear.
0:30:13 > 0:30:16- And if anything disappeared they were accused of stealing.- Yes.
0:30:16 > 0:30:19Awful thieves, they were called.
0:30:19 > 0:30:23One did give them one's old clothes and shoes and things.
0:30:23 > 0:30:26So kind we were. You know.
0:30:29 > 0:30:34There was the great divide between Catholics and Protestants.
0:30:34 > 0:30:36Like you would say a black and white wedding is called
0:30:36 > 0:30:39a mixed marriage today,
0:30:39 > 0:30:43Protestant-Catholic was known as a mixed marriage.
0:30:46 > 0:30:48There were rhymes.
0:30:48 > 0:30:52Father, Father, I killed a cat
0:30:52 > 0:30:56Great sin that, sir Great sin that
0:30:56 > 0:31:00Father, Father, a Protestant cat
0:31:00 > 0:31:02No sin that, sir. No sin that.
0:31:04 > 0:31:08One was in an extraordinary position, really, living at Milford
0:31:08 > 0:31:13because although we weren't well off, we were infinitely well off,
0:31:13 > 0:31:16better off than everybody else.
0:31:17 > 0:31:21You were conscious of the fact that you lived in a house
0:31:21 > 0:31:24that your family had lived in since, erm,
0:31:24 > 0:31:30the end of the 17th century, and that you were somehow or another
0:31:30 > 0:31:35established and you were different anyway because you were a Protestant.
0:31:36 > 0:31:39Britain and the Anglo-Irish Protestants were
0:31:39 > 0:31:42a fixation for de Valera, the Irish leader,
0:31:42 > 0:31:45who at the height of the Depression said,
0:31:45 > 0:31:49"Burn everything English except their coal."
0:31:49 > 0:31:52And he defaulted on a debt to the British government.
0:31:55 > 0:31:58The British retaliated with duties on Irish beef,
0:31:58 > 0:32:01and it wasn't long before the economy stalled.
0:32:03 > 0:32:06Whoever could get a job elsewhere emigrated.
0:32:11 > 0:32:15Those who stayed were so poor some died without ever seeing a doctor.
0:32:17 > 0:32:22The children's grandmother Lucy ran a clinic from the kitchen.
0:32:45 > 0:32:49There was no district nurse, there was no National Health.
0:32:49 > 0:32:52If there was ever an accident in the night or in the day,
0:32:52 > 0:32:55a baby fell into the fire, something like that,
0:32:55 > 0:32:57they all came round to the house.
0:32:57 > 0:33:00Granny, she did a huge amount of nursing,
0:33:00 > 0:33:05but we couldn't come if there was anything infectious.
0:33:05 > 0:33:09And people constantly died, children did,
0:33:09 > 0:33:11because there was so little medicine.
0:33:18 > 0:33:23Up at the top of this tree was a place where you could sit down
0:33:23 > 0:33:30and you could look over the pigeon park, the swallow park,
0:33:30 > 0:33:32the deer park, the rest of the wood
0:33:32 > 0:33:36and all these huge fields that make up present-day Milford.
0:33:39 > 0:33:44I would sit there and think, "This is just a magical place,"
0:33:44 > 0:33:46the sunlit parkland all around.
0:33:48 > 0:33:51It was at home, it was everything.
0:33:51 > 0:33:54The lime avenue and the bumblebees,
0:33:54 > 0:33:59and the primrose woods and the bluebell woods and the bog.
0:34:00 > 0:34:03It was, it was paradise.
0:34:03 > 0:34:08We were quite rough children.
0:34:08 > 0:34:13Irish boys were much rougher than the English boys.
0:34:13 > 0:34:17It was a totally new experience for me when I went there.
0:34:17 > 0:34:19I was always quite glad to get away
0:34:19 > 0:34:23because I was always the one who was sort of scapegoat.
0:34:23 > 0:34:29We found, if you rolled down the bank in a black car tyre,
0:34:29 > 0:34:33you could get a terrific kick and feel frightfully sick and dizzy.
0:34:37 > 0:34:40We particularly enjoyed doing it to visiting children.
0:34:42 > 0:34:45It was all very strange, all very foreign to me,
0:34:45 > 0:34:47cos I never did that sort of thing at home.
0:34:54 > 0:34:57One day, Christopher set off with a magnifying glass
0:34:57 > 0:34:59to see what he could do.
0:35:02 > 0:35:05It was actually raining at the time.
0:35:08 > 0:35:10Flaming now.
0:35:14 > 0:35:17It's that tinder at the very top of the seed that goes.
0:35:20 > 0:35:24He set fire to the whole bog.
0:35:25 > 0:35:28I was a pyromaniac.
0:35:29 > 0:35:34After I'd burned it, it stayed, all those old plants
0:35:34 > 0:35:39stayed as blackened carcasses for 30 or 40 years.
0:35:41 > 0:35:45The fire roared across the land, consuming all the plants
0:35:45 > 0:35:51and animals in its path, until it met a drainage ditch,
0:35:51 > 0:35:53which saved the house.
0:35:54 > 0:35:57I think it was tough for my mother. She couldn't cope.
0:35:59 > 0:36:02I had to help her because they were all so wild.
0:36:03 > 0:36:06And there were too many children.
0:36:06 > 0:36:11Courtney, Kenny's mother, was always shocked
0:36:11 > 0:36:14at Mum having five children,
0:36:14 > 0:36:18as if she was almost becoming a tinker having five children.
0:36:23 > 0:36:26My grandmother tried to create order.
0:36:26 > 0:36:31She helped her parents, held prayers and played the piano every morning.
0:36:31 > 0:36:34But she couldn't stop the children fighting
0:36:34 > 0:36:37or Christopher's goat from jumping through the window.
0:36:38 > 0:36:41And then the boys went to prep school.
0:36:41 > 0:36:44- Was that a relief?- Yeah!
0:36:47 > 0:36:49Mummy was of the impression
0:36:49 > 0:36:53that girls should be brought up at home with governesses.
0:36:53 > 0:36:54And boys?
0:36:54 > 0:36:56Oh, they must go to the best schools
0:36:56 > 0:36:59and the money was to be spent on their schooling.
0:37:00 > 0:37:03My father always had a chip on his shoulder
0:37:03 > 0:37:07that as an old boy of Tipperary Grammar School,
0:37:07 > 0:37:11he didn't have the connections and the pull
0:37:11 > 0:37:13and the class and the standing
0:37:13 > 0:37:17of any of his colleagues in the Civil Service,
0:37:17 > 0:37:20who were all English public school boys
0:37:20 > 0:37:27and he didn't want his sons to suffer this disadvantage
0:37:27 > 0:37:30of being Irish school boys.
0:37:31 > 0:37:35We wouldn't be cold-shouldered by the English toffs
0:37:35 > 0:37:38for being Irish bumpkins like he'd felt.
0:37:43 > 0:37:46They chose Canterbury Cathedral Choir School because along with
0:37:46 > 0:37:51a religious education, it offered scholarships to its choristers.
0:37:52 > 0:37:56Even so, William spent half of what he earned
0:37:56 > 0:37:58on public schools for his boys.
0:37:58 > 0:38:02Everyone did it, to stop the drift into Irishness.
0:38:04 > 0:38:05The difference!
0:38:05 > 0:38:11It utterly changes the future course of a life.
0:38:20 > 0:38:26I always, particularly at school, missed Ireland.
0:38:26 > 0:38:32I used to take a sod of turf in the study in Canterbury,
0:38:32 > 0:38:37and make the smell fill the room and I would breathe it,
0:38:37 > 0:38:40and sigh with nostalgia.
0:38:42 > 0:38:46- It was a strange thing.- Yeah.
0:38:46 > 0:38:49This business...this pretence of going backwards and forwards,
0:38:49 > 0:38:53and being British in a country that wasn't England.
0:38:56 > 0:38:58It was very confusing, I think.
0:38:58 > 0:39:02I think the situation would have been better if the Anglo-Irish families
0:39:02 > 0:39:04had just sent their children to school in Ireland
0:39:04 > 0:39:08and considered they were Irish and got on with it, you know.
0:39:08 > 0:39:10When Chris borrowed a copy
0:39:10 > 0:39:14of Dan Breen's My Fight For Ireland's Freedom,
0:39:14 > 0:39:19Mummy confiscated it, found it and was shocked.
0:39:19 > 0:39:23- Did she burn it?- It was traitorous.
0:39:23 > 0:39:27- We never had any inkling of that. - That was a terrible thing to have...
0:39:27 > 0:39:33Well, when I became an ardent Irish nationalist my mother said to me,
0:39:33 > 0:39:35"Have you no loyalty?"
0:39:35 > 0:39:38And I said, "Yes. For Ireland."
0:39:38 > 0:39:39That shut her up.
0:39:39 > 0:39:41It was difficult being two things.
0:39:41 > 0:39:43British and Irish.
0:39:43 > 0:39:46You see, I had none of that, there was never any question.
0:39:46 > 0:39:49My loyalties were absolutely
0:39:49 > 0:39:53100% for the army and England at that stage, you see.
0:39:53 > 0:39:59My country wasn't really Ireland, you see, which is very strange.
0:39:59 > 0:40:02What did you think your nationality was?
0:40:02 > 0:40:05Oh, I was absolutely certain that I was Irish.
0:40:05 > 0:40:09But being Irish, one...
0:40:09 > 0:40:12didn't have any political sense of being Irish.
0:40:12 > 0:40:14One was Irish, you belonged to Ireland
0:40:14 > 0:40:18but you owed all your allegiance to England.
0:40:18 > 0:40:23I didn't vote in an election until I was about...
0:40:23 > 0:40:2828 or something, because I didn't really belong anywhere.
0:40:28 > 0:40:32In the background there was always that sort of feeling,
0:40:32 > 0:40:35that criticism of Ireland.
0:40:35 > 0:40:39Dreadful people, pigs in the parlour,
0:40:39 > 0:40:41bog trotters, what have you.
0:40:41 > 0:40:45Claiming independence from the Great British Empire!
0:40:47 > 0:40:49English condescension was part of life.
0:40:49 > 0:40:51If you were called Murphy...
0:40:51 > 0:40:56you were the star of jokes, a dimwit, hilarious!
0:40:56 > 0:41:00My grandfather William had to represent Britain,
0:41:00 > 0:41:03so he pretended he didn't notice.
0:41:03 > 0:41:07Meanwhile at home, my father was singing rebel ballads
0:41:07 > 0:41:12and re-imagining old battles fought with picks and hoes.
0:41:12 > 0:41:14Everyone felt the strain.
0:41:14 > 0:41:19Every Sunday we used to sit in that nursery and have to write
0:41:19 > 0:41:23a letter to our father and that was a sort of bore of Sunday.
0:41:27 > 0:41:32Writing to somebody one only saw only once in a blue moon.
0:41:38 > 0:41:44"My darling son, everyday I go for a walk on the Galle Face
0:41:44 > 0:41:47"and it is beautifully fresh on the seafront,
0:41:47 > 0:41:51"but I often wish you and Richard were with me.
0:41:51 > 0:41:54"Are you really thinking of going in for my kind of work?
0:41:55 > 0:42:00"It is a very hard thing to do, at first, at any rate,
0:42:00 > 0:42:03"and I was very lonely when I first came to Ceylon.
0:42:03 > 0:42:09"Now I am lonely again, because you are all at home.
0:42:09 > 0:42:11"Your own Dad."
0:42:12 > 0:42:15Well, the fact was it wasn't a very grand house, was it?
0:42:15 > 0:42:20They lived in a kind of a... well, like the Murphys were.
0:42:20 > 0:42:21I used to think,
0:42:21 > 0:42:24"My God, are we ever going to get to the end of this avenue?"
0:42:24 > 0:42:27It went on and on, and there was that house sitting down,
0:42:27 > 0:42:32with no view, surrounded by trees and everything was damp and muddy.
0:42:33 > 0:42:37It hadn't got a river. It hadn't got a lake.
0:42:37 > 0:42:42It hadn't got hunting. It hadn't got good land.
0:42:42 > 0:42:46It had a bog which was beautiful, but not at all valuable.
0:42:46 > 0:42:49I was very envious of other people's lakes and rivers,
0:42:49 > 0:42:52but I loved the place.
0:42:52 > 0:42:58We did realise that there was a financial inferiority there
0:42:58 > 0:43:04that we would have to make good in our lives, if we were to keep up.
0:43:09 > 0:43:12The Brownes of Breaghwy were obviously more than equal
0:43:12 > 0:43:14because they had so much money.
0:43:16 > 0:43:18And they had big, big hunters.
0:43:21 > 0:43:25Our mother hated the subject of money.
0:43:25 > 0:43:28She thought money was not nice.
0:43:29 > 0:43:33It was the genteel Edwardian young lady in her...
0:43:35 > 0:43:42..that wanted to have sufficient money, but not to think about it.
0:43:42 > 0:43:45That was not nice, not done.
0:43:47 > 0:43:50My great grandmother didn't give money or the lack of it
0:43:50 > 0:43:53much thought at all.
0:43:53 > 0:43:55Granny was great at making clothes.
0:43:55 > 0:43:57She used to make me party dresses
0:43:57 > 0:43:59to go to Breaghwy and to go to the Sligos.
0:43:59 > 0:44:04Wearing these pink frilly dresses, pink organdie, lovely colour, pink.
0:44:04 > 0:44:07She was very good at colour, and they had no end of frills.
0:44:07 > 0:44:10But my dear, she never finished anything.
0:44:10 > 0:44:15It was all the style, but not the finishing off.
0:44:15 > 0:44:17And it was full of pins!
0:44:17 > 0:44:21And I was simply terrified it was going to fall to pieces at the party!
0:44:24 > 0:44:29It wasn't the sort of thing Betty found at all funny.
0:44:29 > 0:44:33She just wanted us to be upper class. She was ambitious.
0:44:33 > 0:44:37She'd much rather we'd married ladies and gentlemen than married oiks.
0:44:37 > 0:44:40But there were few gentlemen to go round.
0:44:40 > 0:44:44No tennis parties, not many luncheons.
0:44:44 > 0:44:48"Why would you want to go there?" She used to ask me.
0:44:48 > 0:44:50"Everyone's gone."
0:44:50 > 0:44:58# Sure a little bit of Heaven fell from out the sky one day
0:44:58 > 0:45:04# And nestled in the ocean in a spot so far away
0:45:04 > 0:45:09# And when the angels found it Sure it looked so sweet and fair... #
0:45:09 > 0:45:14The Protestant gentry were leaving the country.
0:45:14 > 0:45:20The Catholic country people were leaving the country.
0:45:23 > 0:45:29Fine old buildings everywhere were roofless, covered in ivy.
0:45:29 > 0:45:33Ireland in the '30s was somewhat degenerate,
0:45:33 > 0:45:34it was going downhill.
0:45:34 > 0:45:38# And when they had it finished
0:45:38 > 0:45:46# Sure they called it Ireland. #
0:45:47 > 0:45:51"We are, as it were, taking the strain..."
0:45:51 > 0:45:55When the war started, Betty brought the children back from England,
0:45:55 > 0:45:57to be home schooled.
0:45:58 > 0:46:01We did listen to the Home Service every day of life...
0:46:01 > 0:46:04Christopher! You're supposed to be listening, not yakking.
0:46:04 > 0:46:06We must look very reverent.
0:46:06 > 0:46:10# We'll meet again Don't know where, don't know when! #
0:46:10 > 0:46:14We must remain silent if we're supposed to be listening, Chris!
0:46:14 > 0:46:18RADIO: "..has burst the storm of ruthless and unceasing war."
0:46:18 > 0:46:21Outside Milford there was no war,
0:46:21 > 0:46:25there was only what was called an emergency.
0:46:25 > 0:46:29Mummy's idea was that we mustn't think that we were neutral.
0:46:29 > 0:46:35We at Milford were imperialists. We supported the war effort.
0:46:36 > 0:46:41To Betty's horror, the first bomb of the war was an IRA one,
0:46:41 > 0:46:43in London's Oxford Street.
0:46:43 > 0:46:45WHIZZING AND EXPLOSIONS
0:46:48 > 0:46:52Plenty of people in Ireland seemed pleased that the English
0:46:52 > 0:46:54were at last getting their comeuppance,
0:46:54 > 0:46:57with German bombs providing the punishment.
0:46:58 > 0:47:02In neutral Ireland, the family's problems of loyalty
0:47:02 > 0:47:04and allegiance were greater than ever.
0:47:06 > 0:47:12Ireland's neutrality was a disgrace to my father and my mother.
0:47:12 > 0:47:16We never wanted to identify with the neutrality of Ireland.
0:47:16 > 0:47:19Their uncle Jack and all their male cousins
0:47:19 > 0:47:23had volunteered and were fighting for the British.
0:47:23 > 0:47:27De Valera's priority was self sufficiency.
0:47:27 > 0:47:31In the country of sheep and cattle, there wasn't enough food.
0:47:31 > 0:47:35My mother said we must grow things, so I grew onions.
0:47:35 > 0:47:37I think something awful happened to the crop
0:47:37 > 0:47:40because I never, ever remember harvesting the onions.
0:47:42 > 0:47:44Bless de Valera and Sean MacEntee
0:47:44 > 0:47:48For they gave us black bread and a half ounce of tea.
0:47:50 > 0:47:53Granny was a tea-aholic.
0:47:53 > 0:47:56A half ounce of tea a week got her nowhere
0:47:56 > 0:48:00so she used to gather lime flowers and make lime tea,
0:48:00 > 0:48:04but the lime flowers weren't sufficient,
0:48:04 > 0:48:08so she went out and cut off great sprays, whole branches,
0:48:08 > 0:48:12and cooked them till they were crisp.
0:48:20 > 0:48:24Gradually the shortages grew more severe.
0:48:24 > 0:48:27The family were thrown back on their own resources,
0:48:27 > 0:48:30which to the children seemed like entering
0:48:30 > 0:48:33a forgotten world of legend.
0:48:33 > 0:48:39To eke out the meagre supplies of oil and candles that we had,
0:48:39 > 0:48:40I made rush lights.
0:48:44 > 0:48:47But I quite enjoyed the shortages,
0:48:47 > 0:48:53being self-sufficient and the idea that we grew our own wheat,
0:48:53 > 0:48:59we made our own bread and killed our own pigs and made our own bacon.
0:48:59 > 0:49:02We had our own hens. I kept goats.
0:49:03 > 0:49:09And I ground the flour for the bread that Kathleen Joyce baked for us.
0:49:10 > 0:49:14And I like the fact this was grown at Milford,
0:49:14 > 0:49:18was it ground at Milford and it was baked at Milford.
0:49:18 > 0:49:23And that we didn't have electricity, cos I thought it was more romantic.
0:49:34 > 0:49:36It was terribly lonely in Milford
0:49:36 > 0:49:39and the loneliness was part of the poetry of the place.
0:49:42 > 0:49:44Romance.
0:49:44 > 0:49:48And part of the intensity of the emotion we felt for each other
0:49:48 > 0:49:53which, of course, could turn into anger, at very little provocation.
0:50:03 > 0:50:06"One year at home under my flagging roof during the war,
0:50:06 > 0:50:08"Learning and Love made peace.
0:50:10 > 0:50:14"Like a bone setting weaver's warp and woof,
0:50:14 > 0:50:18"your heart and mind were shuttled into place."
0:50:18 > 0:50:22I realised this had been a blissfully happy time.
0:50:22 > 0:50:25CHILDREN SHOUT
0:50:25 > 0:50:30In April 1942, the change came.
0:50:32 > 0:50:36Everything shifted when their uncle died fighting in the war.
0:50:37 > 0:50:41One doesn't know that all sorts of turbulences are going to happen.
0:50:41 > 0:50:47That a war's going to come and Uncle Jack is going to get killed and then
0:50:47 > 0:50:51six months later, his father dies because he couldn't get over it,
0:50:51 > 0:50:52his only son.
0:50:54 > 0:50:58Now Lucy and Betty were left at Milford without any men.
0:51:03 > 0:51:05I remember grandfather's funeral.
0:51:05 > 0:51:07He lay in the house for two or three days
0:51:07 > 0:51:12while all the locals came and visited him in the drawing room.
0:51:12 > 0:51:18Then he went to Kilmaine on the back of a cart pulled by Freckles,
0:51:18 > 0:51:23his favourite horse, the horse that did all his ploughing.
0:51:26 > 0:51:30And then Betty heard that my grandfather was being promoted,
0:51:30 > 0:51:33but only if she went with him,
0:51:33 > 0:51:36and the War Office wouldn't allow the children to go too.
0:51:36 > 0:51:40So there was a stark choice to be made.
0:51:40 > 0:51:43She left the East Wing, sent the children to boarding schools
0:51:43 > 0:51:48in England and abandoned the attempt to root her family in Ireland.
0:51:48 > 0:51:50She never lived there again.
0:51:51 > 0:51:53The separation, the disappointment
0:51:53 > 0:51:57and the turmoil put her in hospital for three months.
0:51:59 > 0:52:01But for William, things were looking up.
0:52:01 > 0:52:05His promotion led to him succeeding the former King of England,
0:52:05 > 0:52:09the Duke of Windsor, as Governor of the Bahamas.
0:52:09 > 0:52:12It would be the crowning moment of his career.
0:52:13 > 0:52:15He took the whole thing very seriously
0:52:15 > 0:52:21because he believed in the monarchy as he believed in God, you know.
0:52:21 > 0:52:24There was God and then there was the king.
0:52:24 > 0:52:27And then there was the governor.
0:52:27 > 0:52:30People who were ambitious brought up their children
0:52:30 > 0:52:35to believe in order to get on in the world, you've got to leave Ireland.
0:52:36 > 0:52:37There is no future here.
0:52:37 > 0:52:44You'd go to seed, it's a poor country, you'd be wasting your time.
0:52:44 > 0:52:48Their parents packed their trunks, said their farewells
0:52:48 > 0:52:51and embarked on a convoy across the Atlantic.
0:52:52 > 0:52:56Christopher and Richard were back at Canterbury.
0:52:57 > 0:53:04In April 1942, Archbishop Temple was enthroned at Canterbury.
0:53:04 > 0:53:10Our parents heard the BBC broadcast with us singing on the ship.
0:53:23 > 0:53:27My feeling about the place began to change when our mother had
0:53:27 > 0:53:33left it and the East Wing seemed less and less to belong to us.
0:53:38 > 0:53:41I did feel the loss.
0:53:44 > 0:53:46We had had this wonderful life,
0:53:46 > 0:53:52and to be deprived of that was a shock.
0:53:52 > 0:53:54I did feel I needed to escape.
0:53:54 > 0:53:57I was sitting on those stairs there thinking,
0:53:57 > 0:54:00"I wish I could go to art school or university or something.
0:54:00 > 0:54:01"I'm not doing anything."
0:54:02 > 0:54:07I either had to go and join up in the army or the navy or get married.
0:54:08 > 0:54:13- And your mother?- Oh, couldn't get me married quick enough!
0:54:13 > 0:54:16There wasn't any alternative. Grandfather was dead.
0:54:16 > 0:54:18My mother was going abroad.
0:54:18 > 0:54:22There was no home for the children, there was nothing.
0:54:22 > 0:54:26Having got married, I had a home for everybody to come to.
0:54:32 > 0:54:36We were sent to school in England.
0:54:38 > 0:54:45Mother went off with Father, which was a big blow to my life
0:54:45 > 0:54:48because now I was left with no parents.
0:54:50 > 0:54:53She put the fun and glory of being a governor's wife first.
0:54:56 > 0:54:58She put my father first.
0:55:00 > 0:55:02But that was a terribly hard decision for my mother.
0:55:04 > 0:55:07Choosing between the lesser of two evils.
0:55:07 > 0:55:11How do you decide what to do?
0:55:11 > 0:55:15Who are you going to be with? Who do you really owe yourself to?
0:55:17 > 0:55:19Your parents, your husband, your children,
0:55:19 > 0:55:22and they're all pulling in opposite directions.
0:55:28 > 0:55:31She liked service, my mother.
0:55:32 > 0:55:35And she wanted to carry on with her good work,
0:55:35 > 0:55:40she was an empire builder and she hadn't got a big enough canvas,
0:55:40 > 0:55:42or wouldn't have had in Ireland, to work on.
0:55:53 > 0:55:55Who do you think that is, Chris?
0:55:55 > 0:55:58The daughter of the Galloping Major,
0:55:58 > 0:56:02and I taught myself a song from the Blue Lady's Songbook.
0:56:03 > 0:56:06And I sang it, it went...
0:56:06 > 0:56:10# Hush every breeze Let nothing move
0:56:10 > 0:56:18# My Delia sings, sings of love. #
0:57:00 > 0:57:03Mary and her second husband looked after the whole family.
0:57:03 > 0:57:08She continues painting and exhibits in the North of England,
0:57:08 > 0:57:12where she lives near her daughter in Cumbria.
0:57:13 > 0:57:16My father restored a 13th century castle
0:57:16 > 0:57:18in County Galway, near Milford.
0:57:18 > 0:57:22He lived in six different countries and brought up six children.
0:57:25 > 0:57:29Aged 70, Richard went to join his daughter in South Africa.
0:57:29 > 0:57:34He's now in Sri Lanka, not far from Colombo where he lived as a child.
0:57:34 > 0:57:36He's still writing.
0:57:38 > 0:57:41At the end of the war, Liz rejoined her parents in Rhodesia,
0:57:41 > 0:57:44where her father, now Sir William,
0:57:44 > 0:57:48was the Governor-General of the Central African Federation.
0:57:48 > 0:57:53She has since then lived in London, Singapore and Switzerland.
0:57:55 > 0:57:59Edward also followed his parents to Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe,
0:57:59 > 0:58:01and after a lifetime farming there,
0:58:01 > 0:58:04has returned with his wife to Ireland,
0:58:04 > 0:58:06where they grow and sell flowers.
0:58:09 > 0:58:15At Milford, Good Tom's great grandson is still farming the land.
0:58:19 > 0:58:23And I live in London, still imagining that I'm Irish.
0:58:27 > 0:58:29Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd