A Summer on Rathlin True North

# Fhir a' bhata 's na horo eile

# Fhir a' bhata 's na horo eile

# Mo shoraidh slan leat Gach aite an teid thu. #

Rathlin Island.

Six miles north of the Antrim coast,

and home to just over 100 people,

whose way of life is shaped by the spectacular landscape in which they live.

From generation to generation, youngest to oldest,

everyone has their place in the island family.

It's a beautiful place.

And it should be left as a beautiful place for the next generation.

Newcomers who settle soon find themselves

welcomed into the heart of the island community.

It has really blown me away

how much the people of Rathlin join together as a community.

If I was bringing up a kid there'd be no place I'd rather bring them up than Rathlin.

Do you know what I mean? I'd love to bring them up here.

Rathlin is a working island, and values its young people

as the key to survival for future generations.

It's nice, living on an island. It's quite slow paced.

But in the summertime there's a lot of visitors. It's hectic going.

I'm Theresa McFaul. I live here at the lower end of the island.

I have four children, married to my husband, John,

and this is my first grandchild.

This is Rowan Daniel McFaul.

He was born in May and he's the youngest islander.

I would say island life, cross-communication

through the generations

is very much involved.

If there's a function on, everybody goes,

from the eldest person down to the new baby.

It's, it's just part of what you do.

BABY MIZZLES

I would get involved in most things.

I'm one of these people that has to be in the middle of everything.

Whether I'm liked or not, I like to get in there and get hands-on.

I always was involved in the drama, from when I first came to the island,

when we started the drama group, I've been in every production.

Every year, I would look up plays and sort out who would suit the parts

and annoy them. From February, everybody hides from me!

This year, I'd actually said I wasn't doing anything, but we're here.

-Will you be two different ships, then?

-Yeah.

Set sail for Rathlin!

Michael Cecil is a skipper with the Rathlin ferry company.

And a linchpin of the island community association.

I've been living on Rathlin all my life, and a lot

of the population are active seven days a week, all year round.

In some form or other. There's an awful lot of volunteer work goes on.

Like this part's probably the community association on the island,

of which I am currently chair.

It used to be a young family.

They're not so young now, they're starting to grow up,

and one's off at university.

The next one's going to secondary school in September.

And my youngest is still at primary school on Rathlin.

This is nothing to do with me.

For island children, the transition from primary to secondary school

also involves living away from home.

Are you settling in?

We are in the process of getting Orlagh ready to start boarding school.

I think she's looking forward to it,

but it's a nervous time for everybody.

Anxious time but it will work out.

CHILDREN LAUGH

-We could have done with a secondary school in Rathlin.

-I know.

Imagine one was made here.

I think it's better the kids go away to school, anyway.

Get to meet other children their own age.

Are you looking forward to Orlagh going away to school?

Kind of.

Kind of?

Just remember, all the jobs

that Orlagh normally does,

you're going to have to do.

Feed the dogs, water the dogs, walk the dogs.

Brian gets spoiled anyway,

so he might even get worse when Orlagh goes away.

I've been up to see the school a few times.

-A bit nervous, are you?

-Yeah.

I think it'll be good as well.

It's a good kind of nervous.

Orlagh will be relying on the ferry to get her home at weekends.

The islanders' lifeline to the mainland,

the ferry is also one of Rathlin's biggest employers.

Its youngest skipper is 25-year-old Fergus McFaul.

I left school, I went straight from school to commercially fish,

so whenever I came home, back in 2006, I was only actually 18

when I came home, 19, I had already fished commercially for three years.

I didn't really give it a second thought.

Having any responsibility, as to taking control of a boat,

but, when ever you step in the wheelhouse, it doesn't matter

what age you are, you just take on a slightly different persona.

You are then in charge of a vessel or crew,

and whoever, passengers, or crew, any person's life's very important,

so you take your role seriously and, whatever the conditions may be,

you just need to make the right call.

And if you have to tie the boat up, you have to tie the boat up.

Some of my relations and all,

the other families on the island all started at sea. That was the old job.

The men went to sea and the women became nurses or whatever way

it was, while some of that's changed, it's still there, I suppose,

and sometimes it just takes a lot to take it out of your system.

You have to go to sea. That's what you want to do.

And it's the same in a lot of coastal areas and a lot of islands.

That's my wife waiting to come home with the shopping.

Have they all got different expressions on their faces? They do!

-They really do.

-I didn't intend to!

Orlagh is the only pupil in P7,

and one of just nine children in Rathlin's primary school.

Painted?

It's been a big change for her teacher, Jane McVeigh,

who took over running the school a year ago.

I worked in a very large inner-city school in London,

with hundreds and hundreds of pupils, and a very large staff.

But, it was a very lonely place at times, even though

you're surrounded by lots and lots of people,

and the change has been unbelievable in my life. Erm...

People might think that coming to an island might be lonely.

I haven't felt lonely at all on this island.

In making the move from primary school on Rathlin to boarding school in Belfast,

Orlagh is following in the footsteps of many island children before her.

Children go away on a Sunday evening and they come back on Friday evening.

If the weather's good. Sometimes they don't get home if the weather's bad.

I miss the boys when they go away, obviously, but I'm so used to

it now, after sending five children, five boys, away to boarding school.

It's been going on for the last 14 years for us.

It's just part of living on Rathlin.

As we know, all people from the North Coast are nice people.

That's fair, isn't it?

I go to school at the Campbell College in Belfast.

I was homesick for the first week, and then I got used to it

because I had my older brothers here, so, I felt like they were

looking after me, and then also had the matron and house mothers.

This is like home, isn't it? Yous are spoilt, boys.

There's not many children your age on Rathlin.

And when you come to secondary school,

there's loads of them your age, and you really start to grasp

the opportunity, you know, to see what life's like off the island.

SCHOOL BELL RINGS

The boys' dad, Noel, spent 20 years working on lighthouses

around Ireland, before returning to Rathlin,

where, among other things, he's the island postman.

This is me.

Normal work during the week.

A lot of the jobs are not full-time, full-time salaries,

so people tend to have a second job.

Hello, hello, hello.

My other job would be the water service and the Irish Lights.

That's my granddaughter.

The lighthouse service job is basically call-out only

and you do a bit of maintenance once a week or once a fortnight.

Ferry skipper Fergus is working to secure a future on the island.

This summer, he's busy finishing the hostel

he and his business partners hope will be a welcome addition to the island's tourist industry.

We bought the house that came with this land here five years ago, come this September now.

I was 20 at the time.

So we decided to build a hostel that would suit around 25,

maybe even 30 people.

One of the main new industries is the tourist trade on the island

and we are only starting now to get geared up properly for it.

People opening new businesses every year.

We're one of them, and there's a new chip shop built,

a new harbour cafe was opened.

Now, I think, with the improved ferry service that the tourist trade

became a bit more of a staple.

A firm favourite with tourists and locals alike, rehearsals

are in full swing for the island drama group's summer production.

I love mixing with people and trying to find people for parts and that,

and this year we were very lucky.

The RSPB fellas came in and gave us a hand. Johnny and Diarmuid.

The drama group, always, since we started, every year,

we've had to include somebody new

and this is the first year the children have actually done for us.

Getting ready for the village play.

The village play, on Rathlin, is part of festival week.

It's been going on for over 100 years.

And, yeah, I'm very honoured this year

to be asked to be in the village play.

Teresa's good at getting us all in line

and making sure we're stood in the right place on the stage,

and making sure we're all shouting loud enough.

Jack Duncan has got the loudest voice in that kids' play, for sure!

My favourite line of his, I can't give too much away,

but, yeah, he goes "Set sail for Rathlin!" Do it, Jack!

Set sail for Rathlin!

JOHNNY LAUGHS

Johnny!

Johnny and Diarmuid are summer residents on the island,

and when they aren't treading the boards,

they're on duty at the RSPB Seabird Centre,

where they act as guides for the many visitors who pass their way.

So, this is the crew house, where me and Johnny live.

And this is our heating. A log burner.

-We got all the turf and the wood, there.

-Have you met Rosie yet?

There's Rosie, as well. Rosie's the other girl who lives here.

BODHRAN PLAYS

Whoo!

There are many things that set island life apart.

One of them is how self-sufficient the islanders have always had to be.

Services most people take for granted,

they have to provide themselves.

This is some of our volunteer fire crew.

We come down here most Monday nights for a bit of pump practice,

see if we can get some water from the lake.

It's normally what we would use for any fire on the island.

Believe it or not, living on an island, water's quite limited.

Water off!

We have a limited freshwater supply at the fire hydrant.

Most times, for gorse fires, we have to find water at another

location, either the lake or the sea or small streams.

Cooperation and self-reliance really matter here, and inform

the islanders' response to anything that might affect their community.

An exploration company believes it may have found

hundreds of millions of barrels of oil off the coast of County Antrim.

But, there are worries about the impact

of the potential discovery on Rathlin Island,

and many of its 100 residents are concerned

that drilling close to them could damage

Rathlin's relatively untouched environment.

People would be concerned that there may be some damage

to our tourism sector, or maybe some environmental damage.

The uncertainty's probably the biggest concern.

We don't know what is going to happen.

We don't know when it's going to happen.

If we had some clarity on that, it gives people a focus.

It's very hard to put it into your mind's eye,

as to think there could be an oil well just off your doorstep.

And the disasters that could maybe come with something like that.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

We have to get the first step, which is,

are we going to do the level of exploration we would like to do?

What are the opportunities?

What is the process by which we get the permitting?

Would it get approved?

Etc, etc.

The company behind the oil exploration,

Providence Resources plc, is based in Dublin,

and has interests across Ireland and the UK.

We licensed the area by making an application

and we were awarded two licences,

one from the Department in Northern Ireland,

which actually gave us the island of Rathlin as an exploration area,

and then subsequently,

we were awarded the offshore acreage out of Westminster.

As chair of the local development and community association,

Michael has had to think long and hard about the best

response to an issue that could have huge repercussions in the future.

You can out and out oppose it as a community

or as part of a community, but it doesn't tend to be a good approach.

Tends to lead to a lot of division

amongst the community itself, and it's probably not a winner.

The oil companies and government have a lot of resources behind them

that community and voluntary groups don't have.

It's not something I would like to see

but it probably would split the community.

That half the community would be out and out opposed

to some commercial development,

whereas the other half may be in support of it.

My preferred approach would be to sit down

and engage with the government and engage with the oil companies.

To make sure all the environmental protection is in place

all the legislation's followed, all the health and safety procedures,

and possibly extract some community benefit from any potential revenue that's there.

You're not agreeing to what's happening, but you're making sure

the protection's in place and that you do derive some benefit from it.

One of Rathlin's many community projects is the Tuesday Club.

A senior group who meet weekly to socialise and go on outings.

Or, as they are doing today, sharing stories with the younger generation

about the island traditions they grew up with.

Used to get a flat ring, well, a wooden ring,

and this handle you'd put on,

and you trundled it, as we called it, trundled it ahead of you down here.

We're having a teddy bears' picnic,

and when we decided to have it with the children,

we thought it'd be a really good idea to invite

the Tuesday Club with us as well, because we've been working

with the Tuesday Club this year, and we want to keep those links.

Teddy bears from all around the world.

I present the ocarinas from St Mary's primary school.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

CHILDREN PLAY OCARINAS

I enjoy the children here, I enjoy,

they're very good children.

They respect the elderly.

-Their great talents, aren't they?

-Oh, yes.

It has really blown me away how much the people of Rathlin join together

as a community, adults and children alike.

The children are a key part of the community as well.

I think it's good that they all mix in together, because then we get

to play games and hear stories from the older generation on the island.

WOMAN SINGS IN IRISH

With the summer season in full swing,

Fergus is taking time out from working on the hostel to help

build a currach boat for Rathlin's inaugural Maritime Festival.

That's what the Maritime Festival's about,

the revival of the maritime heritage in this area.

The currach was part of the heritage here and,

although it's been lost, it's still being used on the west coast.

So that's what's part of trying to take the currach back.

In a summer already packed with yacht races, music and drama,

the maritime festival is going to have to rely on everyone

pitching in to make it a success.

That community spirit is still there, still in all communities.

It takes just a small festival to bring it all out, bring it together.

-How's it going?

-Very well, thank you.

-Good stuff, good, good.

As one of the organisers,

Michael knows that a successful festival this year

could lead to further tourism and investment in the future.

Today I'm down at the marquee down at the seafront. It's a beautiful day.

There should be big crowds on the boats.

We'll just wait another hour or so and everybody should appear.

FIDDLERS PLAY A REEL

But the week hasn't all been plain sailing.

Thursday, unfortunately, we had a bit of a gorse fire on the island.

And a lot of these guys that are involved in the festival

and building the boats are also part-time firemen,

so they were hauled away for firefighting duties,

dealt with that, came back to the festival

whenever they could, back to the fire, back to the festival,

so they've been at it 24 hours a day, since Wednesday.

With the help of fire crews from the mainland,

the gorse fire was put out in the nick of time.

And, as they set sail for home,

another boat is about to take to the water.

We're going to do a wee naming ceremony for this boat and the Ballycastle boat.

We're just going to do that in five minute here, then into the water. The first row.

Haven't even dipped her yet, haven't even soaked the head.

I need a wee drop of whisky to pour over her bow.

The currach race between the islanders

and a team from Ballycastle

is one of the most eagerly anticipated events of the day.

And, in another first for the festival, the East Lighthouse

is open to the public, and Michael has come up

to give Noel McCurdy a hand showing people around.

We're up at the Rathlin East Lighthouse.

It was one of the first lighthouses built on Rathlin, and we decided

to open it up for the visitors during the maritime festival.

There's a big tanker, which is a big worry for us on Rathlin,

because, one of these days, someday, one of them will run aground

and have a big oil spill like the Braer or the Exxon Valdez.

Ah, they couldn't do that.

Well, as long as you're here, Noel, we'll be all right.

I knew they'd do it! Beat them!

-Which team won today?

-Ourselves!

About 60 boat lengths ahead.

But we were cut into two.

The Rathlin team?

The Rathlin team, aye.

The Rathlin team.

After months of hard work, it's time for Teresa, Johnny

and the cast of the Rathlin play to take to the stage.

We're getting ready to start here, are we?

We're not little at all, you know.

Can't you see me? I'm drowning!

LAUGHTER

How many events do you go to nowadays that people get

-a good laugh, a good belly laugh?

-That's kind of where I'm from, really.

You wouldn't really get that many things like that when everybody from

the community was getting involved and everybody was supporting this.

..that was Gerry McFall's pre-fabricated houses...

LAUGHTER

He's a big wee'un, so he is!

..and sit down. I'm grand, like. Grand, thank God.

If I could just get him a woman there, you know!

Thanks, Jane. Thanks, Jane. That's my next step!

-You've got him staying here?

-Yes.

Yes - a wheen of wee Johnnys running around, and I don't mean Johnny Walkers!

-Good luck!

-You'll need it.

-That type of thing regularly happens.

-I mean, it's not just a once off.

It's not proposed just over the summertime

and there's a few visitors here that they have people together.

That happens throughout the year.

It's organised and that's why it is what it is, because of the people, you know.

And I think the character hasn't really changed

so much in the generations.

People are still the same.

Living on an island, people being happy

and content with each other is the most important thing.

It's more important than a place prospering, even.

And as regards the oil, that's another thing in the background that's happened in Rathlin.

Oil in general and gas exploration around the North Coast,

north of Ireland and even UK-wide, is always in the news

and to be honest, a lot of residents in Rathlin tend to get fed up

with the whole publicity surrounding it and the campaign surrounding it.

It's not really on people's lips

until it comes back onto our doorstep again. Time will tell.

We'll wait and see.

No matter what happens on Rathlin with developments of energy,

whatever it is, you need people, and you need young people coming forward.

It's lovely to see the next generation. Just to the future.

Today we're having an assembly for the leavers.

I'm leaving and we're singing songs and all the parents are coming up.

# ..a busy summer till we return next year

# We wish you all safe journeys

# Under skies of brilliant blue

# We wish you happy holidays

# When all your dreams come true. #

Orlagh is moving on to Victoria

and I promised myself I wouldn't get emotional but I am.

But it's a celebration as well

because Orlagh has been a wonderful, wonderful child this year to teach.

She is a delight to have and I think Victoria are very,

very lucky to have her.

I'm going away to secondary school so I'll be sad

but happy at the same time.

I'll be sad leaving but happy starting a new school.

No summer would be complete without a good old-fashioned ceilidh,

where hand-in-hand, young and old alike tread the same steps,

patterns and turns as the generations before them.

Would you like to eventually come back and live on Rathlin Island?

-This is your home. Isn't it?

-Yeah.

If you got married and had a family,

-would you like to come back here and bring up your children here?

-Yeah.

It's up to the rest of us to make sure it can happen, so we need

employment, we need housing and we need social activities.

And then we can attract everybody back again. That's the plan.

Yeah, I think I'll be here for a while. Yeah.

I've got lots to do here before I move on and maybe I'll never move on.

Who can tell?

The biggest driver for me and all the voluntary work

I do is to provide a better future for future generations on Rathlin.

And as you can see, it's a beautiful place and it should be

left as a beautiful place for the next generation coming along.

As the nights draw in, the islanders are already

planning for the next summer season and for the years to come,

the future of the island and its young people.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd