Julie Walters Who Do You Think You Are?

For nearly 20 years, actor Julie Walters has been getting

stuck in to rural life...

a far cry from the industrial Midlands

where she spent her childhood.

I didn't set out to live on a farm with a farmer.

I never set out to do that.

But even though I love a big urban city,

I always thought, "I want to be living in the countryside."

That was just like a little fantasy at the back of my head.

Come on.

'Can't explain it. I love the feel of it.'

It's earthy.

What are you barking at?

It is an utter and complete contrast, you know,

to working in the business.

LAUGHTER

Julie's TV comedy performances are legendary.

Two soups.

On the big screen, she shot to international fame

in the '80s with Educating Rita.

While starring in Mamma Mia

and the Harry Potter films has won her a new generation of fans.

I think that our genes do hugely influence who we are.

I was drawn to the countryside, so maybe there's some kind

of link to way back - grandparents and great-grandparents - and I

hope we're going to be able to find out what they're like,

to see how much they've influenced who I am.

I hope there are a few skeletons.

It would be a bit dull if there aren't any.

I just hope they're not too embarrassing.

I want to be able to walk down the street.

I want to go into Boots and buy my wipes and things like that

without, "Did you see Who Do You Think You Are?

"Blimey!"

You know, I don't... Do you know what I mean?

I'm just on my way to see my brother, Tom.

He's kind of the keeper of the family archive, if you like,

and he's also always had a fascination with where

we're from and the history of us all.

Julie's mother, Mary O'Brien, grew up in Ireland.

But in 1938, aged 23, she decided to leave.

Well, my mother, she was a very strong woman

and she apparently said she was going on a little trip

to England, and then just didn't go back.

And then she ended up in Birmingham.

She got a job as a barmaid, and met my father,

who was a builder, and that was it.

In six months they were married and there were letters

from home saying, "Come home at once," from the grandparents,

my grandparents, her parents. "Come home. Marrying a man in overalls."

The couple had three children.

As a young girl, Julie has vivid memories of her Irish grandmother,

Bridget O'Brien, coming to stay.

I don't think they ever spoke to one another, her and my father.

It was all this... She wouldn't look at him, you know.

And I have to say, she was a bit of a snob.

But I don't know anything about her history.

I don't really know anything else.

You've got the chain on!

I thought it was the Jehovah's Witnesses again!

Oh... How are you? For God's sake!

-I'm all right, thank you, you old fart!

-Thank you(!)

Look at this lot.

Oh, yeah.

Ahh... Mum and Dad.

-I love that.

-And, erm...

Her hat. Looks like it's fallen from the ceiling

-and just landed on her head.

-Absolutely, yes.

I mean, I guess I want to find out more about Mum's side of the family.

-What's that?

-Now, I bet you haven't seen this before.

It's a reference for Mum,

when she was coming over from Ireland to England.

Who is that written by?

-The parish priest, Father McLoughlin.

-Oh, I see.

Islandeady, County Mayo, you see. Here, you read that.

"Mary O'Brien is a girl of excellent character.

"She is honest, trustworthy, reliable, the daughter of

"respectable parents, and I feel

"sure that she will give satisfaction."

She's the daughter of respectable parents.

-Oh, yes.

-Never seen this before. Fantastic.

Do you remember that one?

Look at Grandma Bridget.

Me and you and Kevin.

Oh, yes, respectability was such a word from our childhood.

"Not respectable. No, they're not respectable."

-I mean...

-Yes.

This snobbery and concern with respectability,

where does that come from?

I'd like to know the roots of that.

We don't know really where Granny... Grandma and Grandad came from.

We don't know the history of Patrick and Bridget, do we?

That's right, yeah.

And you look at the photograph, they do look respectable,

don't they, with their bowler hat and the ties and...?

She always looked proud.

-Proud woman.

-Mm.

Have you seen this? Grandma's birth certificate.

Oh, my God!

No, I've never seen that.

1878! She was born in 1878.

How brilliant.

Where did this come from?

-She was born in Westport, so she didn't travel far.

-Islandeady.

Islandeady. Oh, my God!

Bridget. Anthony Clarke.

So her dad was Anthony and her mum was also Bridget.

Anthony Clarke, he was a land holder. That's interesting.

He owned the land. I had no idea.

Mum never told us anything about our great-grandparents.

This is going to be really interesting, isn't it?

I can't wait to find out about Anthony Clarke.

So I guess... Well, I guess we have to go to Ireland.

Julie's great-grandfather, Anthony Clarke,

was a land holder in County Mayo, on the west coast of Ireland.

Julie's heading to Westport,

a town near the parish of Islandeady where her family were from.

So I've got my grandmother Bridget's birth certificate

and now I'm going to see what I can find out about Anthony Clarke.

Right. Anthony...

It is Clarke... He's got an "E".

Julie is searching the 1901 Irish Census.

So I've put his name in and County Mayo. Right, OK.

Head of family was Anthony Clarke. Roman Catholic.

Farmer. How lovely.

Oh, I didn't realise there were so many children.

Seven children. Gosh.

Bridget was 20, she was right in the middle, my grandmother.

I didn't know anything about this family.

And now there's more information, it says here.

Oh, this is about the sort of house that they lived in.

"Exact number of windows in the front of the house - four."

So it was quite a substantial house.

And so they had a proper stone-built house.

So I guess what I want to find out now is how comfortable were they?

How well off were they?

What sort of farm was it? How much land?

And more about Anthony Clarke.

So I'd like to investigate a bit more.

Julie's on her way to the hamlet of Ballinamorogue, where the

Clarke family lived.

-Hello, Owen.

-Hello, Julie.

Today, Owen O'Malley owns the land once farmed by Anthony Clarke.

So, Owen, is this where my great-grandfather's house was,

on this spot where yours is?

This is not it, but I'll tell you, Julie,

I'll bring you to it now. It's just down the road a couple of hundred

yards. It starts there. You see the green field beside us?

-This is where their land starts, here?

-Yes, I'll show you it now

as we pass it by.

-I've often heard stories of Anthony Clarke.

-Have you?!

A bull attacking him one time.

-Oh, really? Legendary!

-Yes, yes.

Is the house still there?

Part of the house is here, where the house was.

-Oh that's...that's all that's left of it?

-Yep.

-So can we go in?

-We can, yeah.

-Even though it's a ruin?

-There's one particular room still left in it

-and it's just where the cattle go into now.

-Oh, no!

Don't expect anything posh.

-No. No sofa for me to sit on?

-There's definitely no sofa!

Oh, my gosh! Oh!

This is where the old windows were.

-You can see them there where they're built up.

-Yeah.

This was their fireplace here.

Yeah. Let me just have a feel of the walls.

They were here.

Do you think this is the full extent of the house?

-No, no.

-Oh, it goes further?

-It goes further down.

The house runs down there.

According to the census, there were four grown-up children

and the parents and the younger ones, who weren't little,

-all living here.

-Yes.

Cos it's extraordinary that this is where my grandmother was born.

What a lovely house.

I know there's not much left but...

-There's not much left but at least there's something left.

-Yes.

So, Owen, how many acres do you think they had at that time?

The Clarkes had roughly about 43-45 acres.

-So they kept it well?

-Oh, very well.

Front of the house was out into the garden.

-Yeah, looking out.

-Lovely flowers and everything.

They were clearly comfortably off

and to have a house of the size

and also terribly well kept,

with nice gardens and all of that.

So I'd like to know just where all that came from.

Did he inherit it?

How did he come by it? That's what I want to know.

Genealogist, Nicola Morris, has been researching the Clarke family.

-Hello.

-Hello. It's lovely to meet you.

Hi, Nicola, lovely to meet you too.

Apparently my great-grandfather, Anthony Clarke, had 40 acres

and the house looks pretty good to me, the whole set-up.

-Yes.

-And I just wondered, you know,

how comfortably off was he, do you think, to have this?

I have some documents here that'll tell us

a little bit more about the situation of the Clarke family

and their land holding.

So the record here was made in 1880.

So it's two years after your grandmother, Bridget, was born.

Yeah, yes, she was two. Right.

Anthony Clarke...

And then this is the acreage here.

43 acres. Right.

So he owned quite a lot.

Yeah. But, thing is, they didn't own the property.

So they didn't own it?

They didn't own it, no.

-Anthony Clarke would have been a tenant.

-Oh.

They were tenants, what we call tenants at will.

So they didn't have a lease.

That meant that if the landlord decided,

or if they fell into arrears with their rent, there was

-a very real possibility that they could have been evicted.

-Yeah.

And this is the landlord, Sir Roger Palmer.

-Palmer.

-Palmer.

Palmer was English and Protestant.

So the Palmers came into possession of their land in Ireland

in the 17th century.

The Palmer family first became landowners in Ireland in the 1680s.

At the time, the English Crown was seizing land

from Irish Catholics and giving it to loyal English Protestant

families, like the Palmers.

In Anthony's day, 200 years later,

the whole of Ireland was under British rule.

His landlord, Sir Roger Palmer, was one of the most

powerful in Ireland, with over 80,000 acres in County Mayo alone.

So I have a picture of Roger Palmer,

who would have been receiving the rents from this property.

And this is Palmer's house in Dublin.

Oh, OK.

SHE LAUGHS

Honestly!

So this would have been, I suppose, built on the income

-generated from his estate.

-Yes.

-It is... It illustrates the comparison.

-Yeah.

The owners of the land were that privileged, wealthy minority.

Living off the backs of these poor people.

Palmer could have decided at any point, whether for arrears

of rent, or if he wanted to clear the land holdings, that he

could have had any of the tenants on his land holding evicted.

-So no security?

-No security.

-Oh, I can't imagine...

-That fear.

-Yeah.

-They worked this land. They lived in this land.

Yes. And worked hard.

It wasn't as if they were shirkers exactly, was it?

-No. But they could have lost everything at a moment.

-Yeah.

"We've decided we want the land, so we want them off.

"Get those... Get the Clarkes off there,

"we'll have that little bit of land."

Oh. Yes, yeah.

And also, the thing is, the quality of the land that they were

living on wasn't very good quality land.

And so I think it would have been a struggle for them.

The boggy land in County Mayo was particularly difficult to farm.

Little would grow apart from potatoes.

For Anthony, who had four young children to support,

life was about to get harder still.

What I have is an account on the State of the West, in the newspaper.

So it was written in 1879.

"Having recently made a tour in the west of Ireland, and should the

"coming winter be as severe as the last, the suffering will be intense.

"Ruined crops and blighted potatoes are almost universal

"and hunger stares the people in the face.

"The exceptional severity of the present year has reduced many

"persons to the verge of starvation."

Oh, God. Imagine the harshness of that existence.

So this comes after several years where the crops had failed

in Mayo, and it left families in absolutely dire situation.

There are accounts where you see families who were found

in small cottages, barely clothed and starving.

Oh, my God! What happened to Anthony, do you know?

The tenants on this estate, through the parish priest,

made an appeal to Palmer.

And published in the newspaper.

"To Major-General Sir Roger Palmer.

"The petition of the tenantry of the parish of Islandeady,

"petitioners wish to inform Your Honour that they feel

"they will not be able to pay the rents now due in consequence of the

"depressed state of the country from constant rain, failure of crops.

"In addition, we wish to inform Your Honour,

"that almost every tenant on your estate, in order to

"support their families, have got themselves in debt.

"For the purpose of seeking to keep their children from almost

"starving or taking shelter in the workhouse,

"petitioners humbly hope that Your Honour will direct your worthy

"agent to give a fair reduction in the half year's rent now due."

Oh, it's heart-breaking, isn't it?

They're pleading.

Oh, gosh.

It's likely that Anthony Clarke would have been

one of the petitioners to something like this.

This would have been a very, very dark time for the Clarke family.

Yeah. Such a sad little letter.

It's a completely different story to the one I set out with, in a way.

Land holder didn't mean landowner.

Just the thought of having four small children.

And also, the land not being brilliant land.

So they would have had to work so hard, not knowing

whether the next day you'd be turned off your land.

Can you imagine those circumstances?

Anthony's landlord, Sir Roger Palmer,

was well known for evicting farmers who couldn't pay their rent.

To find out what the threat of eviction really meant,

Julie's on her way to a restored cottage nearby,

where a family like Anthony's were forced out of their home.

-Hello.

-Hello, welcome. Mary.

Jack.

And, Jack. Hello.

This is the eviction cottage.

I've just seen, erm, my own great-grandfather's cottage

and I imagine that it would have been like this.

-It's the same dimensions...

-Yes.

-..more or less.

-Yeah.

Yes. We have photographs of the eviction.

Oh, look at them! Policemen.

50 policemen were there on the day.

50 policemen to get this little family out.

To get this family out, yes, yes.

Oh! Presumably, all these policemen are here in case they resist.

Yes. Yeah.

And they battered the wall down.

Yeah. And this is the battering ram they used...

Oh!

..to demolish the front wall of the house and windows and doors

so they couldn't get back into it, to live in it again.

-No!

-Yeah.

How terrible. It's unbelievably inhumane, isn't it?

-So sad.

-So sad. Yeah.

Yeah, it was horrific.

So you can't go back. Making the building useless.

They couldn't possibly return to it.

No. They must have lived in terror, the people around here.

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

WIND HOWLS

Amazing, the wind.

A family of nine lived in it.

Same number as Anthony Clarke's family.

This was like my great-grandfather's house.

You could never have relaxed, cos you'd never know, all through

your life, whether you were going to be thrown out at a moment's notice.

Makes me want to cry.

The thought of people huddling in places like this with no food.

How desperate they must have been.

They knew they couldn't pay the rent. The crops had failed.

The winters were bad.

And, of course, that petition that Anthony and his neighbours wrote

to Palmer, has much greater significance,

having seen this and the photographs.

People need to be reminded of what happened.

I don't think people realise... Well, I never did.

The letter, you know, "Please, sir...", you know, humbly, you know,

it's so painful to read that, and I wonder, did they get a response?

What happened?

The petition for a rent reduction was sent to Anthony's landlord

in October 1879.

To find out how Sir Roger Palmer reacted,

Julie's meeting historian Dr Carla King.

Anthony Clarke, my great-grandfather,

he petitioned, along with his neighbours.

I just wondered if you could shed any light on that at all?

Yes. I have this to show you.

This is the Connaught Telegraph.

"November 22nd 1879.

"A large and important meeting of tenant farmers was

"held in Islandeady.

"Sir Roger Palmer is the principal landlord in the locality

"and it was on account of his refusal to reduce his rents that the

"meeting was summoned."

-So Palmer didn't lower the rent?

-He didn't lower the rents.

He could have afforded to give them a rent reduction. He just wouldn't.

Palmer was a tough landlord.

"No more evictions." It was like a demonstration.

It was a demonstration. That's exactly... Yes.

Ah. Oh, yes.

"Down with rack-rents." What does that mean?

A rack-rent is a rent, it was too high.

-Oh, right.

-It's exploitative.

"Reduction or no rent. The land for the people."

Yes!

And then you see, amongst those present. There's your...

Oh, here, I can see his name here.

"Anthony Clarke, Secretary." He was secretary.

So what would that have meant?

Well, he was the secretary of the local branch of the Land League.

Right.

-And this was a new organisation.

-The Land League, this is?

The Land League.

And at first... It started first in Mayo, was really very important.

It was small tenants taking on a system that had been

there for centuries.

So what were they actually fighting for?

-Prevent evictions.

-Yes.

They were also trying to gain rent reductions.

And in the long term, an end to the landlord tenant system.

Mm. Yeah.

So that people had their own property and their own land.

"Land for the people.

"For the purpose of protesting against eviction."

"Pay no rent."

So no-one had ever done that sort of thing,

like withdrawn rent, no-one had ever done that before?

No. These were people with really no power.

-So what they use is strength of solidarity.

-Yes.

Passive resistance.

So Anthony was one of the people who started this?

Right at the beginning, yes.

-I'm so proud, really!

-Yes.

The Land League was a revolutionary movement.

It was the first time tenant farmers had united against their

British landlords, and Anthony Clarke was at the heart of it.

"A meeting was held on Sunday in Islandeady.

"About 2,000 or 3,000 persons present."

Gosh, they must have come from miles around. Oh!

"It was unanimously resolved that the Chair would be

"taken by Mr Anthony Clarke.

"Amongst those present were

"Messrs Anthony Clarke, Denis Duffy, John O'Brien, Patrick O'Brien."

Are these my relatives?

Yes. John O'Brien, that's your great-grandfather.

So John O'Brien is my grandfather, Patrick O'Brien's father?

Yes.

And he's my great-grandfather on the other side.

-They were both here!

-They were.

They obviously knew one another, my two great-grandfathers.

-Yes.

-They probably lived a couple of hundred yards from one another.

That's fantastic! Oh, gosh. Oh! Anthony Clarke.

So he chaired this meeting.

He was pretty significant, wasn't he?

Yes. And it was a brave thing to do because...

-Well, yes.

-Yeah, there could have been reprisals.

-Terrifying.

He could have ended up in jail.

But also, there was the danger of losing your farm.

-If you were known as an agitator...

-Yes.

..then the landlord might have it in for you.

Yes. And he had a big family.

-So he was taking...

-So Anthony Clarke was taking a big risk.

He was taking a risk.

Landlords like Palmer refused to give in to Land League demands.

Across the country, violent clashes erupted between the authorities

and Land League supporters.

With Ireland in turmoil, the British Government took urgent action.

Officials arrived from London to take evidence from both sides.

In October 1880, Anthony found himself

answering their questions at the local courthouse.

Julie, we have actual minutes of evidence

-of what Anthony Clarke said before it.

-Great.

Oh, that's brilliant. "Mr Anthony Clarke."

So the Chairman says, "Who is your landlord?" "Sir Roger Palmer."

"Is Mr O'Donnell the agent there?" "Yes."

"And your rent?" "£19."

"Have you lost any land at any time lately?"

"I did, sir," he says.

"He took two acres of arable land that was worth what

"we were paying for it - £1 an acre.

"And then the rent was left the same on me."

So they took the two acres and...

-And still charged the same.

-Yeah.

"The rest of my land is almost entirely rock

"and three-fourths of it is bog and one-fourth is cut-away bog."

They put all that work in and reclaimed it and then

they took the reclaimed land.

"And you get no allowance for the part taken off?"

he says to him. And he says, "No."

It really means that he's standing before the commission

to put his case for what he sees

as the arbitrary powers of the landlord.

When you say arbitrary power, you mean that the landlord can

-just on a whim do what he wants, basically?

-Can do what he wants

and a lot of tenants would be frightened to speak.

Yes. Yes. So it's very brave, actually, isn't it?

Yeah, I think it is, yeah. I think it is. It's dangerous.

Anthony's grievances against his landlord, Palmer,

were now on record.

The testimony that he and others gave

laid bare the injustices of the system.

So what came out of this report for tenant farmers?

-Did they gain anything from this?

-Yes. By the beginning of 1881,

the British Government pretty well acts on their recommendations.

The tenant has greater protections.

The fixing of rent levels is no longer entirely up to the landlord.

Right. Yes! How fantastic.

Although new legislation was introduced to set fairer rents,

for tenant farmers like Anthony, it didn't go far enough.

He could still be evicted from his home

and had no right to buy his land.

The battle for reform was far from over.

So the fact that he stood up

and was a key figure in the Land League, were there repercussions?

This is not very long afterwards.

"List of persons whose arrest is recommended under Provisions of

"the Bill for the better Protection of Person and Property in Ireland."

And if you look down the list, you will see here...

Ah... Anthony Clarke. There he is.

This is a list of local ringleaders,

or dangerous persons, who they are going to intern

without trial.

Oh, my God!

"The crime of which suspected -

"organising many agrarian outrages." God!

They're saying that he's inciting people,

through his public speeches, so he is precisely the kind of person

that they need to detain and stop all this Land League organisation.

-Right. Get rid of the troublemakers.

-Yeah.

Just get them out the way.

Everyone else will do as they're told.

In October 1881, the British Government banned the Land League.

Its leaders were rounded up and imprisoned.

Anthony was now a marked man.

Was he arrested? Is there evidence that...?

We can't tell from this because all it's telling us

is that he's listed for arrest.

But we don't seem to have any evidence at all

that he is actually detained.

Yes, yeah. Gosh!

But one of the really important movements

when all of these men are locked up

is, if you'd like to just have a look here...

"Islandeady, County Mayo.

"A branch of the Ladies' Land League has been established here

"with the following officers - Miss Kate Doyle, president,

"Mrs J O'Brien, treasurer." Is she a relative?

Well, she's got to be John O'Brien's wife, my great-grandfather's wife.

-Yeah. Your other great-grandfather.

-Yes! How...?

"Mrs J O'Brien."

And she is, if you look carefully...

And she's treasurer. Fantastic. How exciting.

The Ladies' Land League.

I'm absolutely thrilled that it wasn't just the men,

that my great-grandmother was involved in the movement as well.

How fabulous. As a woman, I'm just thrilled.

I can't wait to find out more about her.

-But we don't know that Anthony's been interned?

-We don't know.

In so far as we can work out, at the moment,

the trail just goes completely cold on him.

So what's happened to him?

Nicola, I just wondered if you...

Julie's calling genealogist Nicola Morris, to see

if she can find out what happened to Anthony Clarke after 1881.

OK. Bye-bye.

While she waits to hear from Nicola, Julie wants to know

more about her great-grandmother, Mrs John O'Brien,

who was a treasurer in the Ladies' Land League.

I'm absolutely thrilled that my great-grandparents

were radicals, because I'd no idea.

So maybe the snobbery thing of my grandmother, Bridget Clarke,

obviously the daughter of Anthony Clarke, writing to my mother

and saying, "Come home at once. Marrying a man in overalls!"

You know, I think that was, "You come from these significant leaders

"and, you know, the leaders of our community

"and you're marrying a builder," sort of thing, you know.

I think it was more that.

It suddenly gave them... That's what I think, it gave them

prestige and importance and don't forget it, you know.

Do you know what I mean?

They were real people standing up for their rights.

And it seems my great-grandmother was part of the Ladies' Land League.

I mean, I didn't even realise there was such a thing.

I hope we can find out more about her and how radical she was.

Julie's come to Dublin, where the Ladies' Land League

had their headquarters.

Key records are kept here at the National Library.

There's a really interesting document here, Julie,

that describes exactly what the Ladies' Land League were

and why they were set up.

Ah!

"The Ladies' Irish National Land League. To Our Countrywomen.

"Women of Ireland,

"you must do your duty whilst your countymen do theirs.

"Be ready at last to help the evicted sufferers

"in every part of Ireland.

"You cannot prevent the evictions,

"but you can and must prevent them from becoming massacres."

-This is 1881.

-1881.

Yes.

-Gosh.

-So this was a call to the women of Ireland

because all of the leaders of the Land League were in prison.

The ladies collected money from all over the country.

The idea was to try and get people to

stay in their properties as long as possible and not be evicted.

Heroines, they were.

Heroines.

Here is the Nation newspaper and the Ladies' Land League.

"The weekly meeting of the Ladies' Land League was held on Tuesday.

"There was a large attendance.

"The treasurer announced that the grants to evicted tenants,

"prisoners' families, etc, amounted to £889 11s 10d."

Gosh.

"The following sums have been received since -

"Islandeady, Ladies' Land League, County Mayo,

"per Mrs O'Brien, Miss Doyle and Miss Fitzgerald, £2."

So they've raised £2. Oh, love them.

Oh, that shows how poor they were in Islandeady. Aw!

Being the first mentioned there,

she's obviously of some significance, Mrs O'Brien.

So do you know what her name was?

Maria.

-Maria.

-Maria O'Brien.

-Yes.

-She was managing the money for all of these different funds.

-So people who were evicted...

-Yes.

..had a fund. The prisoners were also given a fund.

-Right.

-And the prisoners' wives

and families were also looked after by the Ladies' Land League.

And it would have been your great-grandmother's job to

make sure that all of this was properly accounted for.

This probably would have been the treasurer with the pen there

-or the quill.

-Oh, how wonderful.

That could be my great-grandmother Maria.

It was absolutely essential that pristine accounting happened

-in every single branch.

-So they could never be questioned.

There could never be a question raised about the financial

management of the Ladies' Land League.

How big was this organisation?

Around about 400 branches of the Ladies' Land League existed.

And this is the first time that women were

organised like this in Ireland.

Let me show you this document.

Gosh! Look at this.

It's a little bit of light reading, Julie!

-Yeah!

-Here we go.

The Archbishop of Dublin issued a pastoral letter that was

read out in every church in his diocese

and this is what he had to say about the Ladies' Land League.

"The modesty of her daughters was the ancient glory of Ireland.

"But all this is now to be laid aside

"and the daughters of our Catholic people, under the flimsy pretext

"of charity, to take their stand in the noisy arena of public life.

"They are asked to forget the modesty of their sex

"and the high dignity of

"their womanhood by leaders who seem utterly reckless of consequences."

Well!

So what was the response to this?

There was an immediate flood of new members of the Ladies' Land League.

-No!

-It had completely the opposite effect.

So they... Oh, how wonderful.

They... They went against it. Oh, I'm thrilled.

I am thrilled.

But still quite scary for them to have that.

-It is...

-Coming from above. Yeah, you stop this or else.

-Stop what you're doing or else.

-Yes.

-The word feminism hadn't been invented then...

-No.

-..but certainly this was...

-Early...

-..a feminist movement.

-Yes.

It was an absolute, you know, display of civil disobedience.

And strength and unity.

-Strength and unity.

-How fantastic.

Nothing like this had ever happened before.

At rallies all over the country, they would stand on the public

platform and shout about their rights.

So were any of the women arrested?

Women were randomly, at different times.

And nobody ever knew how long they would be kept for.

-So your great-great-grandmother...

-How terrifying.

At that time that she joined the Ladies' Land League

she had seven children.

She had seven?

She'd had a child in 1881, so she had a babe-in-arms.

I mean, just with a small child,

how vulnerable you would feel with having children.

So proud of her.

Patricia has found information that takes Julie back another generation.

We know your great-grandmother Maria, her maiden name was Buchanan.

Buchanan. Right.

Right. And her father was Mr C Buchanan.

We have this Connaught Telegraph that will tell you a little

bit more about Mr Buchanan.

"Westport Board of Guardians. To the Nobility and Gentry of Westport.

"The five undernamed poor labourers of High Street

"most humbly showeth that they and poor families are in a starving

"and famishing state owing to the bad weather, having no employment.

"Some of the poor petitioners had in the time that passed to sell

"some of their little furniture and their cooking utensils to

"provide a little food for themselves and families.

"The poor petitioners most humbly beg the gentlemen of the board to

"grant them a little relief and they will ever pray.

"Mr John Louden proposed that they be allowed outdoor

"relief for a fortnight."

In the late 19th century, a grant of money was the most common

form of outdoor relief.

Without it, families risked ending up in the workhouse.

"Against - Lord John Browne, JS Smith and C Buchanan."

So Buchanan was against giving them some relief.

I can't bear it! No!

So this would be great-great-grandfather,

Cummins Buchanan.

I wonder why.

And I mean...

You know, his daughter was involved with the Ladies' Land League.

Oh, I'd love to know more about him.

Cummins Buchanan.

To find out why her great-great-grandfather,

Cummins Buchanan, voted against giving relief

to the poor families, Julie is heading back to County Mayo.

She's come to Westport House, the seat of the Marquis of Sligo.

He was Cummins Buchanan's landlord,

and one of the biggest landowners in Ireland.

Hello.

Hello, Julie.

She's meeting Dr Sean Lucey, who's been researching her ancestor.

Sean, I've found out my great-great-grandfather,

Cummins Buchanan, voted against helping these poor labourers.

And I just wondered why would he have voted against these men,

do you think?

It's undoubtedly supporting Lord John Browne,

brother and heir to the Marquis of Sligo - Cummins' landlord.

So presumably, Cummins Buchanan is in with his landlord.

This will hopefully shed some more light

on why he's been voting with his landlord.

Ah.

So if you have a look here.

"Mr...Cummin Buchanan takes the land which has been

"surrendered by Denis McDonnell at the yearly rent of £5 sterling."

Oh, no.

So he's been given land, someone else has had to take...

surrender their... Why would O'Donnell have surrendered the land?

Well, that indicates that the land was given up

most probably because of eviction.

Ah! I can't bear it.

He was evicted and Lord Sligo gave the land to Cummins Buchanan.

He was well in with his landlord, wasn't he?

It looks like Cummins was a land grabber.

Land grabbers took over the land seized from evicted tenant farmers.

Men like Cummins Buchanan,

who profited from their neighbours' losses, were shunned by the community.

You can imagine how contentious this would be.

Yes, it would be.

And surely his daughter, fighting with the Land League,

and he's there, in the community, taking land.

I mean...

But they're actively on opposing sides.

Yes, actively. They weren't just... No, absolutely.

For a woman in those days

to politically stand out against her father in that position,

that must have caused huge ructions in the family.

Exactly.

And we can see the motivation for supporting

the landlord in that he gets access to this land.

So it really, I think, demonstrates a lot about Cummins' personality.

He probably felt safer staying on the landlord's side.

Cos he had done well out of it, hadn't he?

-Well, he had.

-Yeah.

And this particular plot of land, even though it's quite small,

it is quite valuable.

Yes. So hard to give up in those poverty-stricken times.

For sure.

Yeah. He's just a tenant farmer like everyone else.

So to go and take it off another farmer...

Land was just so, so precious, wasn't it?

Gosh, an extraordinary thing.

Is there anything else in here, do you know?

Well, he does seem to drop off the radar.

Got a habit of dropping off the radar, my family, it seems,

from what I've found out since I've been here.

The other side have dropped off the radar as well.

When I first saw that he'd turned down help

for these poor, starving men, I thought, "Oh, no."

My heart, I have to say, my heart sank.

To then find that he had taken land... Not condoning it at all,

but I can understand why if someone had the opportunity

to get a bit more land that they would take it.

And like everyone, really, he was, you know,

doing the best for his family, as he saw it.

I'm not going to get angry at him,

although I think it's a dreadful thing to do.

What comes out of this is how strong Maria O'Brien was

in order to do what she did at that time, with that father.

I mean, I found it difficult to go against my mother,

an O'Brien, you know, to become an actress.

That was really hard.

I had to get people to stand in-between us.

So you know, it's very easy to sort of vilify one lot

and beatify the others, and I don't want to do that, really.

But as I say, I would be on the side of Maria and John and Anthony Clarke.

Back at Julie's hotel, a letter has arrived from genealogist Nicola.

She's been on the trail of Anthony Clarke,

Julie's great-grandfather, last heard of in 1881.

"Dear Julie, have uncovered the following document in 1884."

Right.

"Report of outrage."

Oh, my God!

"Assault endangering life."

So, what's that all about?

"Westport, May 23rd, 1884.

"I have to report that last evening, at about 5pm,

"a man named Anthony Clarke assaulted an old car driver

"named James Joyce in this town very seriously.

"Clarke, who is a returned American,

"was under the influence of drink

"and..." and...looks like "rushing about in an excited manner

"with an open pocket knife daring any Westport person to touch him."

So Anthony Clarke... Anthony Clarke has been had up for assault!

With a knife!

My mother never told me anything about that!

James Joyce, 75 years.

Not the playwright, I take it!

That would have been slightly ironic.

"Who is a returned American."

He must have gone to America

when he was put on a list to be arrested, presumably.

"He was rushing about in an excited manner."

"Come on!"

One of those, was he, with the knife?

"Go on, come on!"

Anthony Clarke, the hero.

God, he could have killed him, couldn't he,

the knife and an old man?

Could have been murder.

Julie wants to know what happened next,

so she's come to Dublin Castle.

Historian Dr Heather Laird

has found more records relating to Anthony's case.

You've seen an outrage report already

which talks about the assault.

Yes.

And about your great-grandfather being a returned American...

American. So I imagined that

because he'd been on an arrest list, he'd escaped to America.

That is a possibility, but I think another possibility,

he's there on fundraising activities for the Land League.

Right.

Now, it says here he has assaulted an older man.

-Yes.

-And...

-James Joyce.

-James Joyce.

-Hopefully not the novelist?

-No.

Or his grand...or his antecedents.

Not that we know of. There were a lot of...

Joyce is a very common name in the West of Ireland.

Yeah.

So, following the assault,

an investigation would have been opened up,

and the records relating to that were kept here in Dublin Castle.

Right.

So this is a month... This is a few days later, isn't it?

No, it's a few days later.

"I beg to state that James Joyce,

"who was assaulted by Anthony Clarke on the 22nd...

"..died last evening

"from the in...injuries he received on that occasion."

Oh, my God!

"A coroner's inquest will be held on the body tomorrow.

"Anthony Clarke is in Castlebar Jail on remand charges

"with the assault and will now be charged with murder."

Oh, my God!

Oh, my God!

I'm, like, having a hot flush now.

It's a dramatic... It's a very dramatic turn of events.

Oh! Yes. Oh, my God!

Oh, no!

I have here a newspaper account of the inquest.

"Inquest at Westport for which a man is at present in custody.

"We find that the deceased, James Joyce, died suddenly

"in Westport from an apoplectic seizure or natural causes."

Right.

So he didn't die from the effects of the attack?

-No. Apoplectic seizure...

-Apoplectic, yes.

..is like a stroke.

-Right, OK, so he died of a stroke. Or natural causes.

-Yeah.

But I think what's interesting here,

if there was any injury on the body, that will be reported in an inquest.

-So there's no mention of stab wounds?

-No.

Which I don't understand.

Were there any witnesses?

What the witnesses say is that James Joyce, who was a taxi driver,

was driving through the town

and Anthony Clarke crosses over and says something.

All of the witnesses say that James Joyce carries on through

the town down to the hotel.

Yes, he obviously wasn't stabbed, was he?

So if he was feeling... if he was badly injured,

you're hardly going to carry on with your day's work.

No.

This has to do with the trial itself.

"The Grand Jury ignored the bill for manslaughter and found

"one for common assault, on which count the accused was convicted."

So they got... So he was had up for common assault.

Common assault, um, it's the lowest form of assault charge.

Yes, like a slap.

And actually, it doesn't even... you don't even have to physically

touch somebody to be found guilty of common assault.

Yes, because in the coroner's report, there's not even...he's not

-saying he's got bruises or he's got anything.

-There's nothing.

All they were confident that they could convict him for

was acting in a threatening manner.

Yes. Threatening behaviour.

Yes, so that first report was a gross exaggeration.

Gross exaggeration.

So it sounds like trumped-up stuff.

Maybe the police had it in for Anthony Clarke in some way

because he was an activist, a bit of a...seen as a troublemaker,

anti-landlord sort of person -

"Oh, let's get him, we'll get him now" sort of thing.

I think so. And interpret the event in the worst possible way,

-and we know already that they had wanted to imprison him.

-Yeah.

And clearly the charges, I think,

have to be viewed in terms of that desire,

-the desire to...

-Get him.

..to get him.

Sounds as if there was a little bit of aggro on the street...

-Yes.

-..and he finds himself in prison waiting for a trial...

-Charged with murder!

-Yes, exactly.

That's awful. Yeah.

And did they say he was drunk?

The judge warns about the, you know, trouble with...the evils of alcohol.

A drop might have been taken.

Yes, yes. The judge simply dismisses the case and tells him

that in future he should behave himself.

The first report says he was running amok with a knife.

-I know.

-He was... I mean, one minute he was a hero,

the next minute he's a criminal.

I thought, "Oh, no!"

Not only that, but the worst kind of criminal, he'd murdered somebody.

Oh! I'm so relieved that he didn't murder anyone.

I'm so relieved. Anthony Clarke.

Have to write a script about him.

What a life he's had!

Gosh. That's great. Thank you.

By 1903, after new legislation,

many tenant farmers in Ireland were able to buy their land.

For Anthony Clarke, his years of campaigning against landlords

like Sir Roger Palmer finally looked set to pay off.

So, Gerard, what happened to him?

Did he ever get to own his land, Anthony Clarke?

I have got a document here

which might explain what has taken place.

"Particulars of buildings and lands."

Ah. "Anthony Clarke deceased, who died on the 31st October,

"1918, Ballinamorogue, Islandeady, Mayo.

"Tenure of deceased's interest. Tenancy from year to year."

So he hadn't bought it when he died?

No.

-Oh, he still didn't get his land, after all that.

-Exactly.

-So sad.

-Palmer declines to sell the estate.

Why? Why did he...

It may have been that Clarke

and Palmer had been at loggerheads for so long, maybe Palmer did

not want to allow Clarke and the other tenants to own their lands.

He still didn't get it. I think that's sad.

After all that huge fight.

It is, yes.

Especially the fact that in 1917, 99% of the tenant farmers

were now owners of their own land, but Anthony Clarke was not.

-Wasn't. 99% owned their farms, and he didn't.

-Exactly.

It's awful, really, that after being an activist for all those years

and putting his neck on the... on the line that he still never got

to own his land, that Palmer would not give in.

It is not until 1923 that the last landowners like the Palmers

are forced to sell their Irish estates.

He's dead then, of course.

In 1923, a year after Ireland gained independence, new laws were finally

passed forcing landowners to sell land to their Irish tenant farmers.

But it came five years too late for Anthony,

who died without ever owning his land.

Hello, Joe.

Julie's come to the Islandeady parish graveyard.

Joe, I believe my great-grandfather is buried here.

For sure we can know this because we have the obituary.

-Right.

-From the Connacht Telegraph in Castlebar.

There's an awful lot of tenant farmers buried here,

but they wouldn't have any money to erect a headstone.

So his grave is unmarked.

Right. Oh! Thank you very much, Joe.

OK, Julie.

"Death of Mr Anthony Clarke, Islandeady.

"He was a man of 72 years. Not only was he well known and esteemed

"in his native parish, but also throughout the County Mayo,

"and his genial, straightforward and kindly disposition

"made him a universal favourite,

"and was an earnest and active friend of democracy."

That's a great obituary.

"An active friend of democracy." I'm so proud of him.

He was brave.

He was there at the very beginning of the movement

that changed the land laws in Ireland.

One of the great sadnesses of this story

is that Anthony Clarke died without being able to buy his land,

which is what he had fought for for 40 years.

But his legacy's far greater than that bit of land.

Changed history here.

Him and many other brave men and women.

It's extraordinary that a man that I've never met...

never seen any photographs of, knew nothing of, not even his name,

that I can feel so involved with him.

You know, I feel...feel something for him,

which is an extraordinary thing.

I thought, "Do I love him, you know?

"Is this...?" And yes.

That's a wonderful feeling.