Goes to Ireland - Ballymoney to Londonderry Great British Railway Journeys

In 1840, one man transformed travel in Britain and Ireland.

His name was George Bradshaw and his railway guides

inspired the Victorians to take to the tracks.

Stop by stop, he told them where to travel,

what to see and where to stay.

Now, 170 years later, I'm making a series of journeys

across the length and breadth of these islands

to see what of Bradshaw's world remains.

I'm now completing my journey across Northern Ireland,

using my trusty Bradshaw's guide.

I shall be sorry to leave the island of Ireland

because of the warmth of the people that I've met

both south and north of the border.

On today's part of my journey,

I'll be marvelling at a Giant's handiwork.

It is the most amazing awe inspiring sight.

Hearing how women, famous for their dexterity with the needle, built a city.

If there wasn't a shirt factory, this would be a desert.

And discovering how emigration

profoundly shaped families and nations.

When you went to America in the '50s, it was kind of goodbye forever.

My Victorian guide book has brought me to a country

that in the 19th century was one Ireland

living under the rule of Queen Victoria.

Starting in Dublin, where the first railways were laid,

I've been led north

along the unfurling railway history of this land.

On this last stretch,

I'm visiting tourist attractions that fascinated the Victorians,

before exploring moving histories of industrial might and mass exodus.

I shall be getting off at Ballymoney and heading for what Bradshaw calls,

"the famous Carrick a Rede rock, which stands out 60 feet from the shore,

"to which it is joined only by a slender rope bridge across the chasm 80 feet from the water.

"A fine view from the heights above it."

And that prospect has me in suspense.

In Victorian times, visitors flocked to the Carrick a Rede bridge.

But right from the early 18th century, this spectacular crossing,

dangling over the roaring sea,

was also key to the locality's industry and economy.

I read Bradshaw's description of this bridge,

but nothing prepared me for what it's really like.

The plank that I'm walking on is so narrow.

The fall beneath me is immense

and the sea looks like it can't wait to gobble me up.

And of course, the thing is shaking from side to side.

And just to add to the fun, there's quite a stiff wind as well.

Made it!

Safely across, I'm here to meet Caroline Redmond from the National Trust.

-Hello, Caroline.

-Pleased to meet you. Welcome to Carrick a Rede island.

I've just had the most exciting experience. It's thrilling, crossing that bridge.

I'm glad you think so! It's a little bit hairy at times, isn't it?

Now, my Bradshaws recommended that I come on the rope bridge.

He talked about it being 80 foot above the water and having a fantastic view.

So I imagine even in Victorian times, this was a very popular place.

That's right.

We have anecdotal evidence from the mid-1700s and early-1800s

that this was even then starting to be something the tourists had to do.

Scare themselves senseless!

But this bridge wasn't built as a tourist attraction.

For over 300 years, fishermen have been risking life and limb

to cross to the island to catch migrating North Atlantic salmon.

From March to September, the plump fish return from feeding out at sea

to the Antrim rivers of the Bann and Bush to spawn.

Intrepid fishermen would ready their nets

all the way from the easternmost point of the coast

to the mouth of the Foyle at Derry, Londonderry.

The salmon, unable to go through the vent over which the bridge is,

they would go round this rock in their road.

Carrick a Rede rock in the road of the salmon.

It meant they would run themselves into bag nets

and be nicely caught ready for us to eat and that was a huge industry.

At one point, there were upwards of 300 salmon per day being caught here.

And you had to be able to get across to this rock to take advantage of where the salmon were running?

Absolutely. When the tide would start, they would watch that

and that would tell them when they could put the nets out,

how far they could put the nets out to catch that tide and that run of salmon.

In the 19th century, catching and trading fish

constituted one of the area's primary industries.

The landowners had the fishing rights

and paid the fishermen a wage, and a bonus if the catch was good.

Are there still salmon here?

There used to be upwards of 300 salmon per day being caught here,

but the last fisherman, Acky Colgan, in the very last season, which was 2002,

barely caught 300 the entire season.

So, yes, there are some salmon, but they're not in any catchable quantity.

They're practically an endangered species.

Salmon fishing provided a living on this coastline for 300 years.

And although sadly that is no longer the case,

the rope bridge has remained and just as in the Victorian era,

adventurous tourists are drawn to its delights.

We have anything from 240,000 to 250,000 a year.

And they come, just as in Bradshaw's time, for the thrill

of being 80 feet above the water and having that fantastic view.

That's right. To have legs of jelly.

To go up on to the island and sit for a while with the views

over the seas of Moyle, Rathlin, Islay, Jura, the Mull.

It's paradise.

My time in this atmospheric location is up

and I must gingerly return across the Carrick a Rede bridge.

But I'm continuing on the North Antrim coast

to head to Ireland's most iconic natural landmark.

Next stop for me is the Giant's Causeway, which my Bradshaw says is,

"properly so called, consisting of a low promontory or rocky pier

"sloping into the sea for eight or nine hundred feet."

I've never seen it before. I don't really know what to expect.

I've always wanted to visit it

and the best way to get there is by steam.

Steam engines always attract me,

but this line carried another revolutionary railway system in Victorian times.

It once operated an innovative electric tramway

taking tourists to the Giant's Causeway.

I'm joined on my journey by heritage consultant, John Bustard.

This is a charming railway. What is its history?

The history of the railway dates back to 1879

when a plan was put forward by William Acheson Traill

to the Board of Trade to put in a fabulous hydro-electric tram.

Hydro-electric? Meaning that falling water produced the electricity?

It was the first hydro-electric tram in the world, yes.

A rail carrying 250 volts

naturally put some local Victorians in fear for their lives.

To prove its safety, the crafty Mr Traill came up with a cunning plan.

The story goes that Mr Traill arrived in rubberised boots

and actually bared part of his anatomy and sat on the rail

to prove that this wasn't a danger.

He didn't go up in smoke and it convinced the Board of Trade that it was OK to operate.

What they didn't know was that he had his own men running trams

at other parts of the line to take the pressure off.

According to accounts from his daughter,

when he was asked if it hurt he said, "Yes, it hurt like blazes!"

The tramway ran for 65 years, eventually closing in 1949.

The line reopened a decade ago and just as in the Victorian era,

it ferries eager tourists like me to the Giant's Causeway.

That was great. Thank you.

Reputed in folklore to be built by a giant,

the Causeway's interlocking honeycomb of basalt columns

captivated the Victorians.

Renowned author William Thackeray described it as looking like,

"The beginning of the world. A remnant of chaos".

It's the most amazing, awe inspiring sight.

I had no idea what to expect.

If you don't believe it was created by a giant,

what's the other explanation?

The volcanic activity of the Tertiary period over 60 million years ago

was when the lava flow hit the sea and cooled very quickly.

Essentially, that crystallised the rocks

into the various shapes that we see.

This rock you're standing on, originally, when the tectonic plates would have moved

would have been probably as far away as Sub-Saharan Africa.

My Bradshaw's guide doesn't always get things right, so tell me if this is true.

He says, "There are 40,000 dark basalt pillars, mostly five or six sided,

"while some have only three and others have as many as nine sides."

-Is that true?

-That's true.

Although there were only 39,998 rocks the last time we counted!

The Victorians shrewdly marketed the Causeway as a tourist attraction,

fencing off the rocky splendours

and charging a not inconsiderable entry fee of two shillings.

A tea room was erected, stalls lined the pathway down to the causeway

and local guides conducted tours.

Thackeray hated the clamour of guides, boatmen and vagrants and lamented that,

"if, as no doubt will be the case,

"the Giant's Causeway shall be a still greater resort of travellers than ever,

"the country must put policemen on the rocks to keep the beggars away,

"or fling them in the water when they appear."

Why do you think the Victorians were so fascinated by sights like this?

I think it was the curiosity they had for geology and for landscape.

The period they were in, the world had opened up quite a lot

and so many wonders were being shipped in from all over the world.

To find things like this actually within the UK

was quite interesting in its own right.

This fascinating place is full of wonderful geological features,

such as the Giant's Organ,

whose array of stone pipes would look at home in a cathedral

and caused Bradshaw to describe the area as a "remarkable coast".

It's been a great day on the northern shores and it's not over yet.

I'll make one more stop on my journey

before I retire for the evening.

I'll be getting off at Bellarena.

My destination is Dungiven, home to an important Irish clan.

And as I head for my overnight stay, a song is in the air.

In his guide, Bradshaw mentions the O'Neils,

just one of many clans who ruled the area for centuries.

Another was the O'Cahans and I've come to Dungiven Castle

to meet historian John Hamilton to discover more about them.

-John.

-Hello.

-What should I know about Dungiven?

It was one of the seats of the O'Cahan clan who dominated this area for many centuries.

There's one little thing about the O'Cahan clan that you might not realise.

They're known worldwide because of a song.

-The song being?

-Danny Boy.

-Danny Boy.

It takes you right back to the start of the 1600s

when the clan system was falling apart.

The local piper, Rory Dall O'Cahan, tried to write a tune

that would sum up the parting, people going away, things falling apart,

but the hope that some day they might come back together.

According to legend,

Rory Dall O'Cahan was mourning the confiscation of family lands

and the destruction of the clan system,

which brought to an end the line of O'Cahan rulers.

-It's a lament. It's a really sad, emotive tune, isn't it?

-It is.

The thing was, he tried to write the tune but he couldn't get it.

So he fell asleep on the banks of the River Roe

and when he woke up in the morning, there was this harp playing itself.

That tune was a gift from the fairies.

I think this is a slightly tall story!

Am I right that Danny Boy is also known as The Londonderry Air?

Many centuries later, into Victorian times,

a lady heard the tune being played by a piper

and she published it through a Dublin publisher.

He called it The Londonderry Air

because he'd got it as an unnamed tune.

It then went round the world and over in Colorado,

and English lady heard it being played at a gold camp.

She wrote it down, sent it to her brother in England,

who already had a set of words which fitted the tune perfectly.

The two came together and we have the tune today,

The Londonderry Air and the song, Danny Boy, known worldwide.

But it all goes back to the O'Cahan clan and their lament.

It does indeed.

The old O'Cahan chiefs are buried

just a few minutes' walk from Dungiven Castle.

And as I turn in for the night, I shall listen for the pipes calling

from "glen to glen and down the mountain side".

A new day and sadly, my final one in Ireland.

So I'm back on the tracks and heading towards my last destination.

What's in a name?

The city where I'm headed now, some call Derry and others, Londonderry.

Both names occur in Bradshaws.

Nowadays, the difference can be regarded as politically significant.

I'd better use both names with equal emphasis.

In fact, there's a story I was told about a train some years ago.

The nationalist guard announced that it was going to Derry,

so the unionist driver refused to move.

Tell me, do you think it matters

what we call the city where we're headed now?

To some people, it does.

Are you one of them?

Not really.

I was brought up here in the village of Eglinton

and as a child, we called it Derry.

The Troubles came and it got more political.

People took sides.

Some people call it Derry, some call it Londonderry.

It doesn't really matter.

That's what I'm asking you.

Well, it's always been Londonderry for me, so I call it Londonderry.

Some other people might call it something else because they want to,

but to me, it's Londonderry.

Derry or Londonderry

is the second largest city in Northern Ireland.

The River Foyle intersects it, with the old walled city,

one of the finest examples in Europe, on the west bank,

and waterside on the East.

The London prefix was added

after Derry was granted a Royal Charter by King James I in 1613.

The city retains its beautiful fortified walls.

It withstood the siege of the Catholic King James II.

Unlike most history in this city,

that remains contentious to this day.

The city has been at the heart of religious and political turmoil for centuries.

From Catholic King James's encirclement

of the Protestant population,

to the sectarian violence of the Irish Civil War in the 1920s.

In the 1960s and '70s, the city was once more the flashpoint

of disputes between nationalists and unionists,

and on Bloody Sunday in 1972,

14 were killed when the British army fired into a crowd.

But in a city that suffered so much, the history of one industry

offers examples of the people's fine spirit and resilience,

away from political struggles.

My Bradshaws tell me that the people here about,

were principally employed in the linen trade.

That began a long history in the city of involvement in textiles

and the common feature of all those industries,

was that they employed principally women.

Weaving linen was a hugely important industry

in the 18th and 19th centuries.

But as Belfast became a centre for production from the 1830s onwards,

Derry lost out and found itself with a plentiful supply

of unemployed, skilled women hungry for work.

As British cities grew fast and demand for clothing escalated,

the factory system was gaining ground and in the 1850s,

the sewing machine was invented, giving rise to shirt manufacture.

It flourished well into the 20th century

and at Austins, the world's oldest independent department store,

I'm meeting Jeanette Warke and Avril Campbell,

who both worked in shirt-making for many years.

What was life like in the shirt factories?

I found it, you know, all the companionship,

the fun and the banter and working with the other girls,

it was just great.

Everybody shared their problems.

Girls from every part of the city.

So, you had girls from both communities?

Oh, yes.

You were nearly all ladies. Is that true?

That's true, yes.

Was there a tradition in the city of women being in employment?

-Yes, there was.

-There was no jobs for the other men.

There was never jobs for men.

Men mostly stayed at home and looked after the kids.

During Queen Victoria's reign, a female workforce

powered industrial development and the city's prosperity.

Shirt factories dominated the city and its industry was once claimed

to be the largest of its kind in the world.

How important was shirt-making to the city?

Very important.

It was the most important industry

and that's where the money came from.

If there wasn't a shirt factory, this would probably be a desert.

There would be nobody here.

At the peak, there were 44 shirt factories in Derry,

with an industry employing a remarkable 18,000 people,

whose products were sold worldwide.

-The shirts from the city were definitely perfection.

-Quality.

It was the stitching.

Every stitch had to be perfect on those shirts.

If you had a Derry shirt, you had a quality item.

I remember the girls used to put their name and address on the shirts.

Slip little notes in the pockets.

They hoped that if a nice gentleman bought the shirt,

they would get in touch.

I'm sure there was a few marriages made from a shirt from Londonderry.

When I went down in the middle '50s,

there were enormous great cast-iron irons which weighed a tonne.

And it was lit with gas.

It was used for making toast for breakfast.

They got brown paper,

put bread between the brown paper and sat down on top.

It was the most gorgeous toast ever you could eat.

-We weren't supposed to do that, either.

-No!

Ruins the iron, ruins the iron.

The girls did work very hard, I must say that.

I remember them working through their tea break.

Working all the time, they never stopped.

They worked really, really hard.

In the 18th century, linen passed through Londonderry port

and in the 19th and 20th,

shirts were shipped to the world, most importantly America.

But in the 1850s,

the growth of Ireland's railway network

provided the city with an important outbound flow.

Bradshaws tells me that Londonderry carries on a considerable

commercial intercourse with America.

Being favourably situated for commerce

and possessing an excellent, secure harbour

with a splendid line of quays.

But the most significant export from the city, was not goods, but people.

Londonderry became one of the main ports in Ireland

for emigration to the United States.

To explore this poignant story, I'm on the banks of the River Foyle,

in rather inclement weather, to meet genealogist, Brian Mitchell.

Brian, hello.

Hello, Michael.

When did Derry become a major port for emigration to America?

I would say from the early 1700s, when the first of the Ulster Scots,

as they're known in America, the Scots/Irish,

headed out of here in big numbers.

It continued right though the 1800s and the famine years.

In the peak years, some 12,000 were leaving here in sailing ships.

Unprecedented famine afflicted impoverished Irish families

in the 1840s, with the repeated failure of the staple potato crop.

It's estimated that in a single decade,

at least one million died of starvation

and another million emigrated, primarily to the US.

By the 1860s, the newly developed railway network

assisted the unparalleled exodus from Ireland's shores,

funnelling emigrants from the northern half of Ireland

into the city.

Do you think the railways capitalised on emigration?

-Did they see a commercial opportunity?

-I think they did.

I think the railway companies and the steam-ship companies worked together.

Effectively, you could've booked from any railway station

in the northern half of Ireland,

to wherever you wanted your final destination.

For example, a potential emigrant from Clones in County Monaghan,

could've purchased a ticket that would've got them to Derry,

then on the boat to North America, New York, or wherever.

Then a through passage to Chicago

or the Prairies or wherever they wanted their end destinations.

Victorian emigrants would arrive at the railway station

to be met by an agent of the shipping lines.

A tug would then convey them 18 miles downstream to Moville,

where the transatlantic liners were moored in deep water.

As the ships conveyed emigrants towards their new world,

it was customary to light a bonfire on the hills above the city,

a beacon that might well offer the passengers

their last glimpse ever, of the Emerald Isle.

I've seen pictures of these tenders. They're nearly lopsided.

There's 300 to 400 people crammed into these tenders

that were taking them down to Moville.

Every week there was at least one ship from Glasgow or Liverpool

coming into Moville, to collect immigrants.

I've heard a figure that eight million people emigrated from Ireland

between 1800 and 1922.

When you consider the population of Ireland today is only six million,

it gives you an idea of the scale of it.

The determination, regrets and hopes

of those 19th-century emigrants, can only be guessed at.

But mass emigration continued well into the 20th century.

As the weather clears, I'm meeting someone

who can tell me of that mix of emotions, Bridget Makowski.

I understand you emigrated to America.

I did. 1955.

I went out and I married an American.

How had you met this American?

He came up that river on the USS Johnson,

an American Navy ship.

I met him at a dance hall, I was 18 and he was 21.

Me Daddy said it was OK.

I went out on the SS Cunard line.

I remember it well.

Did you have an tremendous sense of adventure of starting a new life?

I did.

At that time, Derry was well depressed.

Derry now is coming on grand.

In them days, in the '50s, it was mass emigration.

-There didn't seem to be any future.

-Did you get much of a send off?

Yes. There was always in those days, a thing called an American Wake.

The family would all get together.

In the '50s, it wasn't like now when you can come back and forth.

When you went to America in the '50s, it was goodbye for ever.

I remember my father when I was leaving,

I was in the taxi and he kissed me.

He says, "Goodbye, I'll hardly see you again."

It turned out to be true.

He died before I'd seen him again.

Bridget's new life in the United States

brought change on every front.

I was born in a wee house.

There were seven kids, my mother and father in two bedrooms.

No inside toilet, no inside water.

When I went out to the States, in Philadelphia,

Leo's house, I thought they were millionaires.

They had TV, a refrigerator, freezer,

they all had their own bedrooms.

After 18 years in America,

Bridget and her husband returned to live in Ireland.

Are you glad to be living now back in Derry?

I'm just across the border in Donegal.

I'm in Derry all the time, because Derry and Donegal,

everybody in Derry has a granny in Donegal.

I love it. I'm as happy as the day is long.

Bridget's family is typical of many in Ireland,

with relatives still in America,

including one of her sisters and her son,

who left in the 1980s recession to seek work.

And echoing the past, recent figures show that as this recession bites,

Ireland is once again seeing a large increase in emigration,

with over 3,000 leaving each month,

the highest figure in more than a century.

My railway journeys across England, Wales and the island of Ireland,

have brought me at last to the Peace Bridge in Londonderry Derry.

Built as a symbol of hope to join communities together.

My Bradshaw says...

"To those who rush from the cares of business

"to feast upon beauty,

"and to inhale the fresh air of fields, lakes and mountains,

"we recommend a trip to Ireland."

And I would only add, that for all its gifts of nature,

Ireland is made by its people.