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For Victorian Britons, George Bradshaw was a household name. | 0:00:03 | 0:00:08 | |
At a time when railways were new, | 0:00:08 | 0:00:10 | |
Bradshaw's guidebook inspired them to take to the tracks. | 0:00:10 | 0:00:13 | |
I'm using a Bradshaw's Guide | 0:00:16 | 0:00:18 | |
to understand how trains transformed Britain and Ireland, | 0:00:18 | 0:00:21 | |
their landscape, industry, society, and leisure time. | 0:00:21 | 0:00:25 | |
As I follow its routes, 130 years later, | 0:00:26 | 0:00:29 | |
it helps me to discover these islands today. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:32 | |
I'm moving northwest across Ireland, | 0:00:54 | 0:00:56 | |
on a rail journey that began in Wexford. | 0:00:56 | 0:00:59 | |
Discovering how, in the 19th century, a surge of pride | 0:00:59 | 0:01:03 | |
in Irish culture accompanied a growth of nationalism. | 0:01:03 | 0:01:07 | |
On this part of the journey, I hope to unearth a use for the potato, | 0:01:07 | 0:01:12 | |
reveal Irish on the fiddle, | 0:01:12 | 0:01:15 | |
and I will arise and then go then, and go to Innisfree. | 0:01:15 | 0:01:19 | |
I began my journey on the coast at Wexford | 0:01:28 | 0:01:30 | |
and then travelled up to the capital, Dublin, | 0:01:30 | 0:01:34 | |
before turning west. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:35 | |
Crossing this beautiful country, I'm uncovering Irish identity, | 0:01:35 | 0:01:39 | |
forged in a time of political strife. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:42 | |
I'll be ending my cultural exploration on the Atlantic coast. | 0:01:42 | 0:01:46 | |
Today, I begin in the town of Dromod, County Leitrim, | 0:01:49 | 0:01:52 | |
before travelling north to the county and coastal town of Sligo. | 0:01:52 | 0:01:56 | |
Along the way, I try my hand at traditional Irish cuisine... | 0:01:59 | 0:02:03 | |
-How's that looking, Timmy? -You wouldn't be selling it now. | 0:02:03 | 0:02:06 | |
You don't think a lot of customers would come and buy mine? | 0:02:06 | 0:02:08 | |
Yours was very lumpy, you know what I mean? | 0:02:08 | 0:02:10 | |
..see the landscape that inspired | 0:02:10 | 0:02:12 | |
one of the 20th century's greatest poets, WB Yeats... | 0:02:12 | 0:02:16 | |
It gave him the sense of where Celtic man, Irish man, | 0:02:16 | 0:02:19 | |
had come up, off the landscape, and that drove him to believe that | 0:02:19 | 0:02:23 | |
Ireland should have an independence. | 0:02:23 | 0:02:26 | |
..and step in time, Sligo style. | 0:02:26 | 0:02:28 | |
One, two, three... | 0:02:28 | 0:02:30 | |
Michael Flatley had better watch out! | 0:02:30 | 0:02:33 | |
I leave this train at Dromod. | 0:02:41 | 0:02:43 | |
Bradshaw's says, "Where the railway projects | 0:02:43 | 0:02:45 | |
"into the counties of Leitrim and Cavan, | 0:02:45 | 0:02:48 | |
"its character varies, and the surface becomes rugged and uneven." | 0:02:48 | 0:02:52 | |
I'm looking forward to some spectacular scenery. | 0:02:52 | 0:02:56 | |
Despite the hunger and poverty of the mid-19th century, | 0:02:56 | 0:02:59 | |
the railway boom in Ireland was as intense as it was in Great Britain. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:03 | |
And in the 20th century, the closure of underused lines was as drastic. | 0:03:03 | 0:03:09 | |
I'm alighting at Dromod, | 0:03:13 | 0:03:14 | |
a stop on the old Midland Great Western Railway mainline | 0:03:14 | 0:03:18 | |
from Dublin to Sligo. | 0:03:18 | 0:03:20 | |
At the time of my guide, it was also the first station | 0:03:23 | 0:03:26 | |
of the now-defunct Cavan and Leitrim Railway - | 0:03:26 | 0:03:29 | |
a branch line that connected to Ireland's mining region. | 0:03:29 | 0:03:32 | |
It's been one man's mission to restore part of the railway, | 0:03:40 | 0:03:44 | |
Michael Kennedy. | 0:03:44 | 0:03:45 | |
-Hello, Michael. -Hello, Mike. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:55 | |
What was the history of the Cavan and Leitrim railway? | 0:03:55 | 0:03:58 | |
The Cavan and Leitrim Railway was built in 1887 and lasted until 1959. | 0:03:58 | 0:04:02 | |
It ran all the way from Dromod, in the south, | 0:04:02 | 0:04:04 | |
through Mohill, Ballinamore, | 0:04:04 | 0:04:05 | |
Bawnboy, Ballyconnell and into Belturbet, | 0:04:05 | 0:04:07 | |
with a branch from Ballinamore all the way to Drumshanbo and out to | 0:04:07 | 0:04:10 | |
Arigna, where it met the coal mine. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:11 | |
Coal mines are not very common in Ireland, are they? | 0:04:11 | 0:04:13 | |
There's only two small coal mines in Ireland. | 0:04:13 | 0:04:15 | |
One in Castlecomer, in County Kilkenny, and one up in Arigna. | 0:04:15 | 0:04:18 | |
-Was the track always narrow gauge? -Always narrow gauge. | 0:04:18 | 0:04:22 | |
It was light railway. | 0:04:22 | 0:04:23 | |
Running for almost 50 miles, the Cavan and Leitrim Railway | 0:04:27 | 0:04:30 | |
opened up the coal and iron districts of Arigna and Lough Allen. | 0:04:30 | 0:04:35 | |
And passengers made use of the same trains. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:38 | |
The train left here with one carriage and a load of wagons | 0:04:43 | 0:04:45 | |
and the steam engine on the front. It went to Mohill, it stopped, | 0:04:45 | 0:04:48 | |
the engine came off the front, went round the back, | 0:04:48 | 0:04:50 | |
shunted the wagons from the station that were to go on further | 0:04:50 | 0:04:53 | |
and shunted the ones off that were to be left at the station. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:55 | |
And took three hours to go from here to Belturbet, 35 miles. | 0:04:55 | 0:04:59 | |
So, it wasn't a brilliant experience for the passengers. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:02 | |
No, it took all day. | 0:05:02 | 0:05:03 | |
It was obviously a very special railway. | 0:05:05 | 0:05:07 | |
Yes, and it was all run by the locals, | 0:05:07 | 0:05:10 | |
who drove the trains and were the crews. | 0:05:10 | 0:05:13 | |
But the management were Anglo-Irish, | 0:05:13 | 0:05:15 | |
so by the time the War of Independence came, they didn't get on with each other. | 0:05:15 | 0:05:18 | |
There was a lot of friction between them. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:20 | |
Queen Victoria was one of the smaller Stevenson locomotives, | 0:05:20 | 0:05:23 | |
and the men didn't like driving this engine called Queen Victoria, so they took the name plates off | 0:05:23 | 0:05:27 | |
and put them underneath a wood stack. | 0:05:27 | 0:05:28 | |
The management found the name plates and put them back on again, | 0:05:28 | 0:05:31 | |
so the lads drove the engine out to Drumshanbo, where the line went, took the name plates off | 0:05:31 | 0:05:34 | |
a second time and put them down a deep well, where they're still supposed to be there to this day, | 0:05:34 | 0:05:38 | |
and painted the engine green, white and orange and called it the Sinn Fein engine. | 0:05:38 | 0:05:41 | |
Oh, my goodness. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:44 | |
The line outlived most Irish narrow-gauge railways, | 0:05:44 | 0:05:47 | |
running until 1959. | 0:05:47 | 0:05:49 | |
Being the last steam tramway in Ireland to close. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:52 | |
And that's a very natty bicycle you've arrived on, | 0:05:56 | 0:05:58 | |
tell me about that. | 0:05:58 | 0:05:59 | |
Yeah, well, that's our railway bicycle. | 0:05:59 | 0:06:02 | |
A very smart machine. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:03 | |
Now, this is all a nice bit of fun, but they had a serious purpose once? | 0:06:03 | 0:06:06 | |
Yes, they were inspection cycles. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:07 | |
There was a seat clipped onto the front, | 0:06:07 | 0:06:09 | |
and the inspector sat on the seat and two men cycled along the line. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:12 | |
And he would inspect the track as they went along. | 0:06:12 | 0:06:14 | |
Well, I don't think there are any trains coming. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:16 | |
-Shall we give it a go? -Yes. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:18 | |
# Daisy, Daisy, | 0:06:18 | 0:06:21 | |
# Give me your answer, do... | 0:06:21 | 0:06:23 | |
These bicycles fell out of use in the 1960s, | 0:06:23 | 0:06:26 | |
as steam gave way to diesel | 0:06:26 | 0:06:28 | |
and it became simply too dangerous to ride the rails. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:33 | |
# ..of a bicycle made for two. # | 0:06:33 | 0:06:38 | |
# Are you right there, Michael, are you right? | 0:06:38 | 0:06:42 | |
# Do you think we'll get to Ballinamore tonight? | 0:06:42 | 0:06:46 | |
# Oh, there's passengers for Creagh | 0:06:46 | 0:06:48 | |
# And more from outside Fenagh | 0:06:48 | 0:06:50 | |
# Still we might now, Michael, so we might. # | 0:06:50 | 0:06:54 | |
Excuse me interrupting. | 0:06:54 | 0:06:55 | |
It sounds like a song about late trains? | 0:06:55 | 0:06:58 | |
It is, it's a song by the great Irish composer Percy French. | 0:06:58 | 0:07:01 | |
He was scheduled to appear at a concert in Kilkee in County Clare. | 0:07:01 | 0:07:05 | |
Unfortunately, when he arrived, | 0:07:05 | 0:07:07 | |
and due to the poor way the train operated, | 0:07:07 | 0:07:09 | |
by the time he arrived, all the people had gone home. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:12 | |
So, he sued the railway company for loss of earnings | 0:07:12 | 0:07:15 | |
and was awarded ten shillings. | 0:07:15 | 0:07:17 | |
He composed the song, Are You Right There, Michael, Are You Right? | 0:07:17 | 0:07:21 | |
immediately after the court case. | 0:07:21 | 0:07:23 | |
But when it was published, the West Clare Railway Company | 0:07:23 | 0:07:27 | |
actually sued Percy for libel. | 0:07:27 | 0:07:29 | |
And the morning of court, Percy arrived late. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:33 | |
The judge was very, very annoyed, and when he arrived in, he said, | 0:07:33 | 0:07:36 | |
"You're late, Mr French." | 0:07:36 | 0:07:38 | |
Percy duly explained, "I travelled by the West Clare Railway." | 0:07:38 | 0:07:43 | |
So they say, "Case dismissed". | 0:07:43 | 0:07:45 | |
A good story. And is that song still known in Ireland today? | 0:07:46 | 0:07:49 | |
-It is indeed. -It'd be one of the well-known Irish ballads | 0:07:49 | 0:07:52 | |
that sung the length and breadth of Ireland in every house in Ireland. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:55 | |
How does it continue? | 0:07:55 | 0:07:56 | |
# You may talk of Columbus' sailing | 0:07:56 | 0:07:59 | |
# Across the Atlantical Sea | 0:07:59 | 0:08:02 | |
# But he never tried to go railing | 0:08:02 | 0:08:05 | |
# From Ennis as far as Kilkee | 0:08:05 | 0:08:08 | |
# You run for the train in the morning | 0:08:08 | 0:08:11 | |
# The excursion train starting at eight | 0:08:11 | 0:08:13 | |
# You're there when the clock gives the warning | 0:08:13 | 0:08:17 | |
# And there for an hour you'll wait | 0:08:17 | 0:08:21 | |
# And as you're waiting in the train | 0:08:21 | 0:08:25 | |
# You'll hear the guard make this refrain | 0:08:25 | 0:08:30 | |
# Are you right there, Michael, are you right? | 0:08:30 | 0:08:34 | |
# Do you think we'll get to Ballinamore tonight? | 0:08:34 | 0:08:38 | |
# Oh, there's passengers for Creagh | 0:08:38 | 0:08:41 | |
# And more from outside Fenagh | 0:08:41 | 0:08:43 | |
# Still we might now, Michael, so we might. # | 0:08:43 | 0:08:48 | |
Well, I'm all right, after hearing that song. | 0:08:48 | 0:08:51 | |
-Thank you. -Thank you very much. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:53 | |
I'm staying in Dromod, | 0:08:58 | 0:09:00 | |
a town surrounded by lush, green countryside. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:03 | |
Talking of the soil around here, | 0:09:05 | 0:09:07 | |
Bradshaw's says it partly consists of good tillage ground | 0:09:07 | 0:09:11 | |
and partly of mosses and bog. | 0:09:11 | 0:09:14 | |
In the boggiest of years, the potato crop would rot in the ground, | 0:09:14 | 0:09:18 | |
or be affected by blight. | 0:09:18 | 0:09:20 | |
But in a good year, | 0:09:20 | 0:09:22 | |
the potato could be mixed with a few modest ingredients | 0:09:22 | 0:09:26 | |
to make a dish that could stave off starvation. | 0:09:26 | 0:09:29 | |
I'm intrigued by a dish called boxty, a kind of potato pancake. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:36 | |
It's associated with the counties around Leitrim | 0:09:39 | 0:09:42 | |
and originated in the 1800s. | 0:09:42 | 0:09:44 | |
The family-run Dromod Bakery | 0:09:45 | 0:09:47 | |
supplies much of north and western Ireland with its boxty. | 0:09:47 | 0:09:51 | |
I've come to meet the Faughnan family at their home bakery | 0:09:52 | 0:09:55 | |
in the hope of getting a taste. | 0:09:55 | 0:09:57 | |
So, I have come here to talk about boxty. | 0:09:58 | 0:10:01 | |
Well, you've come to the right place, anyway. | 0:10:01 | 0:10:03 | |
Boxty is made of raw potatoes and flour | 0:10:03 | 0:10:06 | |
and salt and milk and a drop of water. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:09 | |
And how did you learn to make it? | 0:10:09 | 0:10:11 | |
I learned from seeing me mother making it. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:14 | |
The minute she had it fried in the pan, | 0:10:14 | 0:10:17 | |
we were like little pups, getting up after her, taking it off the plate. | 0:10:17 | 0:10:20 | |
Apart from your mother making it, | 0:10:22 | 0:10:24 | |
do you know what the older origin of it is? | 0:10:24 | 0:10:27 | |
The older origin would have been back in the famine times | 0:10:27 | 0:10:30 | |
when the people had nothing to eat, only potatoes. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:33 | |
That is where boxty, I think, originated from. | 0:10:33 | 0:10:37 | |
How do you like to eat it? | 0:10:37 | 0:10:38 | |
You can have it in a number of different ways. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:40 | |
You can use it as a wrap, like, to put stuff in. | 0:10:40 | 0:10:43 | |
Use it that way. You can use it as part of a fry, | 0:10:43 | 0:10:45 | |
so like with bacon and sausages and egg. | 0:10:45 | 0:10:47 | |
Timmy, maybe enough talking about it, would you like to show me | 0:10:47 | 0:10:50 | |
-how it's made? -Sure, Michael. Right. | 0:10:50 | 0:10:52 | |
-Get up there, your apron is there. -Thank you. | 0:10:52 | 0:10:57 | |
Now, Michael, this is the ingredients of the boxty. | 0:10:57 | 0:11:00 | |
So, just need to grate the potato, presumably very finely? | 0:11:00 | 0:11:03 | |
Yeah, that's grand. Ah, you've done this before. | 0:11:03 | 0:11:05 | |
-Now we'll put in the flour, OK? -Yes. | 0:11:07 | 0:11:10 | |
-Mix this in fairly gradually, I suppose? -Yeah, yeah. | 0:11:10 | 0:11:13 | |
And a drop of water to make it... | 0:11:13 | 0:11:15 | |
Bind it in. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:16 | |
And there's the drop of milk. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:19 | |
A pinch of salt. | 0:11:19 | 0:11:20 | |
-How's that looking? -That's good. | 0:11:23 | 0:11:25 | |
That will come out more lumpy | 0:11:25 | 0:11:27 | |
or a rougher boxty than we make ourselves, | 0:11:27 | 0:11:29 | |
because our liquidiser cuts it down very fine, you know. | 0:11:29 | 0:11:34 | |
That's made the real, traditional way. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:35 | |
Does this remind you of your mother then? | 0:11:35 | 0:11:37 | |
Oh, it does remind me, yeah. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:39 | |
You think she's here now. | 0:11:39 | 0:11:41 | |
Only difference, she's not here now with a stick | 0:11:41 | 0:11:43 | |
to keep you away from taking it. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:44 | |
Now, that's ready for the pan. | 0:11:46 | 0:11:48 | |
We'll bring it up to the bakery. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:50 | |
In the tradition of a cottage industry, | 0:11:50 | 0:11:52 | |
the commercial kitchen is attached to the family home. | 0:11:52 | 0:11:56 | |
So, there's the hotplate. | 0:11:56 | 0:11:58 | |
-Yeah. -So will I just pour it on there, will I? -Yeah. | 0:11:58 | 0:12:01 | |
How's that looking, Timmy? | 0:12:06 | 0:12:08 | |
You wouldn't be selling it now. | 0:12:08 | 0:12:10 | |
Yours is very lumpy, you know what I mean? | 0:12:10 | 0:12:12 | |
-You don't think a lot of customers would come and buy mine? -No, no. | 0:12:12 | 0:12:15 | |
It might be nice when you're eating it. | 0:12:15 | 0:12:17 | |
-Timmy, have we got to flip that, have we? -You have, yeah. | 0:12:17 | 0:12:20 | |
Just a flick of the wrist. | 0:12:20 | 0:12:21 | |
Wahey! | 0:12:23 | 0:12:25 | |
-That is smelling brilliant, Timmy. -Yeah. | 0:12:25 | 0:12:29 | |
It just needs a couple of minutes on each side to cook. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
Hello, Angela. Hi, Niall. | 0:12:34 | 0:12:36 | |
We're back. And that is my effort. | 0:12:36 | 0:12:39 | |
It's not a bad effort, but you tend to let the flavours come out | 0:12:39 | 0:12:43 | |
a bit more after a couple of hours, so here's one we made earlier, | 0:12:43 | 0:12:47 | |
so it might just taste a little bit better. But good effort. | 0:12:47 | 0:12:50 | |
I feel slightly crestfallen, but... | 0:12:50 | 0:12:52 | |
So that is what it is meant to look like? | 0:12:52 | 0:12:56 | |
-Yeah. -Well, let's have a go at that. | 0:12:56 | 0:12:58 | |
Wow, that is good. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:04 | |
So, even though it sadly came out of the famine, it's a very good food, | 0:13:04 | 0:13:07 | |
-isn't it? -A very good food, yeah. | 0:13:07 | 0:13:09 | |
There's a rhyme that goes with boxty. | 0:13:09 | 0:13:12 | |
There's boxty on the griddle, boxty on the pan | 0:13:12 | 0:13:15 | |
If you never eat boxty, you'll never be a man. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:18 | |
Well, I've come of age today. | 0:13:18 | 0:13:19 | |
Bradshaw's tells me that Sligo is the capital of a county. | 0:13:51 | 0:13:55 | |
"The River Garavogue runs through the town, | 0:13:55 | 0:13:58 | |
"carrying off the surplus waters from Lough Gill | 0:13:58 | 0:14:01 | |
"on a plain among fine hills." | 0:14:01 | 0:14:03 | |
And certainly the high ground here is more muscular, more rocky, | 0:14:03 | 0:14:08 | |
and somehow, Ireland's universal green is even more intense here. | 0:14:08 | 0:14:13 | |
Located between the mountains and the Atlantic Ocean, | 0:14:20 | 0:14:24 | |
the town of Sligo marks my arrival on the western coast. | 0:14:24 | 0:14:28 | |
During the great famine of the mid-19th century, | 0:14:33 | 0:14:36 | |
over 30,000 people emigrated through its port. | 0:14:36 | 0:14:39 | |
When the railway from Dublin arrived in 1862, | 0:14:41 | 0:14:44 | |
the town could grow once again. | 0:14:44 | 0:14:46 | |
Sligo, Bradshaw's says, | 0:14:50 | 0:14:51 | |
has several public housings dotted about its outskirts, | 0:14:51 | 0:14:55 | |
the county infirmary, fever hospital, soldiers barracks, | 0:14:55 | 0:14:59 | |
workhouse and this, the district lunatic asylum. | 0:14:59 | 0:15:04 | |
For 140 years, it housed up to 1,000 patients, | 0:15:04 | 0:15:08 | |
pioneered some relatively enlightened new techniques, | 0:15:08 | 0:15:13 | |
was so solidly built by the Victorians that today, | 0:15:13 | 0:15:17 | |
it makes a capacious and fine hotel, | 0:15:17 | 0:15:20 | |
and my asylum for the night. | 0:15:20 | 0:15:22 | |
It's a new day, and this morning, I'm taking a walk through Sligo, | 0:15:41 | 0:15:46 | |
a place famed as much for its cultural and literary associations | 0:15:46 | 0:15:50 | |
as for its beauty. | 0:15:50 | 0:15:51 | |
Sligo occupied an important place in the heart | 0:15:52 | 0:15:55 | |
of Ireland's outstanding 20th-century poet, WB Yeats, | 0:15:55 | 0:15:59 | |
who drew great inspiration from its landscape. | 0:15:59 | 0:16:03 | |
I'm making my way to the Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery to find out more | 0:16:04 | 0:16:09 | |
about him from Yeats enthusiast and guide, Damian Brennan. | 0:16:09 | 0:16:13 | |
Here we are in Carrowmore, and you could believe yourself to be very | 0:16:14 | 0:16:17 | |
remote, but actually, we are just at the edge of the town of Sligo. | 0:16:17 | 0:16:21 | |
Yeats had the opportunity to come here when? | 0:16:21 | 0:16:23 | |
During the early years of his life, he was born in 1865. | 0:16:23 | 0:16:26 | |
He lives largely in London, but he comes to Sligo | 0:16:26 | 0:16:29 | |
to his maternal grandparents frequently. | 0:16:29 | 0:16:32 | |
And roves out into this landscape | 0:16:32 | 0:16:33 | |
and discovers all of this ancient space. | 0:16:33 | 0:16:36 | |
So, in his early days, he's inspired by landscape like this - | 0:16:36 | 0:16:40 | |
who would not be? - and what sort of poetry does he write? | 0:16:40 | 0:16:43 | |
In the beginning, he's writing ballads, | 0:16:43 | 0:16:45 | |
but much of it inspired by the whole folklore | 0:16:45 | 0:16:48 | |
and fairy lore of this landscape. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:49 | |
For instance, he's inspired by Queen Meave, | 0:16:49 | 0:16:52 | |
the legendary Queen of Connaught - | 0:16:52 | 0:16:54 | |
buried on Knocknarea, behind us here - | 0:16:54 | 0:16:56 | |
and he writes, The wind has bundled up the cloud | 0:16:56 | 0:16:58 | |
High over Knocknarea | 0:16:58 | 0:17:00 | |
And thrown the thunder on the stones | 0:17:00 | 0:17:02 | |
For all that Meave can say. | 0:17:02 | 0:17:04 | |
Angers that are like noisy clouds | 0:17:04 | 0:17:06 | |
Have set our hearts abeat | 0:17:06 | 0:17:07 | |
But we have all bent low and low | 0:17:07 | 0:17:09 | |
And kissed the quiet feet of Cathleen | 0:17:09 | 0:17:12 | |
The daughter of Houlihan. | 0:17:12 | 0:17:14 | |
So, what did this ancient history mean to Yeats? | 0:17:14 | 0:17:16 | |
It gave him a sense of where Celtic man, Irish man, | 0:17:16 | 0:17:20 | |
had come up out of the landscape and had lived in the landscape | 0:17:20 | 0:17:23 | |
for all that length of time. | 0:17:23 | 0:17:25 | |
And that drove him to believe that Ireland should have an independence | 0:17:25 | 0:17:29 | |
and should have its own art and drama and poetry and literature. | 0:17:29 | 0:17:34 | |
Yeats belonged to the Protestant Anglo-Irish minority | 0:17:34 | 0:17:38 | |
who ruled Ireland, yet he strongly identified with Irish nationalism. | 0:17:38 | 0:17:42 | |
The call for Irish nationhood and independence | 0:17:43 | 0:17:46 | |
was subliminal within his poetry, and emerged through his evocation | 0:17:46 | 0:17:52 | |
of a rich Celtic past. | 0:17:52 | 0:17:54 | |
Ireland gallops towards independence over a very short number of years | 0:17:54 | 0:17:58 | |
at the beginning of the 20th century. | 0:17:58 | 0:18:00 | |
Can you say what kind of role literature and maybe Yeats | 0:18:00 | 0:18:03 | |
play in that process, in your view? | 0:18:03 | 0:18:05 | |
Well, he himself asked after 1916, | 0:18:05 | 0:18:09 | |
"Did that play of mine send some men out to die?" | 0:18:09 | 0:18:12 | |
He worries about that, because he was part of a romantic group | 0:18:12 | 0:18:17 | |
who coalesced with the left-wing | 0:18:17 | 0:18:20 | |
and had the very unlikely but very pivotal 1916 uprising. | 0:18:20 | 0:18:26 | |
The Easter Rising of 1916 was a six-day armed rebellion | 0:18:27 | 0:18:31 | |
by Irish Republicans against the British in Dublin. | 0:18:31 | 0:18:35 | |
The rebels failed to establish an independent Ireland. | 0:18:36 | 0:18:39 | |
Hundreds were killed in the fighting. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:41 | |
Much of Dublin was destroyed and ringleaders were executed. | 0:18:41 | 0:18:45 | |
How does Yeats feel about the 1916 Rising when it happens? | 0:18:48 | 0:18:51 | |
Well, he's taken by surprise. He doesn't anticipate it. | 0:18:51 | 0:18:54 | |
He's in London at the time. | 0:18:54 | 0:18:55 | |
He writes his great poem, Easter 1916, | 0:18:55 | 0:18:59 | |
and suppresses it for three years, | 0:18:59 | 0:19:00 | |
because he's not quite sure how it'll work out. | 0:19:00 | 0:19:03 | |
He refers to the Easter 1916 as, "A terrible beauty is born." | 0:19:03 | 0:19:07 | |
Yeats' contribution to Irish self-consciousness and independence? | 0:19:07 | 0:19:11 | |
He's absolutely central. | 0:19:11 | 0:19:13 | |
He called for it. | 0:19:13 | 0:19:15 | |
He wrote about it. | 0:19:15 | 0:19:16 | |
He's the towering figure behind even the military movement, because it's | 0:19:16 | 0:19:21 | |
his voice and his words that stand the testimony of time. | 0:19:21 | 0:19:24 | |
When Ireland established its right to self-government in 1921, | 0:19:27 | 0:19:32 | |
WB Yeats joined the Irish Senate, | 0:19:32 | 0:19:35 | |
where he argued for artistic freedom | 0:19:35 | 0:19:37 | |
and against the social conservatism of the Catholic administration. | 0:19:37 | 0:19:41 | |
Time and again, he returned to this landscape. | 0:19:43 | 0:19:45 | |
Time for me to go to Innisfree, | 0:19:50 | 0:19:53 | |
to the lake isle that inspired his most quoted verse. | 0:19:53 | 0:19:56 | |
Guiding me across Lough Gill, George McGoldrick. | 0:20:06 | 0:20:09 | |
George. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:17 | |
-Hello. -Hello, Michael. You're very welcome. | 0:20:17 | 0:20:20 | |
Innisfree, what does it mean? | 0:20:21 | 0:20:23 | |
Inis Fraoigh is the Gaeilge, the Irish. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:26 | |
It means "heathery island". | 0:20:26 | 0:20:28 | |
Heathery island. And do you know the poem? | 0:20:28 | 0:20:31 | |
-I do indeed. -Would you mind saying it for me today, please? | 0:20:31 | 0:20:34 | |
I'll give it a go for you, surely. | 0:20:34 | 0:20:35 | |
I will arise and go now | 0:20:36 | 0:20:39 | |
And go to Innisfree | 0:20:39 | 0:20:41 | |
And a small cabin build there | 0:20:41 | 0:20:44 | |
Of clay and wattles made | 0:20:44 | 0:20:46 | |
Nine bean rows will I have there | 0:20:47 | 0:20:50 | |
A hive for the honeybee | 0:20:50 | 0:20:52 | |
And live alone in the bee-loud glade. | 0:20:52 | 0:20:56 | |
And I shall have some peace there | 0:20:57 | 0:21:00 | |
For peace comes dropping slow | 0:21:00 | 0:21:04 | |
Dropping from the veils of the morning | 0:21:04 | 0:21:07 | |
To where the crickets sing | 0:21:07 | 0:21:09 | |
There midnight's all a glimmer | 0:21:09 | 0:21:12 | |
And noon a purple glow | 0:21:12 | 0:21:14 | |
And evening full of the linnet's wing. | 0:21:14 | 0:21:17 | |
I will arise and go now | 0:21:18 | 0:21:21 | |
For always night and day | 0:21:21 | 0:21:23 | |
I hear lake water lapping | 0:21:23 | 0:21:25 | |
With low sound by the shore | 0:21:25 | 0:21:28 | |
While I stand on the roadway | 0:21:28 | 0:21:31 | |
Or on the pavements grey | 0:21:31 | 0:21:33 | |
I hear it in the deep heart's core. | 0:21:33 | 0:21:37 | |
A poet in distant London, yearning for his beloved island. | 0:21:38 | 0:21:42 | |
Indeed. | 0:21:43 | 0:21:44 | |
It's extraordinary to me that, out of this natural beauty, | 0:21:47 | 0:21:52 | |
an emotion could be born that became an idea, | 0:21:52 | 0:21:56 | |
the idea of an Ireland, independent of Britain. | 0:21:56 | 0:22:00 | |
And that was expressed in language, in poetry, | 0:22:01 | 0:22:06 | |
which inspired men to take up arms, | 0:22:06 | 0:22:09 | |
to be willing to die, and which led to an independent Ireland. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:14 | |
Extraordinary, the power of an idea. | 0:22:15 | 0:22:19 | |
As Yeats said, "A terrible beauty is born." | 0:22:19 | 0:22:23 | |
Sligo's rich cultural associations extend further. | 0:22:32 | 0:22:37 | |
World famous Irish fiddler Michael Coleman | 0:22:37 | 0:22:40 | |
was a Sligo-born musician who exerted a huge influence | 0:22:40 | 0:22:44 | |
on traditional Irish music. | 0:22:44 | 0:22:47 | |
A FIDDLE PLAYS A REEL | 0:22:47 | 0:22:50 | |
I'm visiting the Coleman Heritage Centre | 0:22:55 | 0:22:58 | |
to meet renowned fiddler Oisin Mac Diarmada | 0:22:58 | 0:23:00 | |
and traditional Irish dancer, Samantha Harvey. | 0:23:00 | 0:23:04 | |
Hello. That was delightful. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:14 | |
Now, I imagine the fiddle must have been part of Irish music | 0:23:14 | 0:23:17 | |
-for a very long time? -It certainly was, yeah. | 0:23:17 | 0:23:19 | |
It came out of 17th-century Italy primarily, the instrument, | 0:23:19 | 0:23:22 | |
but it very quickly spread over to Ireland because there were so many | 0:23:22 | 0:23:25 | |
fiddles, violins being made. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:27 | |
And fortunately, they were not that expensive to purchase. | 0:23:27 | 0:23:30 | |
Some people could even make their own. | 0:23:30 | 0:23:31 | |
And so it became very quickly one of the most popular instruments | 0:23:31 | 0:23:34 | |
on which traditional music was played. | 0:23:34 | 0:23:35 | |
I'm following a guidebook around Ireland from the late-19th century. | 0:23:35 | 0:23:38 | |
What was the state of fiddling music by then? | 0:23:38 | 0:23:41 | |
Fiddle would have been a very strong instrument at that time. | 0:23:41 | 0:23:45 | |
It would have been played stylistically quite different | 0:23:45 | 0:23:47 | |
in various parts of Ireland, predominantly because people didn't | 0:23:47 | 0:23:51 | |
travel very much outside a five to ten mile radius. | 0:23:51 | 0:23:54 | |
So you had very distinctive voices, styles, | 0:23:54 | 0:23:57 | |
a little bit like regional dialects of speech. | 0:23:57 | 0:24:00 | |
This, I believe, is a replica of the cottage of Michael Coleman. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:03 | |
What part did he play in all this? | 0:24:03 | 0:24:06 | |
He's very much the god of Irish fiddling. | 0:24:06 | 0:24:08 | |
He played the most amazing fiddle music, | 0:24:08 | 0:24:11 | |
that we still learn from and aspire to play like now, 100 years later. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:15 | |
Born in 1891, Michael Coleman journeyed across the Atlantic | 0:24:18 | 0:24:23 | |
to America at the age of 23. | 0:24:23 | 0:24:25 | |
He joined the vaudeville circuit in New York, | 0:24:25 | 0:24:28 | |
playing to audiences of thousands. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:30 | |
And was the first Irish fiddler to make recordings of his work. | 0:24:30 | 0:24:33 | |
What was it that he did that was new or striking? | 0:24:37 | 0:24:41 | |
He took what were fundamentally simple dance tunes | 0:24:41 | 0:24:43 | |
and he put a lot of musical detail into that music. | 0:24:43 | 0:24:46 | |
One of the first tunes he recorded was a tune called Reidy Johnson's, | 0:24:46 | 0:24:50 | |
it's a reel. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:51 | |
If you take the structure of a tune like that... | 0:24:51 | 0:24:54 | |
A JAUNTY REEL | 0:24:54 | 0:24:55 | |
What Michael did with the tune is he filled in a lot of details | 0:25:00 | 0:25:04 | |
and ornamentation in those notes and variations. | 0:25:04 | 0:25:06 | |
THE SAME REEL WITH MORE NOTES | 0:25:06 | 0:25:09 | |
And on and so forth. | 0:25:18 | 0:25:19 | |
He's reputed not really to have ever played the tune the same twice. | 0:25:19 | 0:25:22 | |
His recordings travelled back to Ireland and around the world. | 0:25:25 | 0:25:29 | |
His fast bowing technique became known as the Sligo style | 0:25:29 | 0:25:33 | |
and has come to dominate traditional Irish music. | 0:25:33 | 0:25:36 | |
Sligo must be rather proud of its place in Irish music history? | 0:25:38 | 0:25:42 | |
It certainly is. This area is often known as Coleman Country, | 0:25:42 | 0:25:45 | |
and it reflects not only Coleman's genius, but the magical music | 0:25:45 | 0:25:49 | |
that so many people played in this particular area. | 0:25:49 | 0:25:52 | |
Well, Michael, I hear you've danced all over the world. | 0:25:52 | 0:25:56 | |
You could hardly come to Ireland and not do a step. | 0:25:56 | 0:25:59 | |
I have made a fool of myself all over the world. | 0:25:59 | 0:26:02 | |
-Will you show me, Samantha? -I sure will. | 0:26:02 | 0:26:04 | |
Heel, toe, | 0:26:04 | 0:26:06 | |
one-two-three, | 0:26:06 | 0:26:07 | |
and heel-toe-heel, | 0:26:07 | 0:26:09 | |
one-two-three. | 0:26:09 | 0:26:10 | |
And heel, toe, | 0:26:10 | 0:26:12 | |
one-two-three. | 0:26:12 | 0:26:14 | |
And heel-toe-heel, | 0:26:14 | 0:26:16 | |
one-two-three. Excellent! | 0:26:16 | 0:26:17 | |
-And what do I do with my arms? -You can keep them down by your side. | 0:26:17 | 0:26:21 | |
They sometimes keep them very stiff, don't they? | 0:26:21 | 0:26:23 | |
-They sure do! -Right. | 0:26:23 | 0:26:25 | |
-Maestro, some music. -That's it. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:27 | |
MID-PACED REEL | 0:26:27 | 0:26:29 | |
Five, six, seven, eight. | 0:26:31 | 0:26:33 | |
Heel, toe, | 0:26:33 | 0:26:34 | |
one-two-three. | 0:26:34 | 0:26:35 | |
Heel-toe-heel, one-two-three. | 0:26:35 | 0:26:38 | |
Heel, toe... | 0:26:38 | 0:26:39 | |
Perfect! | 0:26:48 | 0:26:49 | |
Michael Flatley had better watch out! | 0:27:00 | 0:27:02 | |
The failure of the potato crop in the 1840s was a cause of the famine | 0:27:13 | 0:27:17 | |
which gave an enormous boost to Irish nationalism | 0:27:17 | 0:27:21 | |
and was blamed on Anglo-Irish landowners. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:24 | |
Ironically, a poet who didn't speak Irish, | 0:27:25 | 0:27:28 | |
from a middle-class Protestant family, William Butler Yeats, | 0:27:28 | 0:27:32 | |
gave the Irish nation its voice, | 0:27:32 | 0:27:35 | |
as surely as the fiddle gave it its music and dance. | 0:27:35 | 0:27:39 | |
A LIVELY REEL | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
Next time... | 0:28:00 | 0:28:01 | |
Things heat up with an unusual Victorian health treatment... | 0:28:01 | 0:28:05 | |
Steam is rising all around me. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:09 | |
..I learn of the terrible tragedy at Clew Bay... | 0:28:09 | 0:28:12 | |
A lot of the young people got very excited because they'd never seen a steamer before | 0:28:12 | 0:28:16 | |
and they all went to one side, and unfortunately the boat capsized. | 0:28:16 | 0:28:20 | |
..and stretch my skills at a woollen mill. | 0:28:20 | 0:28:22 | |
I'm involved in a delicate industrial process. | 0:28:23 | 0:28:26 | |
I'm on tenterhooks. | 0:28:26 | 0:28:28 |