0:00:05 > 0:00:10Ireland's beauty has captivated artists and writers for centuries.
0:00:10 > 0:00:11It's easy to see why.
0:00:13 > 0:00:14I'm Martha Kearney
0:00:14 > 0:00:18and I was born in Ireland, but I left when I was a small child.
0:00:18 > 0:00:20So, in the course of this series,
0:00:20 > 0:00:23I'm hoping to rediscover the land that
0:00:23 > 0:00:24I once called home.
0:00:25 > 0:00:29My guide is going to be a 19th century Irishman.
0:00:29 > 0:00:34He was an artist and surveyor and he made it his life's work to
0:00:34 > 0:00:37chronicle the country's landmarks and treasures.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40His name was George Victor Du Noyer.
0:00:45 > 0:00:49Du Noyer was part of a team which undertook a ground-breaking series
0:00:49 > 0:00:52of surveys in Ireland,
0:00:52 > 0:00:55mapping its landscape and its geology.
0:00:56 > 0:00:59But Du Noyer was also an accomplished artist,
0:00:59 > 0:01:02and he was inspired by all that he saw on his travels.
0:01:04 > 0:01:07His work is like a memory map of the country as it once was.
0:01:11 > 0:01:15Du Noyer spent 35 years travelling around Ireland.
0:01:15 > 0:01:19He was drawn to the more remote parts, the islands and peninsulas.
0:01:20 > 0:01:22As a surveyor, he went off the beaten track.
0:01:23 > 0:01:29There he discovered a spiritual side to the country, a land of symbols,
0:01:29 > 0:01:31and he brought them to our attention.
0:01:31 > 0:01:33Many are still there, where he found them.
0:01:52 > 0:01:56WB Yeats once wrote, "The water - the water of the seas,
0:01:56 > 0:02:00"and of lakes and of mist and rain
0:02:00 > 0:02:03"has all but made the Irish in its image."
0:02:05 > 0:02:08Here on the Dingle Peninsula that couldn't be more true.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17Looking at that awesome natural beauty, you can see just why
0:02:17 > 0:02:19George Du Noyer decided to come here.
0:02:19 > 0:02:22Through the course of this series I think I've come to understand him
0:02:22 > 0:02:24pretty well. It was a curious,
0:02:24 > 0:02:29restless intelligence he had, trying to find out more about the landscape
0:02:29 > 0:02:30and the people of Ireland,
0:02:30 > 0:02:33but it was also a solitary life and he seemed
0:02:33 > 0:02:37especially drawn to areas like this, which were so sparsely populated.
0:02:38 > 0:02:41When Du Noyer arrived here on the Dingle Peninsula
0:02:41 > 0:02:45in the south-west of Ireland, he'd travelled to a part of the island
0:02:45 > 0:02:49that even his fellow countrymen would have considered remote.
0:02:49 > 0:02:51Over the course of his survey, he would discover
0:02:51 > 0:02:56everything from apparently lost cities to spiritual havens,
0:02:56 > 0:03:00but his primary purpose was to explore the otherworldly
0:03:00 > 0:03:03geology of the landscape, and he had plenty to work with.
0:03:03 > 0:03:09So tell me, is Dingle of particular interest to geologists?
0:03:10 > 0:03:14Well, growing up in a place like this I couldn't but.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17This is one of the most exciting places in the world to be
0:03:17 > 0:03:21interested in geology, because it's all very visible
0:03:21 > 0:03:24and just about everything you've ever heard of
0:03:24 > 0:03:27in the making of the earth happened here and you can see it.
0:03:28 > 0:03:31It was the meeting place between continents
0:03:31 > 0:03:36and being on the edge...being on the edge always is interesting.
0:03:36 > 0:03:39So no wonder Du Noyer wanted to come here
0:03:39 > 0:03:41as part of his geological survey.
0:03:41 > 0:03:46Exactly, and they were making great discoveries here. It was a source of
0:03:46 > 0:03:51great argumentation among the great early geologists.
0:03:51 > 0:03:54And then we've got this extraordinary formation here, haven't we?
0:03:54 > 0:03:59Yeah, it's got a lovely local name, An Searrach.
0:03:59 > 0:04:04Searrach, which means the neighing colt,
0:04:04 > 0:04:07a young horse rearing out
0:04:07 > 0:04:11and the little rock near it, which you only see part of,
0:04:11 > 0:04:13is called the mathair, the mother,
0:04:13 > 0:04:17and no wonder it attracted Du Noyer.
0:04:25 > 0:04:28Much of this geological magic was formed by the erosive
0:04:28 > 0:04:32effect of the waves that crashed against Dingle's shores.
0:04:36 > 0:04:38When you're here you can't help
0:04:38 > 0:04:41but be struck by the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean.
0:04:44 > 0:04:47Everywhere you look, you see another stunning panorama.
0:04:51 > 0:04:55Du Noyer surveyed this peninsula and left one of his beautiful
0:04:55 > 0:04:57sketches to decorate his chart,
0:04:57 > 0:05:00and no wonder - it's a fantastic panorama of the ocean.
0:05:00 > 0:05:05Just over there is Dunmore Head, the most western point
0:05:05 > 0:05:06of the Irish mainland,
0:05:06 > 0:05:09and next to it, rising up right out of the ocean,
0:05:09 > 0:05:13the desolate but rather magnificent Blasket Islands.
0:05:24 > 0:05:26Even by the remote standards of this
0:05:26 > 0:05:30part of the world, the Blasket Islands are isolated.
0:05:30 > 0:05:33A three-mile boat journey across one of the most turbulent
0:05:33 > 0:05:35stretches of water in Ireland.
0:05:37 > 0:05:39A mystery surrounds the name Blasket.
0:05:39 > 0:05:42Appropriately one suggestion is that
0:05:42 > 0:05:44it comes from the Norse word "brasker",
0:05:44 > 0:05:46meaning dangerous place.
0:05:49 > 0:05:54Right up until 1953, the islands were home to a hardy group
0:05:54 > 0:05:57of villagers in a hamlet on Great Blasket, the largest of the six.
0:06:02 > 0:06:06Today, the place may be abandoned, but people are still
0:06:06 > 0:06:11fascinated by stories of a life lived at Ireland's very edge.
0:06:11 > 0:06:14They come, as I have today, to a heritage centre
0:06:14 > 0:06:17on the mainland to discover more about island life.
0:06:19 > 0:06:23Du Noyer visited the islands in 1856.
0:06:23 > 0:06:26What would it have been like for him in the middle of the 19th century?
0:06:26 > 0:06:29The Blaskets in the middle of the 19th century
0:06:29 > 0:06:31would be a village that's just one village -
0:06:31 > 0:06:37no name for the village - all thatched roofs,
0:06:37 > 0:06:41little cabins, barely maybe one room cabins.
0:06:41 > 0:06:43It's a wonderful feeling
0:06:43 > 0:06:45when you go there, when see the ruins of the houses that
0:06:45 > 0:06:48you can imagine how did these people survive?
0:06:48 > 0:06:52But it's really the survival of the human spirit that
0:06:52 > 0:06:55is, I suppose, really to be seen there, to be felt there.
0:06:58 > 0:07:01The islanders lived a perilous existence,
0:07:01 > 0:07:03often cut off from the mainland.
0:07:03 > 0:07:06They survived by catching fish and sea birds
0:07:06 > 0:07:08and eked out a living from the windswept fields.
0:07:12 > 0:07:16But this wasn't just a geographical outpost, it was a cultural one.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20In what must have felt like a village on the edge
0:07:20 > 0:07:23of the world, an important part of Irish culture -
0:07:23 > 0:07:28one increasingly under threat in more easily reached places - survived.
0:07:29 > 0:07:30You reach a point where
0:07:30 > 0:07:34havens of Irish-speaking communities
0:07:34 > 0:07:38are few and far between, and so when all of these other
0:07:38 > 0:07:45Irish communities on the mainland of Ireland were being eroded,
0:07:45 > 0:07:49people began to look to places like the Blasket Islands
0:07:49 > 0:07:53as a haven of all things Irish,
0:07:53 > 0:07:57a last bastion of a Gaelic world which had vanished.
0:07:57 > 0:08:01So that in many ways if the real Ireland
0:08:01 > 0:08:03is seen to reside in the west,
0:08:03 > 0:08:08then the real, real Ireland is even further away, at another remove, is
0:08:08 > 0:08:09on the islands off of the west.
0:08:11 > 0:08:14And from an Anglophone perspective you can see
0:08:14 > 0:08:17a discourse of ethnography beginning to creep in,
0:08:17 > 0:08:19in terms of a discourse of primitivism,
0:08:19 > 0:08:25of traditional culture, of a pre-modern, pre-capitalist society
0:08:25 > 0:08:27but from a Gaelic perspective,
0:08:27 > 0:08:31or a different perspective, we see a very sophisticated culture,
0:08:31 > 0:08:33but it's expressed in a different language.
0:08:33 > 0:08:38And so you find from the late 19th century and into the 20th century,
0:08:38 > 0:08:42Celtic scholars from around the world, when they're looking for a place
0:08:42 > 0:08:47which exemplifies Ireland's Gaelic past, they go to the Blasket Islands.
0:08:47 > 0:08:50It was their very isolation that helped the islanders
0:08:50 > 0:08:54maintain their Gaelic culture and it wasn't just the language.
0:08:54 > 0:08:57The islanders drew on an ancient tradition of storytelling
0:08:57 > 0:09:02and folklore to produce a remarkable body of literature that would
0:09:02 > 0:09:05captivate Ireland and the rest of the world.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09Of all the books really, three books have become world famous
0:09:09 > 0:09:14and they are The Islandman, written by a guy called Tomas O'Crohan,
0:09:14 > 0:09:18Twenty Years A-Growing, written by a guy called Maurice O'Sullivan,
0:09:18 > 0:09:22and a book simply called Peig, written by Peig Sayers,
0:09:22 > 0:09:24and these were all written in Gaelic or Irish.
0:09:25 > 0:09:30They were published in the late 1920s and early '30s and, subsequently,
0:09:30 > 0:09:33they have been translated into different
0:09:33 > 0:09:36languages all over the world, become classics.
0:09:36 > 0:09:37Tell us what these books are about.
0:09:37 > 0:09:40Mainly they are about living on the Blasket.
0:09:40 > 0:09:43In the case of Tomas O'Crohan, he would have been the older
0:09:43 > 0:09:45of the generation of people that we're talking about.
0:09:45 > 0:09:47He arrived on to the scene,
0:09:47 > 0:09:51just five years after the great Irish famine where one million
0:09:51 > 0:09:56people would have died, so he would've heard horror stories about the famine.
0:09:56 > 0:09:58The one Twenty Years A-Growing is a book about a young
0:09:58 > 0:10:00person growing up on the island.
0:10:00 > 0:10:01Many of the old sayings,
0:10:01 > 0:10:04the traditional sayings in the Irish language,
0:10:04 > 0:10:06he gets from his grandfather.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10His grandfather acts as a conduit, right down through the ages.
0:10:14 > 0:10:17The Irish language that you find at the end of the Dingle peninsula
0:10:17 > 0:10:20is one of the most evocative styles
0:10:20 > 0:10:24of the Irish language you'll find anywhere.
0:10:24 > 0:10:28These people had it in buckets as it were,
0:10:28 > 0:10:31and George Thomson, who is a Cambridge professor, who came
0:10:31 > 0:10:34to be fascinated by the people on the Blaskets,
0:10:34 > 0:10:39he compared it to the Homeric tradition of Greece, that this
0:10:39 > 0:10:44was originally an oral tradition which remained oral
0:10:44 > 0:10:48until Tomas O'Crohan in the 1930s began to write it down.
0:10:48 > 0:10:51Here is a life that is now gone, sadly,
0:10:51 > 0:10:55but it's a life that was lived by these people, in a very simple
0:10:55 > 0:10:56but very evocative way
0:10:56 > 0:10:59and that is really what makes the Blaskets what they are.
0:11:01 > 0:11:05It was here in Dingle Harbour where that way of life finally came to an end.
0:11:05 > 0:11:11Now, the catalyst was the very sad story of Sean O'Cearna, my own name.
0:11:11 > 0:11:15He contracted meningitis but the storm at sea was so bad,
0:11:15 > 0:11:17he couldn't get to the shore to get treatment.
0:11:17 > 0:11:20The islanders asked to be evacuated
0:11:20 > 0:11:22and on November 17th, they came up
0:11:22 > 0:11:28the slipway and we have a wonderful photograph showing that very moment.
0:11:36 > 0:11:41In the final chapter of his memoir, Tomas O'Crohan wrote,
0:11:41 > 0:11:45"I've done my best to set down the character of the people about me,
0:11:45 > 0:11:48"so that some record of us might live after us,
0:11:48 > 0:11:50"for the like of us will never be again."
0:11:58 > 0:12:02Splendidly isolated as the islands were, there were also
0:12:02 > 0:12:06parts of the mainland that had remained untouched for centuries.
0:12:06 > 0:12:09That didn't deter Victorian adventurer George Victor Du Noyer.
0:12:11 > 0:12:12By going there,
0:12:12 > 0:12:16he wandered as far from his remit as he did from the beaten track.
0:12:17 > 0:12:21His day job was, of course, the geological survey, but in fact
0:12:21 > 0:12:26he could go wherever his curiosity took him and that meant this rather
0:12:26 > 0:12:30gifted amateur was able to make some unique archaeological discoveries.
0:12:37 > 0:12:39It was while trekking up a remote hillside,
0:12:39 > 0:12:44that Du Noyer stumbled upon a stone fort perched precariously on a cliff edge.
0:12:46 > 0:12:50As his travels continued, he came across several more.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53Speculation about the purpose of these curiosities
0:12:53 > 0:12:55and who built them continues to this day.
0:12:59 > 0:13:01But it was Du Noyer's discovery
0:13:01 > 0:13:04which first put them on the archaeological map.
0:13:07 > 0:13:10- Hi, there.- Hi, there, Martha. - Good to see you.
0:13:10 > 0:13:12- We're braving the wind and the rain.- I know.
0:13:12 > 0:13:14It's a little bit challenging today.
0:13:14 > 0:13:16But it's worth it for this view, isn't it?
0:13:16 > 0:13:18I know, it's absolutely magnificent.
0:13:18 > 0:13:22We're looking across over Dingle Bay. To our south
0:13:22 > 0:13:25we have the Iveragh peninsula, which is known as the Ring of Kerry.
0:13:25 > 0:13:30- And this is fantastic, isn't it? - Yes, we have a wonderful view here of Dunbeg Promontory Fort.
0:13:30 > 0:13:32And what kind of purpose would they serve?
0:13:32 > 0:13:39Well, because they seem to have been built and used at different dates,
0:13:39 > 0:13:43in different places, they may have served several different purposes
0:13:43 > 0:13:47depending on who built them and when, so you have maybe dwelling places,
0:13:47 > 0:13:51perhaps look-outs, because Dingle Bay
0:13:51 > 0:13:55would have been very important as a way of getting around the place.
0:13:55 > 0:13:56People travelled by boat,
0:13:56 > 0:14:00travelling through the interior wouldn't have been so easy.
0:14:00 > 0:14:04And how significant do you think Du Noyer's discovery of this place was?
0:14:04 > 0:14:08Well, Du Noyer was the first person actually to describe this monument,
0:14:08 > 0:14:13and we're so lucky that we have his drawings of it because quite
0:14:13 > 0:14:17an amount of the whole area has collapsed into the sea...
0:14:17 > 0:14:20You can see that there now, a huge landslide.
0:14:20 > 0:14:24Yes, unfortunately, early this year, some more of it fell in again,
0:14:24 > 0:14:26so without his drawings
0:14:26 > 0:14:29we wouldn't have known that so much of it was once there.
0:14:32 > 0:14:35And this wasn't the last of Du Noyer's ground-breaking finds.
0:14:35 > 0:14:40Another, seen here on his illustrated map, was a collection
0:14:40 > 0:14:44of beehive-shaped buildings scattered across the cliff side.
0:14:44 > 0:14:47Never one to underplay his discoveries, he described them -
0:14:47 > 0:14:51rather fancifully - as an ancient Irish city.
0:14:52 > 0:14:55So what would you call these kind of constructions?
0:14:55 > 0:14:58Well, these are basically house sites but in the Irish language
0:14:58 > 0:15:02they're called "Clochan," cloch being one of the words for stone,
0:15:02 > 0:15:04so I suppose the structure of stone.
0:15:04 > 0:15:08And looking at the hillside there's certainly plenty of stones around
0:15:08 > 0:15:11here, so I guess it's a very easy form of building material.
0:15:11 > 0:15:16Absolutely. People built out of stone and the stone fortunately survives.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19Other parts of the country, of course, there were houses built
0:15:19 > 0:15:23in the early medieval period, but they might have been built out of timber, out of sods,
0:15:23 > 0:15:26a combination of these things and, of course, they're going to just
0:15:26 > 0:15:30slide back into the ground again eventually and leave no trace.
0:15:30 > 0:15:33As so often in this part of the world, it's the remoteness
0:15:33 > 0:15:36of the monuments that have ensured their survival.
0:15:38 > 0:15:41Even today reaching them is tricky, as I'm discovering.
0:15:41 > 0:15:42Mind your head.
0:15:46 > 0:15:49And this was the hut that Du Noyer himself sketched.
0:15:49 > 0:15:51Yes, we have a drawing of it here
0:15:51 > 0:15:55and what we are looking at over here are these two doorways.
0:15:55 > 0:15:57He's obviously rather proud that he discovered this so-called
0:15:57 > 0:16:02- ancient Irish city.- And he was the first to describe these particular monuments.- Really?
0:16:02 > 0:16:04If there were so many of these constructions,
0:16:04 > 0:16:05why do you think that was?
0:16:05 > 0:16:09It was only a particular type of person that could afford to
0:16:09 > 0:16:11go wandering around the countryside
0:16:11 > 0:16:15and this would've been very much an out of the way place back then.
0:16:17 > 0:16:21The beehive dwellings may not have been a lost city as Du Noyer
0:16:21 > 0:16:25suggested, but their sheer numbers and purpose still remain a mystery.
0:16:27 > 0:16:31Why are there so many archaeological remains in the Dingle Peninsula?
0:16:31 > 0:16:33The place is absolutely covered with them.
0:16:33 > 0:16:36You can't really cross a field, practically, without
0:16:36 > 0:16:38coming across some of them, and the interesting thing is that there's
0:16:38 > 0:16:43no tradition about any of them, we don't know anything about them.
0:16:43 > 0:16:48There's churches, there's beehive huts, stones decorated with crosses
0:16:48 > 0:16:52and so on, but there's absolutely no tradition about who they are.
0:16:52 > 0:16:57I think myself that the pilgrimage is what explains why there are so many
0:16:57 > 0:17:01monuments on the Dingle Peninsula, and let me just say to you that
0:17:01 > 0:17:06there is... The most famous travelogue of the earlier medieval period
0:17:06 > 0:17:09is what's known as the Navigatio Brendani,
0:17:09 > 0:17:13which is the tale of St Brendan who then goes up the coast of Ireland
0:17:13 > 0:17:17and up to Scotland, the Faroes and Iceland and Greenland.
0:17:19 > 0:17:22So, the whole tradition of the Navigatio Brendani
0:17:22 > 0:17:25starts at the end of the Dingle Peninsula and I think myself that
0:17:25 > 0:17:28what you have in the Navigatio Brendani
0:17:28 > 0:17:33is really a reflection of the pilgrimage that would've been going on over 1,000 years ago,
0:17:33 > 0:17:36and these were people who were coming on pilgrimage by boat.
0:17:36 > 0:17:39They weren't coming by land, they were going by boat.
0:17:39 > 0:17:43So, I think there was a whole maritime pilgrimage going up
0:17:43 > 0:17:46the West Coast of Ireland and I've been slightly laughed at
0:17:46 > 0:17:50for suggesting that these beehive huts were in fact Ireland's first
0:17:50 > 0:17:54B&Bs because I think they were there really as pilgrim hostels.
0:17:58 > 0:18:03The idea of the beehive lodgings as pilgrim stop-offs may never be proven,
0:18:03 > 0:18:05but in other sites further north,
0:18:05 > 0:18:08the influence of pilgrims is more clearly evident.
0:18:19 > 0:18:22One of those locations is the Fermanagh Lakelands.
0:18:22 > 0:18:25Strung across them are more than 150 islands.
0:18:27 > 0:18:31In medieval times, pilgrims could row out to one of the many
0:18:31 > 0:18:34monastic communities who lived there,
0:18:34 > 0:18:36but others had beaten them to it.
0:18:37 > 0:18:42It's an extraordinary thing that you look at the arrival of Christianity
0:18:42 > 0:18:44to Ireland in the 5th century.
0:18:44 > 0:18:49It arrived at a time when the Roman Empire was collapsing,
0:18:49 > 0:18:52Christianity was going into decline elsewhere
0:18:52 > 0:18:55and the Irish became the first people
0:18:55 > 0:18:59in the Latin West who voluntarily embraced Christianity,
0:18:59 > 0:19:05and it's very noticeable that many of the early ecclesiastical foundations
0:19:05 > 0:19:10in Ireland were in the places that were least populous,
0:19:10 > 0:19:13the places that were most remote, most extreme.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23We have this idea - it's not just an Irish idea as well,
0:19:23 > 0:19:25not just a European one, but a Christian idea -
0:19:25 > 0:19:28of removing oneself from civilisation,
0:19:28 > 0:19:31but it's also there in the Irish imagination,
0:19:31 > 0:19:35in the Irish folk traditions with the idea of the other world.
0:19:37 > 0:19:41The point at which that you find a space in a very particular geographical
0:19:41 > 0:19:46location in Ireland, where you can make contact with the other world.
0:19:53 > 0:19:57The monks left this part of the world a long time ago, but you can
0:19:57 > 0:20:02still get glimpses of their way of life through the ruins of churches and monasteries,
0:20:02 > 0:20:05and in fact that's what brought Du Noyer here,
0:20:05 > 0:20:07his love of archaeology -
0:20:07 > 0:20:10he regarded himself as a keen antiquarian -
0:20:10 > 0:20:12and he made a discovery that
0:20:12 > 0:20:16still draws thousands of visitors right up to the present day.
0:20:19 > 0:20:22Du Noyer discovered a strangely carved figure
0:20:22 > 0:20:27in an ancient graveyard which, despite being in a Christian location,
0:20:27 > 0:20:31seems at first glance to be more closely linked to Pagan traditions.
0:20:32 > 0:20:36- So, here it is.- Right.
0:20:36 > 0:20:41- That is such a kind of powerful, stark image, isn't it?- It is.
0:20:43 > 0:20:47It was Du Noyer who came in 1841
0:20:47 > 0:20:49and he spoke to a local man
0:20:49 > 0:20:52at the time who said that he remembered
0:20:52 > 0:20:59a stone being inserted in between the two faces here
0:20:59 > 0:21:04and he thought it was a cross, but it still leaves plenty of mystery
0:21:04 > 0:21:09because these are very strange faces in a Christian context.
0:21:09 > 0:21:15The early Christian artists, they weren't interested in portraying
0:21:15 > 0:21:18figures as idealised men and women.
0:21:18 > 0:21:23You know, they were looking in an abstract way, non-realistic,
0:21:23 > 0:21:29so that creates a very powerful figure here.
0:21:29 > 0:21:34Why do you think this part of the world has attracted religious
0:21:34 > 0:21:37and spiritual communities?
0:21:37 > 0:21:43When these monasteries were first founded, Fermanagh, in Ulster,
0:21:43 > 0:21:47bordered the other side of the lake, was in Connacht.
0:21:47 > 0:21:52It was easy to get the land donated in order to set the monasteries up,
0:21:52 > 0:21:56because the chieftains quite liked to have monks
0:21:56 > 0:21:58in a sort of buffer zone between
0:21:58 > 0:22:02the warfare that would've existed between Ulster and Connacht.
0:22:08 > 0:22:12Whatever the origin of the Boa Island statue, it has a unique,
0:22:12 > 0:22:16almost primal power which is certainly enhanced by the beautiful
0:22:16 > 0:22:18landscape of Lough Erne.
0:22:18 > 0:22:23You can really see why this became a place of worship so long ago,
0:22:23 > 0:22:26and White Island, where we're about to visit,
0:22:26 > 0:22:28was once home to a community of monks.
0:22:28 > 0:22:32The only residents now are a group of rather striking statues,
0:22:32 > 0:22:34and I've been told that one of them
0:22:34 > 0:22:39serves as a warning against lust and the temptation of women,
0:22:39 > 0:22:41something that I'd have thought was quite easy to
0:22:41 > 0:22:44avoid in such a remote place.
0:22:50 > 0:22:54Du Noyer was certainly tempted - at least by the opportunity
0:22:54 > 0:22:57of discovering another place unknown to his peers.
0:22:58 > 0:23:03It was called White Island by the time he visited it,
0:23:03 > 0:23:06but its original name is now lost along with any record
0:23:06 > 0:23:09of the monks that lived on it.
0:23:09 > 0:23:12All that's left are the ruins of an early Christian church
0:23:12 > 0:23:14and the stone figures.
0:23:18 > 0:23:22In Du Noyer's day, you could see much more detail on all the carving,
0:23:22 > 0:23:25particularly in the capitals here
0:23:25 > 0:23:30and, intriguingly, there was a statue to the side of the arch,
0:23:30 > 0:23:34a very explicit statue of a rather grotesque woman figure,
0:23:34 > 0:23:36but she's been moved indoors.
0:23:38 > 0:23:42Eight statues keep watch from the walls of the ruined church -
0:23:42 > 0:23:46a line-up of monks and other ecclesiastical figures
0:23:46 > 0:23:48with one startling exception.
0:23:49 > 0:23:52This statue here, this is the one that I really like,
0:23:52 > 0:23:58is what's known as a Sheela na Gig and these are very explicit statues
0:23:58 > 0:24:02of women of a female form that you do get in some church buildings.
0:24:02 > 0:24:06and it always strikes me as extraordinary the way that you have these women
0:24:06 > 0:24:11really displaying their genitalia in the middle of a church.
0:24:11 > 0:24:14Well, people have left a number of pennies along here,
0:24:14 > 0:24:17so I'm going to put mine on the statue of lust.
0:24:23 > 0:24:26Removing oneself from temptation and spending time in prayer
0:24:26 > 0:24:30is not something that's locked away in Ireland's past.
0:24:30 > 0:24:35Du Noyer sketched an island that has been visited by thousands of pilgrims
0:24:35 > 0:24:38from the beginnings of Christianity right up to the present day.
0:24:41 > 0:24:46Station Island has inspired poets from WB Yeats to Seamus Heaney,
0:24:46 > 0:24:50and it's certainly in the most extraordinary natural setting,
0:24:50 > 0:24:55but on a grey day like this, it all looks rather foreboding.
0:24:55 > 0:24:57In fact, that's part of the idea,
0:24:57 > 0:25:01because this is a place where you come to do penance.
0:25:01 > 0:25:03I can remember members of my own family telling me
0:25:03 > 0:25:07about coming here to an all-night vigil in order to
0:25:07 > 0:25:09pray for good luck in their exams.
0:25:14 > 0:25:19"Black water. White waves. Furrows snow-capped.
0:25:19 > 0:25:24"A magpie flew from the basilica and staggered in the granite airy space
0:25:24 > 0:25:29"I was staring into, on my knees," so wrote Seamus Heaney,
0:25:29 > 0:25:32describing the pilgrim experience on the island.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35What's the history of Station Island, which we're about to see?
0:25:35 > 0:25:39Well, Station Island originally, Martha, was started off as being...
0:25:39 > 0:25:43well, legend has it that St Patrick visited here in his time in Ireland,
0:25:43 > 0:25:45and that he would've been in retreat here
0:25:45 > 0:25:50and that he would've had this vision of heaven and hell and purgatory,
0:25:50 > 0:25:54and this started off as being an important place,
0:25:54 > 0:25:58a spiritual place where the next world and this world are somewhat closer.
0:26:00 > 0:26:04It's an island to start off with, so it's this idea of being
0:26:04 > 0:26:06removed from the world and I think this is doubly emphasised
0:26:06 > 0:26:10here at Lough Derg, because it's this very remote location itself and
0:26:10 > 0:26:14then this also resonates because of this idea of these Celtic pilgrimages
0:26:14 > 0:26:18where the saints went out into these barren, isolated places to
0:26:18 > 0:26:22contemplate the divine and it's very much within that tradition.
0:26:30 > 0:26:34These buildings are the contemporary version of the early pilgrim hostel.
0:26:34 > 0:26:38The island has certainly changed since Du Noyer sketched it,
0:26:38 > 0:26:42but pilgrims still kneel here to pray, as they have done for centuries.
0:26:45 > 0:26:48And it feels somehow fitting that one of the last stops
0:26:48 > 0:26:52on my Irish journey is here where past and present meet.
0:26:54 > 0:26:58While sometimes Du Noyer's art reveals aspects of Ireland
0:26:58 > 0:27:01that have long since vanished, his images have also allowed me
0:27:01 > 0:27:04to see an older Ireland that has survived.
0:27:10 > 0:27:12People involved in the surveying projects
0:27:12 > 0:27:15of the mid-19th Century, the impact of that
0:27:15 > 0:27:22kind of view of Ireland was huge in terms of the later view of Irish history
0:27:22 > 0:27:25and also in terms of the permutations of a political sense of
0:27:25 > 0:27:30nationalism into a kind of cultural nationalism in the late 1890s.
0:27:30 > 0:27:32That all fed directly into that kind of project.
0:27:32 > 0:27:37So, on the one hand you could see it as consolidating Britishness,
0:27:37 > 0:27:41you know, a kind of British view on Irish soil, on the other hand you can
0:27:41 > 0:27:43see it as a marker of distinctiveness,
0:27:43 > 0:27:47this is a very different country, it's a very different language,
0:27:47 > 0:27:51it's a very different archaeology and history, it's a very different place.
0:27:59 > 0:28:02What Du Noyer understood as an artist
0:28:02 > 0:28:05and what his work as a surveyor documented
0:28:05 > 0:28:08is that above all else this country is one whose story is
0:28:08 > 0:28:11embedded in the landscape, everywhere you look.
0:28:16 > 0:28:20Du Noyer's unfailingly keen eye has left us a window
0:28:20 > 0:28:23through which we can glimpse his time,
0:28:23 > 0:28:28but also a distillation of the real essence of Ireland.