The Irish Sea Coast

This is Coast!

One small sea

lies at the heart of our islands...

..and touches us all.

We've been crisscrossing it for centuries

to connect with coastal neighbours.

Bounded by Scotland in the north,

England in the east,

Wales in the south

and Ireland in the west,

I'm on the Irish Sea.

And this is no solo venture.

As I head across the sea to Ireland,

we're also exploring other shores around the Irish Sea.

Mark's digging up shared Celtic connections in Cumbria...

I'm on a quest to discover

why this outpost of the Roman Empire

was so important as a religious centre.

..Cassie and Miranda are diving into a shipwreck mystery...

There are just eerie bits of wreckage lying around.

..and Tessa's investigating how one small yacht

determined the future of Ireland...

On-board is an illegal cargo.

900 of these...

..Mauser single shot rifles.

..all aboard the Irish Sea.

SEAGULLS CALL

40,000 square miles of water

touching the shores of all four nations

that make up the British Isles.

For thousands of years people have traversed the Irish Sea

from coast to coast,

creating a special shared culture.

I want to find the many ways

this swirling sea touches our isles

and connects our coast.

This passage of water is awash with stories

I'm itching to explore.

I'm starting my journey

on a crossing that has long linked our islands.

Holyhead in Wales to Dublin.

From there,

I'll head north for Belfast

and then Larne,

where I'll hop on another ferry

to Cairnryan in Scotland.

Over five million people cross the Irish Sea each year,

but how many know where it starts and ends?

I asked some fellow passengers before we set sail.

I think, actually, it goes right, right up.

-Right up to top of Ireland?

-Yeah.

I would say it stops round about here.

-Across there?

-Yup.

-In the north, yeah?

And how far down do you think it goes?

-Probably down...down about here, I suppose.

-So all the sea...

It joins the Channel down there.

All the sea that's between mainland Britain and Ireland,

-you think is the Irish Sea?

-I think so, yeah.

On sea charts,

the Irish Sea is demarcated in the south

by a line from Nose of Howth here

across to Carmel Head here,

and to the north by a line from Ballyquintin Point here

across the Mull of Galloway here.

But these waters don't recognise boundaries.

Most people count the channels at its top and tail

as part and parcel of it.

This is a small sea, bursting to break out.

I've washed into Dublin on its tumultuous tides,

caused by the very formation of the Irish Sea.

Over 250 million years,

tectonic plates have caused subsidence of the seabed

between Ireland and mainland Britain.

The sea as we know it today

was formed by rising sea levels

as major ice sheets melted

over 10,000 years ago.

If we look at my chart again,

we can see the effects

of the Irish Sea's glacial history.

Its waters are trapped in a deep basin...here.

Twice daily tides flood in from the south,

pulled by the drag of the moon,

but the narrow passage of the north channel prevents the waters from escaping.

So they do a circuit of the Irish Sea,

before trying to escape southwards again,

where they collide head-on with the next incoming tide.

The result is a complex tidal swirl.

And, there's another side-effect,

a unique seasonal phenomenon.

It's called the Irish Sea gyre,

and it's the lifeblood of these waters.

I want to find out what this phenomenon is and how it works.

'I'm meeting Dr Martin White and Dr Glenn Nolan

'from the University of Galway and Marine Institute.'

I think that's about 15 rpm.

That's about what we want.

'They've promised to demonstrate an oceanic gyre

'on dry land...'

-Hi.

-Hello, Nick.

-Very good to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

This is one of the strangest contraptions

I've ever seen set up on a beach.

What exactly is a gyre?

OK, Nick.

A gyre is a term, a common term, we use

to describe an enclosed circulation pattern of ocean currents.

In the case of the western Irish Sea,

this is a circulation pattern which goes around a dome of dense cold water

sat in the deep part of the western Irish Sea here,

between us and the Isle of Man.

The idea to have this spinning is,

if you think about the earth,

everything is spinning around at the same rate,

so we need to set that up first.

As the earth turns,

so does everything on it -

including our oceans.

We see this effect when water drains down a plughole.

This circular flow is known as the Coriolis effect.

How is your contraption going to demonstrate how the gyre works?

The green dye contained in the cylinder is dense water

and swimming around in the main bowl we have fresh water.

So when we release this,

we'll create that dense dome in the middle

and a cyclonic circulation around that.

-Can we try it?

-I think we can try it now.

The green dye is the cold dome of water,

warmer clear water is swirling around it.

At the boundary where the two meet,

a current is generated,

creating an invisible barrier.

That is the gyre.

Martin adds red dye so we can see the gyre current.

The red dye's hanging like a curtain wrapping itself around the dome.

This is small scale.

Out in the deepest basin of the Irish Sea,

the gyre spans 3,600 square miles.

This invisible current creates a unique eco-system...

..an enclosed feeding ground,

where fish and shellfish thrive.

This sea's gyre creates rich pickings,

and not just fish.

Swirling currents can also bring tides of change.

Religions,

beliefs,

cultures,

carried around the Irish Sea...

..transforming our isles over thousands of years.

The Romans were no strangers to these waters,

for them a conduit to coastal conquest.

In the first century, they reached Maryport, Cumbria

and named it Alauna.

It became a key garrison of the Roman Empire.

Mark first came here ten years ago,

when archaeologists discovered a huge military fort and settlement.

Now he's back

because an astonishing addition to the story

has been unearthed -

Roman temples.

Maryport wasn't just a military fortress.

It had a spiritual side, as well.

I'm on a quest to discover why

this outpost of the Roman empire

was so important as a religious centre.

Archaeologists here

have uncovered two spectacularly rare temples,

one round, probably a mausoleum

and another intriguing rectangular structure.

Tony Wilmott of Historic England

is co-director of the project.

This is the so-called rectangular temple.

We've just got this end exposed.

You've just got this side wall running there,

then it comes out into this little square projection,

then the facade was just about under the edge of grass area over there.

-Facing the same way as the other one?

-They're both facing the same way.

We found, on excavating it properly,

that there were four column bases.

Gosh, that's smart. Would it have had a pediment?

It would have had the lot - columns, pediment, the whole business.

-That's really unusual. You don't get classical temples.

-Not very often.

Actually this is the furthest northwest classical temple in the Roman Empire so far.

It's a staggering discovery.

This was no everyday temple.

It's size and quality

suggests Maryport was a cult centre,

drawing people from far and wide to worship.

And there's stunning evidence to back this up

in the local museum.

In this museum

is the largest collection of Roman altars in Britain,

18 in total

and all found here at Maryport.

As pagans, the Romans worshipped many gods and spirits.

These exquisite altars were dedicated

to Jupiter Optimus Maximus,

I-O-M,

the king of the gods.

They probably would have stood in front of the temples.

But these altars were dug up 100 metres away from the temples.

At some point,

they had been moved to an area

where the team discovered a series of mysterious pits.

Professor Ian Haynes of Newcastle University

is the dig's co-director.

These pits were actually dug

to allow for a large timber structure

to be built on this spot.

Timber posts set up to 1.3 metres into the ground

and packed around with stone,

including sometimes altars.

So they reused the altars as packing.

Absolutely. So if we look at this one,

you can actually see the packing stone

that's gone into one of these pits.

And at the bottom of it, there, you can see the top of another altar.

Once that's been taken away,

yet again there it is -

Jupiter Optimus Maximus.

'What was this extraordinary structure

'that used Roman altars as building material?

'Clues were revealed by the excavations.'

What's that at one end?

Well, absolutely, this is key here, as you rightly point out.

We've got an apse here, there's no doubt about it.

There is a very clear semi-circular feature

as one would find on the end of certain types of basilicum buildings.

Well, basilicums can be churches.

They can be, indeed.

'This is another astounding discovery.

'It seems the Roman altars

'had become the foundations

'for a colossal Christian church.

'In the 1st century,

'the Romans invaded Britain as emphatic pagans.

'Yet, within 300 years,

'they would destroy the symbols of that belief

'and embracing a brand-new faith.'

Christianity spread throughout the Empire

and by the beginning of the 3rd century AD

it may well have reached Roman Britain.

Not that the Roman authorities approved.

The faith of the first English martyr,

St Alban,

sealed his fate in the late 3rd century.

In 314 AD,

the Emperor Constantine adopted Christianity

as the official religion of the Roman Empire

and the first public churches were built.

This extraordinary building unearthed at Maryport

dates to the late 4th or early 5th century,

one of the earliest churches ever discovered in Britain.

We now realise that Maryport sits in the centre of a whole cluster

of early Christian sites.

Across the Solway was Whithorn,

just behind the wind farm over there.

Across the Irish Sea, we have the Isle of Man.

Then beyond that, Nendrum in Northern Ireland

and Iona in the Scottish islands.

The emergence of Maryport

as a Christian powerhouse

in the north of England

adds serious weight to a theory

that's intrigued me for years.

Because just 30 miles from here,

a famous saint was born.

This man - Saint Patrick,

the apostle to the Irish.

According to his own life,

a document known as the Confession,

Patrick says that he was born in a town called Bannaventa,

which I think is this place,

which the Romans called Glannaventa.

Glannaventa is so close to Maryport

it raises the possibility

that St Patrick had a physical connection

with this spiritual stretch of the Cumbrian coast.

If St Patrick was indeed from this place,

it may well be from this very spot that he set off

and took Christianity across the Irish Sea to the Irish.

Romans established a pagan centre of worship

here at Maryport

on the edge of the Irish Sea.

With the arrival of Christianity and St Patrick,

there came a new sea of faith,

creating fresh sites of pilgrimage

on our isles.

The Irish Sea.

Awash with opportunities

that connect our coasts

and our fishing ports.

New Quay in Wales...

..Whitehaven in England...

..Portpatrick in Scotland...

This small sea binds together a big industry.

Dublin Bay is famous for one particular catch...

..the Dublin Bay Prawn.

A product of the swirling gyre current.

Over 16,000 tonnes are landed in Ireland each year...

..but this crunchy crustacean knows no boundaries.

Stocks are spreading throughout the Irish Sea...

and have reached Belfast Lough.

It's where I've come to find out more about this delicacy,

exported and eaten on our shores.

But the name's a bit of a red herring.

Because these prawns are also known as scampi and langoustine...

..which is less of a mouthful than their scientific name,

Nephrops norvegicus.

I'm heading out with the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute,

whose experts monitor Nephrops stocks for the Government.

Principal scientist Richard Gowen

has plotted on a chart how far the gyre spreads them.

The main population is retained here

because of the physical environment,

but, as these arrows show,

when the Nephrops larvae are in the surface waters

they will be dispersed elsewhere.

There's a population here in the eastern Irish Sea,

there's a population in the Clyde,

and the general flow through the Irish Sea is from the south, through,

so the small populations like the one here in Belfast Loch are spin-offs

from the main population centres.

Cousins of the gyre population.

Yes.

'The gyre is the optimum environment

'to nurture newly hatched Nephrops.

'It retains most of the larvae and the plankton they feed on.

'When larvae reach a certain size,

'they drop back to seabed burrows

'to metamorphose into adults.

'Until now, I've never been up close and personal with a Nephrops...

'..unlike senior scientist Steven Beggs.'

Wow, they're enormous!

Yes, these are big Dublin Bay prawns, Nick.

Dublin Bay prawns or Nephrops

can live up to 15 years.

These feisty examples are about five.

Ooh!

They're dangerous, aren't they?

Yeah, they can give you a nasty nip.

-Would you like to feel the weight of it?

-Sure.

Oh, right.

Absolutely stunning.

Translucent pinks and oranges,

with these very fine, fine fronds on the back of the tail,

and this overlapping exoskeleton down the back here.

-It's like armour plating on an armadillo.

-Yes, indeed.

And they're very muscular - I've noticed that, flicking around,

they've got a lot of power, very beautiful.

I'm going to put him back in. There you go.

And just take me through their very complicated bodies.

Yeah, they have this triple-fanned heel,

which they use for propulsion.

They are decapods - they have ten legs

and they have these large front claws,

which they use for scavenging and protecting themselves.

But their claws are little protection against one predator -

man.

To prevent overfishing and to set quotas,

it's vital the team know how many of these colourful crustaceans live

in the Irish Sea.

A camera sledge records them.

Towed behind the ship,

it's designed to slide over the soft sea floor.

On the bottom!

'Pictures are fed to the ship's computers,

'where principal scientist Matt Service has the unenviable task

'of counting each burrow.'

So this is a live feed from the seabed

and the sledge shot we've just deployed.

There's no way that I'd be able to spot a burrow in that!

It looks like green soup.

Can you show me a picture of a burrow close-up

-so I know what to look for?

-Yes. If we go over here to the computer.

Here we are.

Classically it's got this crescent shape at the front

and then an escape entrance at the back.

That must be so difficult.

That means you can't count an escape entrance, only the front door.

That's easy - you've got one or two burrows,

but it's not all that easy.

So if we just click through a few slides...

Here's a shot from the middle of the Irish Sea,

and you can see it's a lot of burrows, not so easy now.

This is a bit like breaking open a chocolate bar

and seeing all the bubbles.

'And to make things more complicated,

'not every hole is a Nephrops burrow.'

-So can I have a go at counting, Matt?

-On you go.

-Is that one?

-Yes.

OK. One, two, three...

-four...

-Yeah.

-Just missed one there, I think.

-Oh, dear.

Five...

There you go, six, seven! That was one, wasn't it?

Oh, my eyeballs are getting tired already. Nine...

-It's really difficult.

-It's really difficult.

We would do this for maybe five minutes on a go,

but you're getting the point, it can be done.

How many burrows have you counted in a single shift?

I guess probably...oh, certainly thousands.

But if you look at the Irish Sea as a whole,

we reckon that in 2013,

the figure was 4.3 billion Nephrops burrows.

-4.3 billion burrows in the Irish Sea?

-Yes.

That's mind-boggling.

The burrows are complex structures offering protection from predators.

Each one a bio-engineering marvel

that oxygenates the sediment and regenerates minerals.

They're also a natural work of art.

Although it's flat boring mud on the surface,

when you get below it, it's a bit of a complex.

So although the camera is seeing lots and lots

of little burrow entrances,

beneath those entrances,

the entire Irish Sea is sort of excavated

-by these tiny little prawns.

-Yeah.

Absolutely amazing.

In the depths of the Irish Sea,

the humble Nephrops

is a crucial part of a vibrant eco-system,

the gyre its lifeblood.

Thanks to the burrow counters,

the flourishing future for Nephrops is one we all share.

Life thrives in the whirling currents of the Irish Sea.

And so do stories.

As people cross from coast to coast,

they swap songs and traditions...

..tales and superstitions.

These wild waters create legends of their own.

They swirl around the sea's Celtic heart,

..the Isle of Man.

Singer and story teller Ruth Keggin

recalls the tale of the mythical monarch

of this magical place, the Sea God Manannan.

# Manannan Beg Mac y Leir

# Manannan Beg Mac y Leir

# Bannee orrin as nyn maateyn

# Manannan Beg Mac y Leir. #

Manannan Mac y Leir was a sea god,

a king, a warrior,

known in the Celtic nations of Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

And, legend has it,

he was the first ruler of the Isle of Man.

Manannan lived in a castle at the summit of South Barrule,

which is one of the high peaks of the Isle of Man

in the south of the island.

And, standing up at the top,

you really get a sense of the island, with the sea all around you.

Some of the people of the Isle of Man

would travel up to the top of South Barrule on Midsummer's eve

in order to pay a straw tax to Manannan of rushes.

Part of what really appeals to me about Manannan

is the idea that he was a shape-shifter, a magician,

he was able to protect the island,

not just with a sword,

but by making one man appear like 100 men

and by sending down a cloak of mist to shroud the island to defend it.

Manannan's very name is associated with the sea,

and you can think of it as his realm.

He was supposed to have had a great horse named Embar of the Flowing Mane,

who was able to ride just as well

over the waves as over the land.

I think the story of Manannan has to have travelled across the Irish Sea.

When you think about it, the sea was a pathway.

We know this because Manannan is known in other places

apart from the Isle of Man.

According to the myth,

Manannan no longer resides on the summit of South Barrule,

but instead lives on an underwater island

15 or 16 miles off the most southerly tip of the Isle of Man.

And who knows, perhaps he's there still...

# Manannan Beg Mac y Leir

# Bannee orrin as nyn maateyn

# Manannan Beg Mac y Leir. #

Coast is exploring how the Irish Sea touches us all

and shapes our islands' story.

Cargoes carried across these waters have built cities.

Granite from the Mountains of Mourne paved Liverpool...

..today a megaport.

30 million tonnes of freight sails in each year,

while leviathan cruise ships docking at Holyhead have made this place

an unlikely tourist trap.

The Irish Sea is a highway connecting our shores.

But sometimes what washes in

can change the bonds between our coasts.

In Ireland's capital,

Tess is investigating a troubled relationship...

Dublin, a coastal city linked to Britain by the Irish Sea.

But when it comes to politics,

things haven't always been plain sailing.

After generations of demands for Irish independence,

the pivotal event that would eventually achieve it erupted here,

on Easter Monday, 1916.

At noon, a group of Irish nationalists seize a number of official buildings.

They call on fellow Irishmen to resist the bonds of British control

and establish an independent Irish Republic.

After six days of fighting,

450 are dead and thousands injured.

Dublin is brought to her knees.

The General Post Office became the nationalist rebels' target and HQ.

Here they hoisted the Republican flag and proclaimed independence.

Riddled with bullet-holes, it's where I'm meeting

Dr Conor Mulvagh from University College Dublin.

So this is the spot, where we're standing, where it all kicked off?

Absolutely. The Republic, in 1916,

was declared right in front of us here.

So what we have here is a bullet hole.

We can see the clear entry point, and then the wide exit point.

This would've come from the south and travelled north,

so we can see a large shattering.

They're shooting from over there?

This was the British forces shooting from the south.

It was the British who eventually won,

but they executed the rebel leaders making them martyrs.

So this was a catalyst for independent southern Ireland.

Irish nationalism probably has its most transformative,

it's most immediate shift,

in the weeks after the 1916 rising.

The Easter Rising was a watershed moment.

A bloody armed battle, between rebel volunteers and British forces.

But how had a war of words over the so-called Irish question

become a war with weapons?

And where had the rebels got their guns?

To find out, I need to go back two years in time,

and head for Howth, just north of Dublin.

It's the 26th of July, 1914,

a 49-foot pleasure yacht named Asgard

sails into this harbour.

On board is an illegal cargo - 900 of these...

Mauser single-shot rifles

that went on to arm the rebels at the Easter Rising.

I want to know where the guns came from.

Come aboard, come aboard.

I'm meeting local sailor Pat Murphy.

He's studied the Asgard's gun-running mission,

codenamed Picnic.

So, Pat, tell me about their journey.

It was a 23-day journey.

They left from North Wales

on the 3rd of July,

and they headed down the Irish Sea

and then across the Bristol Channel,

around Land's End,

and they rendezvoused with the German tug the Gladiator

off the Belgium coast.

They picked up the guns off the German tug.

Asgard took 900.

I mean, that must've been a challenge -

getting that many guns onto a sailing boat.

Yes, it was. They, in fact, had to unpack them all

from the bales of straw.

They were stowed up to two-and-a-half feet high,

all over the boat.

This was just weeks before the outbreak of the First World War,

The sea must have been chock-a-block with naval vessels.

Wasn't there a fear they'd be spotted?

It was a big fear.

In fact, as they were sailing passed Devonport,

they sailed right through the British Navy on exercise.

-Well, did nobody sort of think this is a bit odd?

-Nobody, nobody.

We have a picture taken from Asgard.

-Here we are.

-Right.

-Look at that.

That's very menacing, isn't it?

-Yes!

-You've got the warships in the background,

and the gloom, the sense of foreboding.

Exactly. Yes.

They arrived into Howth harbour just outside Dublin,

in broad daylight.

Awaiting them, 1,000 volunteers to unload the illegal haul.

But it wasn't the martyrs of the Easter Rising

who were delivering these guns.

The ring leaders weren't obvious revolutionaries,

they were well-connected pillars of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy,

but they were still whole-hearted supporters of home rule for Ireland.

Erskine Childers, an English-born veteran of the Boer War,

he'd had spectacular success a decade earlier

as author of the first-ever spy novel Riddle of the Sands.

Ironically, in it, he warned of the threat to Britain

from an increasingly powerful Germany.

Now he was skippering his own yacht,

bringing weapons from Germany

to overturn British rule in Ireland.

His conversion was due in no small part to his wife, Molly Childers -

an American-born writer,

she was a staunch Irish nationalist

with a distaste for Imperialism

and England.

But the linchpin in the whole operation was Mary Spring Rice,

a liberal Anglo-Irish aristocrat,

born and bred in County Limerick,

and a passionate advocate of Irish culture.

I'm meeting Mary's nephew,

Charles Spring Rice, to find out

how a landed lady of the gentry took centre stage

in this revolutionary operation.

What part did she play in the mission itself?

She was partly to do with organising the money

to fund the guns that they were going to collect,

and she, also, was the person who first thought up the idea

of using private yachts.

Because she felt they're more likely to escape detection

if they took it in private boats -

particularly, in Cowes Week, as they were going to be going passed that.

One of her letters here talks about

how she worked at finding the right boat.

"I've heard from someone in Berlin who might be helpful.

"We have a bigger boat which might go under Childers' captaincy."

Right, so here she is sending off missives to all her contacts

-trying to get her...

-All her contacts she's working,

internationally, to try and find a solution.

-And succeeds.

-Yes.

Mary Spring Rice's hard work

drummed up £1,500 -

the equivalent of £150,000 today.

Enough to buy the guns, and fund the trip.

Republicans weren't the only ones arming themselves.

Just months earlier Loyalist volunteers in Northern Ireland

had also landed guns from Germany -

25,000 of them.

The clock was ticking.

Asgard and her cargo lit a touchpaper

that put the burning Irish question centre stage.

Two years elapsed between the arrival

and the firing of the guns

at the Easter Rising.

because nine days after the weapons came to this coast

World War One was declared.

And under cover of war, the rebels had time to plan their strike.

So what did Asgard mean to those fighting for an independent Ireland?

Was her role forgotten in the passage of time?

To answer that,

I've come to Kilmainham Gaol.

Here Easter Rising rebels

were held and executed.

Oppressive cell walls are covered

with political-prisoner graffiti.

It's just this cell here.

Archaeologist Dr Laura McAtackney

has unearthed one extraordinary scribbling.

It's very, very small,

and very faint.

It's a little bit of pencil under whitewash.

So what do you think this is?

If you look at this picture here...

We think it's probably supposed to be the Asgard.

Yes. And, actually, now you come to mention it,

it does have the sort of flamboyant double-sail sketched on the wall.

-Isn't it?

-It's very specific looking to the Asgard, we think.

It could've even had a picture that it was replicating,

because it's very detailed.

And if it is the Asgard, what does that actually tell us?

Well, it links into the idea

that Kilmainham Gaol was already becoming a nationalist icon.

So this is tying into that with another kind of nationalist icon

linking to the gun-running in Howth.

For the people imprisoned and killed in their fight for independence,

Asgard had become the symbol of their struggle.

She's now at the National Museum of Ireland.

It is incredible to finally see this 28-tonne yacht,

named the Harbinger of Liberty by Republicans.

For some, Asgard started and epitomised

a bloody conflict

that rumbles on to this day.

For others, this vessel is the symbol of independence

and the struggle to achieve it.

Either way,

this is an exquisite yacht

clearly not built for military purposes,

but which facilitated a mission with revolutionary intent.

One voyage, one boat

that changed the course of Irish and British history.

Coast is exploring the Irish Sea...

..a small body of water that touches

and binds our nations.

Ferries ply a profitable trade across this sea...

..Dublin to Holyhead...

..Cairnryan to Larne...

..but some have found novel ways to cross from coast to coast.

It's nothing new.

This sea has long-inspired creative thinking.

In the 18th century,

plans were afoot at the tiny town of Whitehead,

to permanently bridge the gap.

Without the haze, Scotland would be clearly visible

across this 25-mile gulf between here and the Mull of Galloway.

Linking these two coasts must surely have seemed possible.

I'm meeting Exeter University Professor Nick Groom.

He's studied some of the more eccentric ideas

to bring our coasts together.

In 1722, an anonymous satirist published a pamphlet

called Thoughts of a Project for the Draining of the Irish Channel.

-Drain the Irish Sea?

-Drain the Irish Sea.

What do you think Britain and Ireland would have gained

had we done away with all this water?

The suggestion was to recover treasure from shipwrecks,

also the seasoned timbers from shipwrecks

that could then be used to build fishing traps

for some of the larger sea creatures that are there.

And what sea creatures would we find?

Well, we're talking about "Sea-Goats, Kids, Apes, Baboons,

"Sea-Bitches Babies, Foxes and their Cubs."

So you'd lose the sea and gain a land of opportunity.

That's one of the implications of this pamphlet.

It's to get its readers thinking about the definition of Britain,

its relationship with Ireland.

So the Irish Sea isn't necessarily something that separates,

it's something which actually brings the isles together.

The notion was tongue-in-cheek,

but the desire to connect was deep-rooted.

It emerged again during the 1890s

in another idea to link Britain and Ireland.

It would've made little Whitehead the mighty gateway to the Irish Sea.

If I'd been sitting here in the early 1900s,

I might have been right beside the railway tunnel entrance

of a steam railway line

emerging from beneath the Irish Sea.

This is the front cover for a proposal for four railway tunnels.

They hadn't yet decided which one they wanted to build.

One of them went from Donaghadee to Portpatrick,

the second one from Whitehead - where I'm sitting now -

across to Portpatrick.

A third one, from Whitehead across to Stranraer,

and a fourth one further north from Cushendun

across the Mull of Kintyre.

The tunnels were the brainchild of civil engineer

Luke Livingston Macassey.

Recognising the Irish Sea's importance to trade,

he wanted to tap into the ever-expanding railways.

This proposed line was linking places that were further afield,

through trains between Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester,

Belfast and Londonderry.

Pros and cons were debated in Parliament.

Unfortunately, the grand plans came with a hefty price tag -

up to £200 million.

The scheme was reluctantly shelved,

so no tunnel.

But generations have still made the crossing.

The Irish Sea is not so much a gulf,

more a bridge connecting neighbours.

It's long been a route to new shores,

from those fleeing famine in 19th century Ireland,

to those escaping further afield.

But these waters are tinged with tragedy.

Lambay, off the coast of Dublin.

A sleeping giant whose Gaelic name is Island of the Shipwrecks.

It's lured Miranda and Cassie

to investigate a coastal calamity

that shocked Victorian society.

Behind me, looming out of the water,

are the sheer and jagged cliffs of Lambay Island.

A 150 years ago, these rocks claimed an unsuspecting prey -

a ship that was heralded as a symbol of the modern era,

a ship that was on her maiden voyage,

and a ship were hundreds of people died.

This was the Royal Mail ship Tayleur,

the Titanic of the Victorian age.

And like Titanic, the RMS Tayleur was hailed as the biggest,

finest vessel in the world -

pride of the White Star Line.

She was one of the first iron-hulled ships.

On-board for her maiden voyage in the winter of 1854,

were 700 excited travellers -

entire families immigrating to a new world, Australia.

But eager hopes for a new life were dashed.

The Tayleur now rests in a watery grave 18 metres below the waves.

The murky details of her fateful voyage have never been

fully pieced together.

So I'm going to be heading into the water to investigate

this enigmatic wreck to find out how much of her is left

and see if I can find any clues as to why she sank.

Helping me by scrutinising the evidence on land

is Cassie Newland.

I want to trace the ship's maiden voyage,

so I'm starting where RMS Tayleur was built.

An unlikely spot for ship-building, Warrington,

19 miles up the River Mersey.

It's where I'm meeting historian Gill Hoffs,

who's spent years researching the story.

-Hiya, Gill. How you doing?

-Hello.

-I'm Cassie.

-Nice to meet you.

So what's the Tayleur like?

She's glorious - look.

Can you imagine this beauty sailing down here?

She was enormous, she was luxurious,

and she was revolutionary.

She was one of the first iron clippers

and she was meant to be the fastest, the safest

and most splendid vessel afloat.

-She had two flush toilets.

-In the 1850s?

-In the 1850s.

-Oh, very posh!

The Tayleur made her way down the Mersey to Liverpool.

The burden of expectation on this supposedly safe ship, immense.

She and her eager passengers left the coast

amid great fanfare on the 19th of January, 1854.

Just 48 hours into her maiden voyage,

she was enveloped in thick mist

and veering drastically off course,

heading for Lambay.

"SAILOR": Land-ho on the lee bow!

Swept towards the island,

winter winds caught the sails.

Ropes jammed around the rigging and the mast.

The crew were unable to pull in the sails

against the power of the wind.

The rocks rose like a mountain

out of the middle of the sea,

as the tide pushed them inland.

The captain ordered the anchors to be dropped,

the chains snapped like glass.

The mid-section smashed into the rocks,

and she started sinking by the stern within minutes.

At this time the scene was one of the most appalling description,

people ran wildly to-and-fro

uttering the most piercing cries of distress.

One man convinced hope was lost,

wrote a message in a bottle.

"Many passengers and crew are now drowning before my eyes,

"and there's no assistance.

"My wife is also lost."

Around 380 passengers and 30 crew perished.

Cassie's got hold of the ship's plans and cargo list

to investigate the disaster.

I want to find out why the Tayleur sank

when she's supposed to be a cutting-edge ship.

And I'm hoping my interest in Victorian engineering

is going to help me do that.

Weaknesses are clear immediately.

The wide gap between the masts

would affect the centre of gravity and, therefore, handling.

The tiny rudder is built for speed not sharp manoeuvre.

But I think the key factor is what the boat's made of -

it's an iron hull,

and we know that that can disrupt your compass readings.

To work out how much,

I'm doing a little experiment.

Now this is a compass as we know it - it points north.

But it's a very simple system.

All you need is a magnetised needle like this one,

on a freely rotation axis

which we can make like this.

And with any luck...

Yeah - it's really simple -

it's now pointing north.

The iron in our magnetised needle

is drawn to the strongest magnetic force.

In this case, that is the natural magnetic force created by the Earth.

So, now, if we take these chains

and pretend that they are the iron hull of the boat

and wrapping it around the bowl...

the needle moves. It's not pointing to the north any more.

Instead, it's drawn to the iron that its nearest to it,

and if you think about the hull of the Tayleur -

that is 1,750 tonnes of iron,

the deflection can be quite substantial,

and that's very dangerous.

It was a well-known issue,

and iron-clad ships usually re-set their compasses to compensate.

But the Tayleur had an additional problem.

More iron was loaded into the ship in the form of cargo -

things like great coils of barbed wire,

plough shears, pots and pans...

And most importantly for our disaster,

a full-sized river ship.

The compass, vital on the boat,

is no longer pointing north.

It might only be a few degrees out,

but when you're crossing the Irish Sea

it's the difference between going down here,

or ending up on the rocks here.

We've got special permission to dive the wreck

and I'm hoping that I can find out just a little bit more about her

by getting a bit closer.

Today the wreck is a protected site,

so nothing can be removed or disturbed.

It's so eerie down here.

Very poor visibility.

Oh, I see the first bit of wreckage.

The ship's obviously lying on her side.

This is the site of one of the portholes.

Is this the chain here? Yes, look at this.

This is the anchor chain.

Look at the size of the links there!

Something that thick, actually snapped.

That is how powerful the winds and the waves and the tides were

on the day she was wrecked.

This ship was carrying hundreds of young families,

who'd eagerly packed all their worldly goods.

Can you see these stacked one on top of another?

These are roof slates, believe it or not!

So they were travelling with all the equipment they'd need

to set-up a new life.

Chillingly, they even took their own gravestones.

And it feels very spooky.

Oh, my God, there's a bit of pottery!

Look at this!

It's just here...

I can't touch it, but just here...

you can see the white of a piece of pottery.

Now, that's some sort of bowl

or maybe the top of a jug.

It's all just coming alive now.

Underwater I can only get tantalising glimpses of the cargo,

so local diver Harry Breslin

who was among the first ever to explore the wreck,

has brought some stunning artefacts to show me.

SHE GASPS Yeah, so this is, erm...

Oh, my goodness!

A little pepper canister.

Look at that...! That's absolutely beautiful.

-And it's perfectly intact.

-Yes, indeed.

I like to feel it's something special, you know, and, er...

It's a real personal thing, isn't it? A personal item.

-It sat on their table, this is what they used to flavour their food with.

-Indeed.

Oh, look at that.

I mean, that looks like you've just bought it from the shop, doesn't it?

That is absolutely beautiful.

There's not a chip or a scratch on it.

These incredible finds are a direct connection

with the ordinary families on board,

all with their own stories.

But one statistic baffles me.

Just 3% of women and children

survived this tragedy,

compared with 70% of men.

Why?

Author Gill Hoffs has a theory.

The clothing that women wore at that time was very heavy,

it was incredibly restrictive,

and they could wear at least 16 layers, easy.

-16 layers?!

-16 layers.

And you'd be very constricted.

-So are these the clothes that they would've worn?

-These are similar.

This is a very, very heavy velvet overskirt.

-If you feel the weight of that.

-Oh! Yeah!

If you can imagine that drenched in water.

And the thing is, on board the ship you'd maybe get

to access your clothing maybe once a fortnight.

Once a week if it was excellent weather.

-And it's January.

-Yes.

-And it's freezing.

-Yes.

-And it's damp.

-Yes.

-I'd be wearing everything.

Passengers were advised to stitch valuables into their undergarments.

One corset had 200 sovereigns sewn into it.

Must weigh an absolute ton!

A sovereign is, what, eight grams? Something like that?

It's quite a hefty coin, isn't it?

-It is a hefty coin. Yes.

-It's like wearing a diver's weight belt.

One woman had £3,000.

Yes. She perished.

These tragic losses appalled a Victorian society

which championed the notion of "women and children first".

But even if they had gone first,

did their clothing condemn them to their deaths?

I've volunteered to test the theory.

My Victorian dress is heavy

and layered, and I've added a weight-belt.

But I'm wearing a wetsuit underneath

and have two lifeguards on standby.

That said, I'm still petrified!

Actually, moving anywhere,

in a direction, is really hard

cos you're just a giant sail.

I always think of myself as a very strong swimmer,

but when it starts getting caught around your feet it makes you panic

cos you can't do what you'd normally do to save yourself.

It's like dragging an anchor.

It's really knackering.

As time ticks by,

it's ever harder to stay afloat.

I wouldn't be able to keep this up for more than a few minutes.

You really feel for them as humans and families,

because there is so little you could possibly do to rescue the situation,

and some of them are travelling with 12 kids, and there's...

there's no way in hell...

There's no way in hell you can physically do it - you're beaten.

It's awful.

Less than half the passengers

managed to scramble ashore.

Only three women survived.

An inquest concluded the ship was under-crewed,

and White Star had made fatal mistakes.

But it now appears there were many more reasons for this shipwreck,

and her tragic death toll.

A combination of factors sealed her fate -

tides, winds, engineering...

But whilst the wreck of the Tayleur remains on the seabed,

at least the story is raised from the depths.

I've reached the end of my journey up the western Irish Sea coast.

But it's not quite the end of my time on this sea.

I'm catching a ferry back to another coast connected by this water.

I've visited Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland -

I'm finishing bound for Scotland.

The Irish Sea touches us in surprising ways,

and defines our island story.

A sea that takes

as it provides

people and ideas still carried

on the tides and currents of these waters.

Like the gyre,

the Irish Sea continues to swirl

with identities and connections

supporting life old and new -

produce, culture, tragedy and change

have all washed across the Irish Sea from coast to coast.

Perhaps we're not so much a collection of different countries

sharing the Irish Sea,

but, rather, people OF the Irish Sea.