1 00:00:15,167 --> 00:00:17,840 There is an Ireland shrouded in cliche--- 2 00:00:19,647 --> 00:00:21,763 ---of heroes and villains, 3 00:00:21,807 --> 00:00:23,638 lost battles and sad songs- 4 00:00:23,687 --> 00:00:26,645 Perched on the margins of Europe, 5 00:00:26,687 --> 00:00:30,202 a claustrophobic island cut off from the world, 6 00:00:30,247 --> 00:00:32,203 its people turned in on themselves, 7 00:00:32,247 --> 00:00:36,320 victims of their own ancient hatreds and of a powerful neighbour. 8 00:00:37,647 --> 00:00:40,719 That is not the Ireland of this journey- 9 00:00:40,767 --> 00:00:46,637 Our earliest writings show that we looked to worlds beyond the green island- 10 00:00:46,687 --> 00:00:50,760 From the patterns of our landscape to the roots of our cities, 11 00:00:50,807 --> 00:00:54,083 we were shaped by waves of migration and invasion- 12 00:00:56,367 --> 00:00:59,882 New languages, faiths, cultures came from outside, 13 00:00:59,927 --> 00:01:01,679 and still do- 14 00:01:03,327 --> 00:01:07,366 I will travel through the physical landscape and the ideas and peoples 15 00:01:07,407 --> 00:01:11,480 of a story striking because it is so unpredictable- 16 00:01:13,007 --> 00:01:18,843 But it is also a journey through other worlds whose history changed Ireland- 17 00:01:18,887 --> 00:01:25,156 Crossing continents - from Europe, to America, to Africa- 18 00:01:26,607 --> 00:01:30,725 The old view, which saw the complex history of Ireland 19 00:01:30,767 --> 00:01:33,759 solely within the boundaries of what happened on this island, 20 00:01:33,807 --> 00:01:35,365 or simply through the prism 21 00:01:35,407 --> 00:01:37,796 of conflict between the British and the Irish, 22 00:01:37,847 --> 00:01:40,759 is mistaken, but above all, self-limiting. 23 00:01:40,807 --> 00:01:44,846 The real story of Ireland is so much bigger. 24 00:02:11,127 --> 00:02:16,724 I remember walking in this garden of remembrance in 1966 with my father- 25 00:02:16,767 --> 00:02:20,077 It was the 50th anniversary of the Rising of 1916 26 00:02:20,127 --> 00:02:24,643 and a great wave of patriotic sentiment swept the country- 27 00:02:30,247 --> 00:02:36,356 Here, they constructed a memorial, which celebrated revolution, faith... 28 00:02:36,407 --> 00:02:39,046 and an idealised ancient world- 29 00:02:39,087 --> 00:02:43,638 At its centre, this sculpture of the mythical Children of Lir, 30 00:02:43,687 --> 00:02:48,158 condemned by an evil stepmother to wander the oceans as swans 31 00:02:48,207 --> 00:02:51,244 until the coming of Christianity sets them free- 32 00:02:52,447 --> 00:02:55,837 It was intended as a symbol of national resurrection, 33 00:02:55,887 --> 00:02:59,323 but also to say to my generation and those that followed 34 00:02:59,367 --> 00:03:01,835 that we belonged to an unbroken line, 35 00:03:01,887 --> 00:03:04,720 stretching back into a glorious Celtic past. 36 00:03:08,647 --> 00:03:12,925 Our leaders stressed our difference to the departed British- 37 00:03:14,727 --> 00:03:19,323 The idea of an ancient people of one faith was central to our identity- 38 00:03:26,127 --> 00:03:29,164 The real Irish were Gaelic and Catholic- 39 00:03:32,727 --> 00:03:34,877 (DRUMS BEAT) 40 00:03:34,927 --> 00:03:38,886 In the Ireland of the mid-1960s, I knew little of an outside world 41 00:03:38,927 --> 00:03:43,000 or of the Ulster Protestants, with their British identity- 42 00:03:44,607 --> 00:03:46,723 They seemed to me an alien tribe, 43 00:03:46,767 --> 00:03:52,683 marching to what the poet Louis MacNeice called ''the voodoo of the Orange drums''- 44 00:03:54,527 --> 00:03:57,724 But a decade later, in the mid-1970s, 45 00:03:57,767 --> 00:04:01,316 the story of Ireland I was being taught had changed- 46 00:04:01,367 --> 00:04:05,326 School was no longer an echo chamber of the like-minded- 47 00:04:07,647 --> 00:04:11,526 In the shadow of the northern Troubles, the old certainties would not do- 48 00:04:11,567 --> 00:04:16,482 We were being asked to imagine a more complex set of Irish identities- 49 00:04:17,727 --> 00:04:21,322 The idea of Irishness, of what it meant to be an Irishman, 50 00:04:21,367 --> 00:04:24,325 that you grew up, that I grew up with, was pretty simple, wasn't it? 51 00:04:24,367 --> 00:04:27,564 I suppose it was a standard version. 52 00:04:27,607 --> 00:04:31,520 It was a Republican tradition and you didn't see outside that. 53 00:04:31,567 --> 00:04:35,879 We all marched to that song and to that drum, you know. 54 00:04:35,927 --> 00:04:37,565 It took a long time to change it. 55 00:04:37,607 --> 00:04:41,361 When you came here to teach people like me, did you have a sense, 56 00:04:41,407 --> 00:04:44,638 a feeling that you had to broaden our minds? 57 00:04:44,687 --> 00:04:49,477 I suppose what I was trying to do was to show 58 00:04:49,527 --> 00:04:52,963 that there were other ways of looking at maybe the same thing. 59 00:04:53,007 --> 00:04:58,479 I always remember giving an essay, you know, ''Carson, Irish patriot.'' 60 00:04:58,527 --> 00:05:01,485 FERGAL: The great Unionist Loyalist leader in the North? 61 00:05:01,527 --> 00:05:03,279 I left it at that. 62 00:05:04,567 --> 00:05:08,606 I remember one kid said, ''Sir, that doesn't make any sense.'' 63 00:05:08,647 --> 00:05:12,196 I said, ''How do you mean, it doesn't make any sense?'' 64 00:05:12,247 --> 00:05:17,082 I said, ''Carson wanted the union of Ireland and Britain.'' 65 00:05:17,127 --> 00:05:20,676 He wanted what, for him, was the best thing for Ireland. 66 00:05:20,727 --> 00:05:25,517 Now, can you say that he's not a patriot because he doesn't agree with you? 67 00:05:25,567 --> 00:05:27,717 I was trying to do that kind of thing. 68 00:05:27,767 --> 00:05:30,725 And telling the true history is key to that, isn't it? 69 00:05:30,767 --> 00:05:33,725 It is. But you see, you come back then, ''What's truth?'' 70 00:05:40,767 --> 00:05:43,918 Walking the streets of Cork now, 71 00:05:43,967 --> 00:05:47,198 I find the city proud of its links with the world beyond, 72 00:05:47,247 --> 00:05:51,718 and willing to acknowledge a history made of many influences, 73 00:05:51,767 --> 00:05:55,203 in which Irishness embraced different allegiances- 74 00:05:59,967 --> 00:06:02,640 Our story of Ireland begins by going back 75 00:06:02,687 --> 00:06:05,918 through a landscape marked by the change of centuries, 76 00:06:05,967 --> 00:06:09,403 through the scattering of tribes--- 77 00:06:09,447 --> 00:06:11,961 the rise and fall of kings--- 78 00:06:13,367 --> 00:06:16,484 ---through prosperity and war--- 79 00:06:17,967 --> 00:06:20,276 ---and a revolution of faith- 80 00:06:24,247 --> 00:06:27,762 The first waves of settlers are thought to have come from Europe 81 00:06:27,807 --> 00:06:29,923 about I O,OOO years ago- 82 00:06:29,967 --> 00:06:32,640 This ancient burial site at Newgrange 83 00:06:32,687 --> 00:06:35,759 is the oldest known building in Ireland- 84 00:06:45,407 --> 00:06:49,525 Across the ancient world, men build monuments to their dead. 85 00:06:49,567 --> 00:06:53,765 But this structure at Newgrange predates some of the most famous. 86 00:06:53,807 --> 00:06:59,803 It was built 500 years before the Pyramids of Giza, I,000 years before Stonehenge. 87 00:06:59,847 --> 00:07:02,441 But what can it tell us about the lives 88 00:07:02,487 --> 00:07:06,196 of some of the earliest inhabitants of this island? 89 00:07:16,807 --> 00:07:21,961 MAN: People first came to Ireland about 8,000 BC, after the end of the Ice Age. 90 00:07:22,007 --> 00:07:24,840 Farming comes into Ireland about 4,000 BC 91 00:07:24,887 --> 00:07:27,879 and Newgrange is built in the centuries just before 3,000 BC. 92 00:07:27,927 --> 00:07:32,205 FERGAL: Why would they build something like this? What were they trying to say? 93 00:07:32,247 --> 00:07:35,717 PR0FESS0R C00NEY: I think, for early farmers, the notion of ancestry, 94 00:07:35,767 --> 00:07:38,839 that's really the central focus of this world. 95 00:07:38,887 --> 00:07:43,278 The monuments themselves contain selected bones of the ancestors. 96 00:07:44,447 --> 00:07:46,915 This is the world of the dead, 97 00:07:46,967 --> 00:07:49,959 but it's capable of influencing the lives of the living... 98 00:07:50,007 --> 00:07:53,124 which of course is very much orientated around the farming cycle, 99 00:07:53,167 --> 00:07:54,919 the importance of the seasons. 100 00:07:54,967 --> 00:07:57,435 So, of course, you want to align your monuments 101 00:07:57,487 --> 00:07:59,159 to the critical points of the year. 102 00:07:59,207 --> 00:08:01,880 In the case of Newgrange, on sunrise at the winter solstice. 103 00:08:03,287 --> 00:08:06,438 Newgrange is part of a sort of international Atlantic phenomenon 104 00:08:06,487 --> 00:08:12,005 of passage tomb building which takes us from Spain to southern Scandinavia. 105 00:08:13,327 --> 00:08:19,277 FERGAL: So they were conscious of being part of a wider human race, 106 00:08:19,327 --> 00:08:22,683 - not just stuck on this island? - Very much so. Absolutely, and I think 107 00:08:22,727 --> 00:08:27,005 these early farmers building this monument would have realised 108 00:08:27,047 --> 00:08:29,561 and would probably have had stories about places that were far away, 109 00:08:29,607 --> 00:08:31,677 how things worked in other areas. 110 00:08:33,887 --> 00:08:36,526 Neither archaeology or genetics can tell us 111 00:08:36,567 --> 00:08:40,526 the names of any of the tribes who settled in this early Ireland- 112 00:08:51,447 --> 00:08:54,883 But in the beautiful artefacts of the Bronze Age, 113 00:08:54,927 --> 00:08:59,239 we can see a culture shared with groups in Britain and Europe, 114 00:08:59,287 --> 00:09:02,404 whom later historians would call the Celts- 115 00:09:12,487 --> 00:09:15,047 Tiny decorations. 116 00:09:15,087 --> 00:09:20,002 This lovely collar was worn for decorative reasons, one presumes. 117 00:09:20,047 --> 00:09:23,323 What does that tell you about the people who made it 118 00:09:23,367 --> 00:09:24,959 and about the times they lived in? 119 00:09:25,007 --> 00:09:26,486 Beyond being just decorative, 120 00:09:26,527 --> 00:09:32,716 they are actually a way of identifying particular people in society, 121 00:09:32,767 --> 00:09:36,999 because, no more than our own age, um... 122 00:09:37,047 --> 00:09:39,686 you know, I'm not decked out in diamonds, 123 00:09:39,727 --> 00:09:45,006 and I'm hardly likely ever to be, but if I was at that particular level of society, 124 00:09:45,047 --> 00:09:47,925 whether it's a question of wealth or position, 125 00:09:47,967 --> 00:09:49,798 then I would have needed a particular status 126 00:09:49,847 --> 00:09:51,803 in order to be entitled to wear these objects. 127 00:09:51,847 --> 00:09:55,283 0f course, if I was male, I might have been entitled to wear a lunula. 128 00:09:55,327 --> 00:09:57,397 So we know there was a hierarchy by this stage. 129 00:09:57,447 --> 00:10:00,166 Yes, there definitely has to be a hierarchy. 130 00:10:00,207 --> 00:10:04,519 You also have here something which fascinated me when I heard about it 131 00:10:04,567 --> 00:10:07,001 because it comes from so far away, and that's amber. 132 00:10:07,047 --> 00:10:09,117 And you go all the way to the Baltic to find it. 133 00:10:09,167 --> 00:10:13,365 Yes, amber really comes into its own in Ireland in the late Bronze Age. 134 00:10:13,407 --> 00:10:18,640 We're really lucky in this country because most of it has been buried in peat bogs 135 00:10:18,687 --> 00:10:21,360 and as a result it's extremely well-preserved. 136 00:10:21,407 --> 00:10:23,204 - We've got some here. - Yes. 137 00:10:23,247 --> 00:10:25,841 - This is part of a necklace... - How did it get here 138 00:10:25,887 --> 00:10:28,879 from the Baltic coast, from Poland or somewhere like that? 139 00:10:28,927 --> 00:10:32,158 - You always ask difficult questions! - Well, that's my job! 140 00:10:33,767 --> 00:10:36,361 This does at least tell us somebody comes from Northern Europe 141 00:10:36,407 --> 00:10:40,195 here, with this material in quite considerable amounts. 142 00:10:40,247 --> 00:10:43,603 Well, somebody may not have come, somebody may have been handing it on, 143 00:10:43,647 --> 00:10:47,196 and it may have come through many different hands before it reaches Ireland. 144 00:10:47,247 --> 00:10:52,367 What we do know is, a lot of it came and a lot of it has been preserved, 145 00:10:52,407 --> 00:10:56,844 because of this tendency to deposit these hoards in bogs. 146 00:10:59,687 --> 00:11:03,919 There is a surface landscape which offers immediate clues to our past- 147 00:11:03,967 --> 00:11:08,563 And there is the Irish story concealed beneath our bog land- 148 00:11:08,607 --> 00:11:12,759 One-sixth of Ireland, more than any other European country, 149 00:11:12,807 --> 00:11:18,200 lies under bog, formed after early farmers began to clear the upland forest 150 00:11:18,247 --> 00:11:21,319 2,500 years before Christ- 151 00:11:25,527 --> 00:11:28,280 This is a patch of bog in North Kerry 152 00:11:28,327 --> 00:11:32,764 that's been dug by my family for fuel for the fire for several generations- 153 00:11:34,327 --> 00:11:38,320 The poet Seamus Heaney described the men who worked the bogs 154 00:11:38,367 --> 00:11:42,918 as ''our pioneers, driving inwards and downwards. 155 00:11:42,967 --> 00:11:46,437 ''Every layer they strip seems camped on before.'' 156 00:11:48,687 --> 00:11:51,645 And as today's farmers have dug deeper, they have found 157 00:11:51,687 --> 00:11:53,723 evidence of our earliest ancestors, 158 00:11:53,767 --> 00:11:57,476 and links with a wider world. 159 00:12:01,247 --> 00:12:06,321 This is Clonycavan Man, a 2,OOO-year-old Irishman, 160 00:12:06,367 --> 00:12:09,996 whose body was preserved by the unique chemistry of the bogs- 161 00:12:14,727 --> 00:12:19,881 Do we know anything about this man - who he was, where he came from? 162 00:12:19,927 --> 00:12:24,842 Well, we know he was found in a bog on the West Meath border. We know that 163 00:12:24,887 --> 00:12:29,039 he was killed ritually more than 2,000 years ago. 164 00:12:29,087 --> 00:12:31,726 - How was he killed? - He was struck first in the face, 165 00:12:31,767 --> 00:12:33,246 which broke his nose. 166 00:12:33,287 --> 00:12:36,040 And when he fell down, his head was split with an axe. 167 00:12:36,087 --> 00:12:40,205 His stomach was cut across, he was probably disembowelled as well. 168 00:12:40,247 --> 00:12:41,999 - Why would they have done that? - We think 169 00:12:42,047 --> 00:12:46,484 that this man was probably a king who was killed, 170 00:12:46,527 --> 00:12:50,281 and a number of means of execution were employed 171 00:12:50,327 --> 00:12:55,959 because the goddess to whom he was being sacrificed appears in a number of forms, 172 00:12:56,007 --> 00:12:58,521 so they had to sacrifice in all her forms. 173 00:13:01,927 --> 00:13:05,078 You can see, he had this very unusual hairstyle. 174 00:13:05,127 --> 00:13:07,243 The front of the forehead is shaved 175 00:13:07,287 --> 00:13:10,040 and the rest of the hair was bundled up a bit like a Mohawk. 176 00:13:10,087 --> 00:13:13,284 An that was held in place with a hair gel 177 00:13:13,327 --> 00:13:18,162 which was made using resin imported from the Pyrenees. 178 00:13:19,687 --> 00:13:23,202 The very fact that you find resin from the Mediterranean in his hair 179 00:13:23,247 --> 00:13:25,477 suggests we were trading with that region. 180 00:13:27,567 --> 00:13:30,035 EAM0NN KELLY: Ireland's position as an island 181 00:13:30,087 --> 00:13:32,078 doesn't isolate it in ancient times. 182 00:13:32,127 --> 00:13:33,958 It makes it more accessible 183 00:13:34,007 --> 00:13:37,477 because travel by sea is much easier than travel over land. 184 00:13:41,647 --> 00:13:45,401 Clonycavan Man gives us our first sight of an Irishman- 185 00:13:50,207 --> 00:13:54,644 And here in the National Museum, we see some of the finest examples 186 00:13:54,687 --> 00:13:57,440 of what we now consider Celtic art- 187 00:14:00,327 --> 00:14:05,082 But the idea of the Irish as racially Celtic, unlike the Anglo-Saxon English, 188 00:14:05,127 --> 00:14:06,765 belongs to the 19th century- 189 00:14:08,087 --> 00:14:10,396 For nationalists and their English enemies, 190 00:14:10,447 --> 00:14:14,326 much depended on belonging to an imagined finer race- 191 00:14:14,367 --> 00:14:17,996 So, was Clonycavan Man a Celt? 192 00:14:18,047 --> 00:14:22,916 He would have been Celtic in the sense that he would have spoken 193 00:14:22,967 --> 00:14:25,037 a Celtic language, he would have spoken 194 00:14:25,087 --> 00:14:28,762 an early form of the Gaelic language, the Irish language. 195 00:14:28,807 --> 00:14:35,201 And the art is associated with Celtic people on the Continent. 196 00:14:36,527 --> 00:14:42,523 I don't think it means that we are racially descended from a Celtic nation. 197 00:14:42,567 --> 00:14:48,642 Genetically, this man doesn't have a lot to do with the Gauls of France 198 00:14:48,687 --> 00:14:52,566 or the Celts of central Europe as described by the Greeks and the Romans. 199 00:14:52,607 --> 00:14:56,885 So we Irish - let me just nail this one down, because it's critical - 200 00:14:56,927 --> 00:15:01,637 we are no more racially Celtic than our English neighbours, are we? 201 00:15:01,687 --> 00:15:05,316 No, we're no more so, nor less so. 202 00:15:05,367 --> 00:15:07,835 0ur cousins on the other island 203 00:15:07,887 --> 00:15:13,280 have certainly as much a claim to their Celtic past, I think, as we have. 204 00:15:17,447 --> 00:15:19,881 The murdered man from the Meath bog 205 00:15:19,927 --> 00:15:24,557 reveals something of how the Irish lived several hundred years before Christ- 206 00:15:29,247 --> 00:15:33,604 Their gods were the gods of nature, whom they appeased with sacrifice- 207 00:15:33,647 --> 00:15:38,801 They had developed a social organisation, with kings at the pinnacle of power- 208 00:15:40,367 --> 00:15:43,996 Their artwork was delicate and distinctive- 209 00:15:45,807 --> 00:15:49,720 And they were already linked by trade to the cultures of the classical world- 210 00:15:49,767 --> 00:15:54,761 Clonycavan Man and his contemporaries left no written record. 211 00:15:54,807 --> 00:15:59,881 0ur distant ancestors exist for us as tantalising shadows. 212 00:15:59,927 --> 00:16:04,398 And when the story of that ancient Irish world starts to be written, 213 00:16:04,447 --> 00:16:07,917 the narrative is scripted for us by others. 214 00:16:17,087 --> 00:16:21,842 The writers of their classical world conjured their own stories of Ireland- 215 00:16:23,287 --> 00:16:24,925 In the 9th century BC, 216 00:16:24,967 --> 00:16:28,926 the Greek poet Homer described the whole of northwestern Europe as, 217 00:16:28,967 --> 00:16:31,003 ''A land of fog and gloom, 218 00:16:31,047 --> 00:16:35,040 ''beyond it is a sea of death where hell begins-'' 219 00:16:40,287 --> 00:16:41,845 But our first detailed account of Ireland 220 00:16:41,887 --> 00:16:47,837 comes long after Classical Greece has been overtaken by an all-conquering new power- 221 00:17:01,767 --> 00:17:06,636 750 years after Homer, the Romans invaded Britain- 222 00:17:10,567 --> 00:17:12,125 (MEN SH0UTING) 223 00:17:20,407 --> 00:17:25,037 Julius Caesar landed here on the Kent coast in 55 BC. 224 00:17:25,087 --> 00:17:27,726 Now, given his restless ambition, 225 00:17:27,767 --> 00:17:31,476 it would have seemed natural for him to complete the conquest of Britain 226 00:17:31,527 --> 00:17:35,076 and then move on to invade the neighbouring island. 227 00:17:35,127 --> 00:17:39,962 But in Caesar's mind, Ireland was a place of fearful myth. 228 00:17:40,007 --> 00:17:42,885 He called it Hibernia, the land of winter. 229 00:17:44,087 --> 00:17:49,207 A geographer living under Caesar's rule described the Irish as a cannibal race 230 00:17:49,247 --> 00:17:52,956 who deemed it commendable to devour their deceased fathers 231 00:17:53,007 --> 00:17:57,080 and who lived a miserable existence because of the cold. 232 00:17:59,327 --> 00:18:03,445 But Mediterranean traders had long been immune to such dire warnings 233 00:18:03,487 --> 00:18:06,285 and with the knowledge they brought back, 234 00:18:06,327 --> 00:18:09,797 a scholar created a geographical masterpiece- 235 00:18:12,727 --> 00:18:16,197 In this medieval copy of his book, Geographia, 236 00:18:16,247 --> 00:18:18,602 we can see how Ptolemy mapped the world 237 00:18:18,647 --> 00:18:22,435 as it was known to the Romans around 150 AD- 238 00:18:23,687 --> 00:18:27,077 And there, on the westernmost point, is Hibernia- 239 00:18:27,127 --> 00:18:31,086 This is the first map of Ireland and its peoples- 240 00:18:35,807 --> 00:18:38,196 (INAUDIBLE) 241 00:18:38,247 --> 00:18:39,885 We can recognise some of the names. 242 00:18:39,927 --> 00:18:42,805 For example, Eblani is usually interpreted as Dublin. 243 00:18:45,287 --> 00:18:46,845 The river names - the Shannon is there, for example. 244 00:18:46,887 --> 00:18:51,165 The River Lee, I suppose, which all Cork people would like to see mentioned. 245 00:18:51,207 --> 00:18:53,198 There are some names, interestingly enough... 246 00:18:53,247 --> 00:18:54,839 Here we have Brigantes, for example, 247 00:18:54,887 --> 00:18:59,085 and the Brigantes over here in West Wales, and they are clearly related. 248 00:18:59,127 --> 00:19:00,719 FERGAL: What does that tell us? 249 00:19:00,767 --> 00:19:03,440 Well, it works two ways. Either it means that there were Brigantes 250 00:19:03,487 --> 00:19:06,923 here in the west of Britain first of all, who then migrated to Ireland. 251 00:19:06,967 --> 00:19:08,446 But it is possible 252 00:19:08,487 --> 00:19:11,240 that they might actually represent population groups 253 00:19:11,287 --> 00:19:14,518 that originated in Ireland and then came to the western province of Britain, 254 00:19:14,567 --> 00:19:15,841 because you do have 255 00:19:15,887 --> 00:19:18,321 quite substantial Irish settlement in western Britain, 256 00:19:18,367 --> 00:19:19,766 in Wales as we know it nowadays. 257 00:19:19,807 --> 00:19:24,403 FERGAL: This notion of the Irish colonising parts of Britain, 258 00:19:24,447 --> 00:19:28,156 it rather turns our historical sense of things on its head, doesn't it? 259 00:19:28,207 --> 00:19:30,357 We always like to see ourselves as the eternally put-upon... 260 00:19:30,407 --> 00:19:32,716 - It could be problematical. - ...conquered by the other lot. 261 00:19:32,767 --> 00:19:34,758 - We were doing the same. - In this day and age, 262 00:19:34,807 --> 00:19:38,766 we're insisting that everybody apologise to us, including our nearest neighbours. 263 00:19:38,807 --> 00:19:40,206 But I suppose 264 00:19:40,247 --> 00:19:42,920 if you go back far enough, we invaded them before they invaded us. 265 00:19:42,967 --> 00:19:45,276 So, if there are apologies to be bandied about, 266 00:19:45,327 --> 00:19:47,636 we might take the first step, you know. 267 00:20:01,247 --> 00:20:04,557 It seems the Romans did briefly contemplate an invasion 268 00:20:04,607 --> 00:20:07,917 until trouble in Scotland called the legions away- 269 00:20:09,247 --> 00:20:14,367 And so Ireland was never subordinated to Roman law or government- 270 00:20:17,727 --> 00:20:20,799 But they didn't need to dispatch an army to exert an influence 271 00:20:20,847 --> 00:20:22,405 that extended well beyond trade, 272 00:20:22,447 --> 00:20:25,120 into the realms of society and culture- 273 00:20:31,247 --> 00:20:35,957 This is a small bronze figure of one of the minor Roman deities. 274 00:20:36,007 --> 00:20:38,680 It was found in the River Boyne at Navan. 275 00:20:38,727 --> 00:20:41,719 - So, this is pre-Christian, this? - This is pagan Roman. 276 00:20:41,767 --> 00:20:46,443 It's a bit like if Ireland was on the edge of the European Community, 277 00:20:46,487 --> 00:20:49,320 you would expect that it would be trading with it. 278 00:20:49,367 --> 00:20:50,766 (C0WS M00ING) 279 00:20:50,807 --> 00:20:54,038 Ireland had cattle. Cattle would have been shipped over to Britain. 280 00:20:54,087 --> 00:20:58,638 Items like leather. The Roman army consumed vast amounts of leather. 281 00:20:58,687 --> 00:21:00,962 The cattle lords out on the central plains, 282 00:21:01,007 --> 00:21:03,646 they start getting notions of grandeur 283 00:21:03,687 --> 00:21:05,803 and they become important provincial kings 284 00:21:05,847 --> 00:21:07,246 of early medieval Ireland. 285 00:21:07,287 --> 00:21:09,437 You have the establishment of dynasties 286 00:21:09,487 --> 00:21:12,524 that continued in power for hundreds of years afterwards. 287 00:21:12,567 --> 00:21:15,240 But again, they were looking to the Roman world, 288 00:21:15,287 --> 00:21:17,517 to model themselves on the Roman emperors. 289 00:21:19,087 --> 00:21:24,036 By the 4th century, some Irish outposts on the west coast of Britain 290 00:21:24,087 --> 00:21:27,682 had expanded into kingdoms as more settlers came- 291 00:21:27,727 --> 00:21:31,640 ''They desire to go eastwards,'' wrote an early Gaelic poet, 292 00:21:31,687 --> 00:21:34,440 ''into the broad long-distant sea-'' 293 00:21:36,527 --> 00:21:38,757 A medieval scholar would later write that, 294 00:21:38,807 --> 00:21:40,843 ''The power of the Irish over the Britons was great-'' 295 00:21:45,687 --> 00:21:47,086 And there's some evidence 296 00:21:47,127 --> 00:21:50,756 that Irish traders were venturing into the heart of Roman Britain- 297 00:21:53,127 --> 00:21:57,166 Here in 1893, in the middle of the Home Counties, 298 00:21:57,207 --> 00:22:03,043 Victorian archaeologists excavating the Roman town of Silchester 299 00:22:03,087 --> 00:22:05,726 made a fascinating discovery- 300 00:22:05,767 --> 00:22:10,602 It was a 4th-century clue to the existence of a long-vanished Irishman- 301 00:22:15,607 --> 00:22:19,759 This type of inscribed stone is usually found only in Ireland 302 00:22:19,807 --> 00:22:22,924 or the far western fringes of Britain- 303 00:22:22,967 --> 00:22:27,677 These lines represent the oldest form of the Irish language- 304 00:22:31,527 --> 00:22:33,040 Michael, what is this stone? 305 00:22:33,087 --> 00:22:36,762 Well, it's a...it's a small Roman column. 306 00:22:38,447 --> 00:22:41,519 But what's very different about it 307 00:22:41,567 --> 00:22:44,923 is it's got this inscription on it in 0gham, 308 00:22:44,967 --> 00:22:47,720 and this transliterates into a man's name. 309 00:22:47,767 --> 00:22:49,325 Tepicatus. 310 00:22:49,367 --> 00:22:54,646 And here on this line, he's beginning to describe his lineage 311 00:22:54,687 --> 00:22:57,645 - just as you'd find on any 0gham stone. - I mean, I've seen these, 312 00:22:57,687 --> 00:23:01,362 you know, tucked away in graveyards in Ireland or in the middle of fields, 313 00:23:01,407 --> 00:23:02,965 - surrounded by trees. - Yes. 314 00:23:03,007 --> 00:23:05,123 - Here it is, an hour's drive from London. - Yes. 315 00:23:05,167 --> 00:23:09,126 MICHAEL FULF0RD: Away, away, away from other finds of such stones. 316 00:23:11,527 --> 00:23:13,722 FERGAL: It's extraordinary to me, 317 00:23:13,767 --> 00:23:16,964 this idea that you have an Irishman who sets out, 318 00:23:17,007 --> 00:23:22,161 settles among people from everywhere, from all corners of the empire. 319 00:23:22,207 --> 00:23:23,845 It truly was a multicultural, 320 00:23:23,887 --> 00:23:27,323 - multilingual world that he lived in. - Yes. Yes. 321 00:23:27,367 --> 00:23:31,440 And it's not just the one person, but it's a group, it's a family, 322 00:23:31,487 --> 00:23:33,603 and it's other people supporting a community. 323 00:23:33,647 --> 00:23:37,879 Now, it may be he was a big figure, he was a local king. I mean, who knows? 324 00:23:37,927 --> 00:23:40,839 Because we have another Celtic man 325 00:23:40,887 --> 00:23:44,118 from another end of Roman town story up in Wroxeter, 326 00:23:44,167 --> 00:23:46,362 who did describe himself as a king. 327 00:23:46,407 --> 00:23:49,524 So, you may have had Irishmen who had his domain here 328 00:23:49,567 --> 00:23:53,640 in those sort of end days of the Roman world, in the 5th, 6th century. 329 00:23:58,767 --> 00:24:02,999 FERGAL: The Roman Empire in which Tepicatus lived was already in decline. 330 00:24:03,047 --> 00:24:06,801 But its impact was still profound. 331 00:24:06,847 --> 00:24:09,486 Christianity had become the state religion. 332 00:24:09,527 --> 00:24:13,725 Clerics were despatched all over Europe to spread the word. 333 00:24:17,767 --> 00:24:21,726 The faith that would come to be seen as a core part of Irish identity 334 00:24:21,767 --> 00:24:25,555 was brought to an island steeped in the worship of pagan gods- 335 00:24:31,847 --> 00:24:36,443 Rome's first Bishop to Ireland was dispatched in AD 43 I- 336 00:24:36,487 --> 00:24:42,198 He was Palladius, the son of a Roman general, who found, by one account, that, 337 00:24:42,247 --> 00:24:47,082 ''The fierce and cruel men did not receive his doctrine readily-'' 338 00:24:47,127 --> 00:24:49,880 His memory would be obliterated 339 00:24:49,927 --> 00:24:52,122 by events which would create 340 00:24:52,167 --> 00:24:56,604 Ireland's first and most enduring cult of personality- 341 00:24:57,967 --> 00:25:03,678 It is the story of a spiritual revolution born in an age of imperial collapse- 342 00:25:03,727 --> 00:25:05,365 (SH0UTING) 343 00:25:08,687 --> 00:25:13,920 Since the beginning of the 5th century, barbarian attacks on Rome had escalated 344 00:25:13,967 --> 00:25:18,165 and the legions were called from Britain to defend the eternal city- 345 00:25:18,207 --> 00:25:21,643 In the vacuum after the departure of the army, 346 00:25:21,687 --> 00:25:24,963 Irish raids on the British coast expanded- 347 00:25:30,087 --> 00:25:34,080 The expansion was driven by a lust for plunder and by trade, 348 00:25:34,127 --> 00:25:38,439 and one of the most lucrative markets of all was slavery. 349 00:25:44,367 --> 00:25:47,837 From harbours up and down the Irish coastline, 350 00:25:47,887 --> 00:25:51,641 slave raiding boats set out to attack British settlements. 351 00:25:55,287 --> 00:25:58,085 But one of those raids would have consequences 352 00:25:58,127 --> 00:26:02,917 that the rough warriors on board could never have imagined. 353 00:26:02,967 --> 00:26:06,516 For amongst the thousands carried off 354 00:26:06,567 --> 00:26:10,640 was a Welshman who would become the most celebrated Irishman of all- 355 00:26:14,567 --> 00:26:17,843 The St Patrick we commemorate each March 17th 356 00:26:17,887 --> 00:26:19,115 escaped from Ireland, 357 00:26:19,167 --> 00:26:23,797 but returned after a vision in which the pagan Irish called him back 358 00:26:23,847 --> 00:26:26,236 to spread the Christian faith- 359 00:26:36,367 --> 00:26:40,440 But much of what was taken to be the truth of his life was invented by others, 360 00:26:40,487 --> 00:26:44,765 like the 18th-century clergyman who claimed the shamrock was used by Patrick 361 00:26:44,807 --> 00:26:47,765 to explain the Holy Trinity- 362 00:26:49,727 --> 00:26:53,686 Patrick hovers between the pagan past and the Christian future. 363 00:26:53,727 --> 00:26:57,959 He is the man who vanquishes troublesome kings with magic spells, 364 00:26:58,007 --> 00:27:01,602 banishes the snakes from the face of Ireland. 365 00:27:03,047 --> 00:27:07,518 But what do we know of the real Patrick, beyond myth and symbol? 366 00:27:17,407 --> 00:27:21,366 What is his practical impact on Christianity's development here? 367 00:27:21,407 --> 00:27:25,241 DAIBHI O CROIN: He himself says that he went where no man went before. 368 00:27:25,287 --> 00:27:27,926 It's a famous expression that survives down to the present day, 369 00:27:27,967 --> 00:27:31,755 and he clearly did go where no other Christian missionary had gone before, 370 00:27:31,807 --> 00:27:35,117 and that's important, because in the history of the Western Christian Church, 371 00:27:35,167 --> 00:27:36,566 that wasn't the practice. 372 00:27:36,607 --> 00:27:40,680 People, generally speaking, didn't head out into the brave blue yonder 373 00:27:40,727 --> 00:27:42,763 cos it was too dangerous a thing to do. 374 00:27:42,807 --> 00:27:45,367 And you certainly get the impression from his own writings 375 00:27:45,407 --> 00:27:46,806 that he was able to get on with the Irish 376 00:27:46,847 --> 00:27:50,726 to a degree which wasn't possible, say, for continental missionaries. 377 00:27:52,767 --> 00:27:56,237 Patrick was not the druid-destroying figure of myth- 378 00:27:56,287 --> 00:27:57,959 He left two documents, 379 00:27:58,007 --> 00:28:02,956 the most important, his confession, notable for its humility- 380 00:28:03,007 --> 00:28:08,127 ''I am a sinner,''he apologised, ''the least among all Christians-'' 381 00:28:08,167 --> 00:28:12,160 It was these writings that would provide the later Church 382 00:28:12,207 --> 00:28:14,562 with a vital unifying symbol- 383 00:28:14,607 --> 00:28:16,677 T0M O L0UGHLIN: At the end of the 7th century, 384 00:28:16,727 --> 00:28:21,642 the Church has an interest in a far more stable society, 385 00:28:21,687 --> 00:28:25,282 the idea of a single island, and therefore a single people, 386 00:28:25,327 --> 00:28:28,399 and therefore a single nation, and therefore a single faith. 387 00:28:28,447 --> 00:28:32,360 Every other Church could look back to the great converting saint. 388 00:28:32,407 --> 00:28:34,523 ''Gosh, we need to be as good as that.'' 389 00:28:34,567 --> 00:28:39,118 And it looked back to its origins and it had no documents, with one exception, 390 00:28:39,167 --> 00:28:41,886 and that was Patrick's apology, 391 00:28:41,927 --> 00:28:44,157 so that had to be carefully edited 392 00:28:44,207 --> 00:28:48,758 and that becomes the myth of the great patron saint. 393 00:28:53,647 --> 00:28:56,957 Patrick died around 460 AD- 394 00:28:58,087 --> 00:28:59,964 But there were other missionaries 395 00:29:00,007 --> 00:29:04,637 who blended Gaelic traditions with the Christian faith- 396 00:29:07,207 --> 00:29:09,004 Monasteries were founded- 397 00:29:09,047 --> 00:29:14,360 As a later Gaelic poem put it, ''Heathendom has gone down- 398 00:29:14,407 --> 00:29:17,479 ''God the Father's kingdom fills heaven, earth and air-'' 399 00:29:21,127 --> 00:29:25,086 But Ireland was not luxuriating in a Celtic idyll- 400 00:29:25,127 --> 00:29:27,595 The early missionaries moved through kingdoms 401 00:29:27,647 --> 00:29:29,444 frequently at war with each other- 402 00:29:31,807 --> 00:29:36,244 Tell me what happens when the monks arrive. 403 00:29:36,287 --> 00:29:39,563 DAIBHI O CROIN: They would have first of all made their way to the local king, 404 00:29:39,607 --> 00:29:41,086 the local lord or something like that, 405 00:29:41,127 --> 00:29:43,925 because you couldn't just arrive off the next available flight and announce, 406 00:29:43,967 --> 00:29:46,845 ''I am your new local Christian mission.'' You'd end up dead. 407 00:29:46,887 --> 00:29:49,845 So, you'd have to get some kind of physical protection. 408 00:29:49,887 --> 00:29:52,117 0nce you had the king's protection, 409 00:29:52,167 --> 00:29:53,839 on that basis go around, spread the message. 410 00:29:53,887 --> 00:29:57,880 Certainly with the passage of time, monasticism is the growing trend, 411 00:29:57,927 --> 00:30:02,159 if you like, and it's a cool thing to have a monastery on your land, 412 00:30:02,207 --> 00:30:05,165 it's cool to have a member of your family a member of a monastic community. 413 00:30:05,207 --> 00:30:07,596 If you can have a brother, a sister who's actually a saint, 414 00:30:07,647 --> 00:30:09,603 somebody who's so high in the hierarchy, 415 00:30:09,647 --> 00:30:12,844 then obviously that adds a certain prestige as well. 416 00:30:15,287 --> 00:30:19,644 As the influence of Patrick and his successors expanded, 417 00:30:19,687 --> 00:30:22,884 the monasteries would emerge as the focal points of intellectual and artistic life- 418 00:30:29,567 --> 00:30:33,242 Patrick was born a child of the Roman Imperium. 419 00:30:33,287 --> 00:30:35,596 But by the time of his death in the 5th century, 420 00:30:35,647 --> 00:30:37,558 that empire had disintegrated, 421 00:30:37,607 --> 00:30:41,998 and across Europe there was a catastrophic decline in learning. 422 00:30:42,047 --> 00:30:45,403 In the 6th century, the scholar Gregory of Tours wrote that, 423 00:30:45,447 --> 00:30:48,678 ''In the cities of Gaul there could be found no scholar 424 00:30:48,727 --> 00:30:50,604 ''trained in ordered composition, 425 00:30:50,647 --> 00:30:53,445 ''who could present a picture in prose or verse, 426 00:30:53,487 --> 00:30:57,082 ''of the things that have befallen.'' 427 00:30:57,127 --> 00:30:59,436 Everywhere except Ireland. 428 00:30:59,487 --> 00:31:02,957 There, a cultural revolution was under way- 429 00:31:18,767 --> 00:31:23,887 The Church in Ireland was untouched by the traumas afflicting Europe- 430 00:31:26,207 --> 00:31:29,324 And as the kings of Ireland were converted, 431 00:31:29,367 --> 00:31:31,437 the monks found protectors and patrons, 432 00:31:31,487 --> 00:31:35,446 a culture that blended the native and the Latin flourished- 433 00:31:39,567 --> 00:31:42,764 At the centre of this flowering were the monasteries- 434 00:31:44,647 --> 00:31:46,638 FERGAL: And this is the great settlement of Clonmacnoise. 435 00:31:46,687 --> 00:31:50,282 As you sweep round this turn in the River Shannon, you get the round towers, 436 00:31:50,327 --> 00:31:51,726 the churches and everything, 437 00:31:51,767 --> 00:31:55,157 and you get the first idea that this is a really substantial monastic foundation. 438 00:31:55,207 --> 00:31:57,277 Had we arrived here at the height of its powers, 439 00:31:57,327 --> 00:31:59,363 what would we have seen coming around the bend? 440 00:31:59,407 --> 00:32:00,806 If you believe the sources, 441 00:32:00,847 --> 00:32:02,838 there were several thousand people here living already 442 00:32:02,887 --> 00:32:06,084 in the 6th and 7th centuries, so you can imagine a pretty dense settlement. 443 00:32:06,127 --> 00:32:09,199 There would have been an obvious substantial farming element. 444 00:32:09,247 --> 00:32:12,603 This would have looked like a very prosperous economic unit. 445 00:32:17,967 --> 00:32:19,366 And there would have been markets 446 00:32:19,407 --> 00:32:21,284 and people would have been coming both by land 447 00:32:21,327 --> 00:32:23,602 and here on the sea as well, on the water. 448 00:32:26,927 --> 00:32:30,522 And the whole place would have been pretty much a bustling, buzzing kind of place. 449 00:32:36,167 --> 00:32:38,123 FERGAL: Not just trade, of course, 450 00:32:38,167 --> 00:32:40,886 but the whole business of setting down in text. 451 00:32:42,447 --> 00:32:44,961 DAIBHI O CROIN: A place like Clonmacnoise would have had 452 00:32:45,007 --> 00:32:47,157 a thriving school of people who were coming here, 453 00:32:47,207 --> 00:32:49,084 not only from other Irish monasteries, 454 00:32:49,127 --> 00:32:52,199 but we know of people who would have been travelling from either England 455 00:32:52,247 --> 00:32:53,646 or even from continental Europe. 456 00:32:53,687 --> 00:32:55,245 - FERGAL: From that far away? - 0h, yeah. 457 00:32:55,287 --> 00:32:57,278 We had a reputation as scholars all the way back, 458 00:32:57,327 --> 00:32:59,602 and certainly it was the place to be in the 7th century. 459 00:32:59,647 --> 00:33:03,560 If you wanted higher learning, if you wanted advanced knowledge of the Bible 460 00:33:03,607 --> 00:33:07,885 or grammar or something like that, then you came to Ireland. 461 00:33:12,567 --> 00:33:16,276 Perhaps the greatest bequest of the monastic tradition in Ireland 462 00:33:16,327 --> 00:33:18,124 was literary- 463 00:33:18,167 --> 00:33:22,604 The monks transcribed the Bible and set down in writing ancient laws- 464 00:33:25,927 --> 00:33:27,326 But not only in Latin- 465 00:33:27,367 --> 00:33:32,157 They developed a written form of the people's Celtic tongue- 466 00:33:34,767 --> 00:33:39,443 Religious and legal texts were translated into Gaelic by the intellectual elite- 467 00:33:41,847 --> 00:33:45,362 Ireland had the most abundant vernacular literature in Europe- 468 00:33:48,807 --> 00:33:53,119 One of the greatest examples is the Lebor Gabala Erenn, the Book of Invasions, 469 00:33:53,167 --> 00:33:55,476 an imagined history of Ireland- 470 00:33:55,527 --> 00:33:57,882 This extraordinary book 471 00:33:57,927 --> 00:34:00,646 is the first written story of Ireland. 472 00:34:00,687 --> 00:34:04,475 It purports to tell the story of how the Irish came into being. 473 00:34:04,527 --> 00:34:07,405 The tales here come from the 7th century, 474 00:34:07,447 --> 00:34:12,680 and they would have a profound impact on the way the Irish came to see themselves. 475 00:34:12,727 --> 00:34:17,323 What it says is that the Irish are at the centre of the world. 476 00:34:17,367 --> 00:34:20,598 They are not a small, insignificant people. 477 00:34:20,647 --> 00:34:25,118 It was woven together in the I Ith century from earlier sources 478 00:34:25,167 --> 00:34:27,601 as a statement of Irish uniqueness- 479 00:34:27,647 --> 00:34:32,641 They didn't want to be seen as peripheral people living at the edge of Europe. 480 00:34:32,687 --> 00:34:36,077 0ne of the main themes in early Irish history 481 00:34:36,127 --> 00:34:38,766 is the sense that Ireland is central, culturally, 482 00:34:38,807 --> 00:34:40,718 to what happens in the Christian world. 483 00:34:40,767 --> 00:34:44,919 So, what they do is they insert the Irish at various points 484 00:34:44,967 --> 00:34:46,685 into key events in world history. 485 00:34:46,727 --> 00:34:50,117 So, what they're doing is they start off with the creation of the world 486 00:34:50,167 --> 00:34:51,566 in the Book of Genesis, 487 00:34:51,607 --> 00:34:55,236 so it's almost like the Scripture of Ireland, the 0ld Testament of Ireland. 488 00:34:55,287 --> 00:35:00,998 And then they show the ancestors of the Irish appearing at various key events. 489 00:35:01,047 --> 00:35:05,086 So, when Moses goes on the exodus, an Irish guy sort of pops up 490 00:35:05,127 --> 00:35:07,925 so he can find out what the Ten Commandments are. 491 00:35:07,967 --> 00:35:11,084 They look about the sort of origins of their own language, 492 00:35:11,127 --> 00:35:14,358 and an Irish guy pops up at the Tower of Babel 493 00:35:14,407 --> 00:35:17,877 and he makes Irish from all of the best bits of the languages 494 00:35:17,927 --> 00:35:19,326 when they're divided up. 495 00:35:19,367 --> 00:35:23,201 At a very early point, the Irish begin to write in Irish, 496 00:35:23,247 --> 00:35:25,841 and one of the things that Lebor Gabala does 497 00:35:25,887 --> 00:35:29,277 is it brings in an awful lot of traditional lore. 498 00:35:29,327 --> 00:35:32,683 So you get elements of popular culture and elite culture being brought in together, 499 00:35:32,727 --> 00:35:37,278 along with sort of the learning of the Old Testament or of Christian writers. 500 00:35:37,327 --> 00:35:42,003 What were they trying to do by setting it in such an international context, 501 00:35:42,047 --> 00:35:44,083 this idea that we came from everywhere? 502 00:35:44,127 --> 00:35:45,526 The basic framework which it takes 503 00:35:45,567 --> 00:35:49,640 is that Ireland has been populated by various waves of people over time. 504 00:35:49,687 --> 00:35:51,803 Some of these people are invaders, 505 00:35:51,847 --> 00:35:54,600 some are more refugees than invaders, for example, 506 00:35:54,647 --> 00:35:57,878 and they admit that not everybody who lives on the island 507 00:35:57,927 --> 00:36:01,806 in the early medieval period are descended from one group of people. 508 00:36:01,847 --> 00:36:04,884 So there is an acceptance in the Lebor Gabala 509 00:36:04,927 --> 00:36:07,566 that the Irish are of multiethnic origins. 510 00:36:07,607 --> 00:36:12,806 At what point do we lose that sense of being part of something greater 511 00:36:12,847 --> 00:36:19,923 and take on board this narrow idea that it's us in a misty Celtic past... 512 00:36:19,967 --> 00:36:21,923 - Yeah... - ...a people alone? 513 00:36:21,967 --> 00:36:23,685 Certainly from the 18th century. 514 00:36:23,727 --> 00:36:26,719 If you look at the Irish themselves during this period 515 00:36:26,767 --> 00:36:28,325 when they're putting together the Lebor Gabala 516 00:36:28,367 --> 00:36:30,164 and the very elements that go into it, 517 00:36:30,207 --> 00:36:33,040 the one element they don't pick themselves is Celtic. 518 00:36:33,087 --> 00:36:34,600 They know about the existence 519 00:36:34,647 --> 00:36:37,639 of groups called Celts and Gauls from classical writers. 520 00:36:37,687 --> 00:36:40,247 They never identify with them. 521 00:36:40,287 --> 00:36:43,359 In fact, they're far more confident about their identity, you could say, 522 00:36:43,407 --> 00:36:45,762 than maybe modern people are about theirs. 523 00:36:50,407 --> 00:36:55,003 Irish monks would carry their Gospel across the seas- 524 00:36:55,047 --> 00:36:56,719 Men like Brendan the Voyager, 525 00:36:56,767 --> 00:37:00,840 Colum Cille in the Irish kingdom of Dal Riata in Scotland, 526 00:37:00,887 --> 00:37:04,038 or Aidain at Lindisfarne in Northumbria- 527 00:37:07,847 --> 00:37:12,762 ''Now the Lord had said, 'Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred 528 00:37:12,807 --> 00:37:17,881 '''and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee- ''' 529 00:37:23,807 --> 00:37:26,367 The words of Abraham, from the Old Testament, 530 00:37:26,407 --> 00:37:29,080 and they would echo in the minds of Irish monks. 531 00:37:29,127 --> 00:37:34,520 At their heart, a simple concept in the Latin, potior peregrinatio, 532 00:37:34,567 --> 00:37:37,081 a lifelong pilgrimage for Christ. 533 00:37:37,127 --> 00:37:39,800 And it would bring some of those Irish clergy here 534 00:37:39,847 --> 00:37:44,637 to the lands at the heart of the old Roman Empire. 535 00:37:46,927 --> 00:37:49,885 The monks arriving in northern Italy in 6 13 536 00:37:49,927 --> 00:37:52,646 had already established monasteries in Gaul- 537 00:37:52,687 --> 00:37:56,123 Their zeal persuaded the powerful king of the Lombards 538 00:37:56,167 --> 00:37:59,603 to offer them land at Bobbio, in the Apennines- 539 00:38:00,927 --> 00:38:04,920 These Irish churchmen brought their own version of Christianity. 540 00:38:04,967 --> 00:38:08,926 They were told to avoid earthly temptation and Church power. 541 00:38:08,967 --> 00:38:11,845 ''Fear women and bishops,'' their leader said. 542 00:38:11,887 --> 00:38:16,756 He was austere and querulous and a fierce disciplinarian. 543 00:38:16,807 --> 00:38:19,401 His name was Columbanus. 544 00:38:21,367 --> 00:38:22,766 It meant ''dove''- 545 00:38:22,807 --> 00:38:27,801 But this reforming Irish monk railed against the abuse of power, 546 00:38:27,847 --> 00:38:32,602 sparing neither clergy nor princes from his censure- 547 00:38:37,447 --> 00:38:40,439 Columbanus even had the temerity to confront the Pope. 548 00:38:40,487 --> 00:38:43,877 It was a complex dispute about the dating of Easter. 549 00:38:43,927 --> 00:38:48,318 To Columbanus, it wasn't simply spiritual pedantics, 550 00:38:48,367 --> 00:38:52,042 he felt he was standing up for something he truly believed in. 551 00:38:52,087 --> 00:38:55,477 And when the Gallic bishops summoned him to account for himself, 552 00:38:55,527 --> 00:38:57,518 he simply refused to go. 553 00:38:57,567 --> 00:38:59,876 He saw them as an elite, 554 00:38:59,927 --> 00:39:02,725 ministering only to the chosen few. 555 00:39:05,687 --> 00:39:08,918 But Columbanus was deeply loyal to the idea 556 00:39:08,967 --> 00:39:11,481 of a Church led by the Pope from Rome- 557 00:39:13,887 --> 00:39:16,606 He was a dissenter, not a revolutionary- 558 00:39:18,807 --> 00:39:20,798 He looked beyond the monastery walls, 559 00:39:20,847 --> 00:39:25,238 imagining a Europe united in faith and culture- 560 00:39:29,367 --> 00:39:32,439 (MAN SPEAKS ITALIAN) 561 00:40:14,887 --> 00:40:16,525 (BELL CHIMES) 562 00:40:20,887 --> 00:40:23,242 In the letters and words of Columbanus, 563 00:40:23,287 --> 00:40:28,236 Europe heard an Irish voice that was learned, sometimes uncompromising, 564 00:40:28,287 --> 00:40:29,800 and always thoughtful- 565 00:40:34,287 --> 00:40:38,280 At Bobbio he established one of the greatest libraries of the medieval world- 566 00:40:43,807 --> 00:40:49,245 Columbanus described himself as a ''dissenter whenever necessary''- 567 00:40:50,327 --> 00:40:53,125 I can't help thinking of James Joyce writing about 568 00:40:53,167 --> 00:40:56,557 setting out to forge the uncreated conscience of his race- 569 00:40:56,607 --> 00:41:01,840 Columbanus, it seems to me, was doing it centuries before- 570 00:41:04,767 --> 00:41:06,758 By the time he died, here in Bobbio, 571 00:41:06,807 --> 00:41:10,277 Columbanus had established a thriving monastic centre, 572 00:41:10,327 --> 00:41:14,286 and he would look back, too, at Ireland with some satisfaction. 573 00:41:21,247 --> 00:41:24,080 For the monasteries were still producing great works of art- 574 00:41:26,447 --> 00:41:30,998 He might have been less enamoured at the political manoeuvring- 575 00:41:34,367 --> 00:41:37,916 The status of clergy could have much to do with their alliances 576 00:41:37,967 --> 00:41:41,516 and family ties with the local aristocracy- 577 00:41:41,567 --> 00:41:44,206 Indeed, from the earliest times, 578 00:41:44,247 --> 00:41:48,126 monasteries could be the launching pads for earthly ambitions- 579 00:41:51,087 --> 00:41:53,647 The Abbot here at Ardmore in County Waterford 580 00:41:53,687 --> 00:41:56,121 came from a powerful local family. 581 00:41:56,167 --> 00:41:59,955 Declan was said to have been a contemporary of St Patrick. 582 00:42:00,007 --> 00:42:04,523 The story goes that, together, they went to a banquet of local nobility 583 00:42:04,567 --> 00:42:07,525 and, together, chose the new king of the region. 584 00:42:07,567 --> 00:42:09,398 Was this story true? 585 00:42:09,447 --> 00:42:11,244 Well, we've simply no way of knowing. 586 00:42:11,287 --> 00:42:14,324 But it does underline a significant truth - 587 00:42:14,367 --> 00:42:18,679 churchmen were becoming increasingly powerful political players. 588 00:42:18,727 --> 00:42:22,800 And this foreshadows an enduring theme of the Irish story - 589 00:42:22,847 --> 00:42:26,556 that embrace between spiritual and temporal power. 590 00:42:26,607 --> 00:42:29,360 Christ and Caesar together. 591 00:42:29,407 --> 00:42:33,400 FERGAL: So the abbot of the monastery is much more than a spiritual man. 592 00:42:33,447 --> 00:42:35,881 He becomes a major political player. 593 00:42:35,927 --> 00:42:41,206 D0NNCHADH O C0RRAIN: He controls a vast number of people and enormous resources. 594 00:42:41,247 --> 00:42:44,205 And if you think the Abbot was getting up in the morning 595 00:42:44,247 --> 00:42:46,363 to say a five o'clock Mass, he was not. 596 00:42:46,407 --> 00:42:48,363 He was much more like a Medici prince. 597 00:42:48,407 --> 00:42:53,083 Because the church is rich, the church gets involved in political violence. 598 00:42:53,127 --> 00:42:57,723 There's one famous one in which there was a battle between Cork and Clonfert 599 00:42:57,767 --> 00:43:01,077 in which the annals say there was ''an innumerable slaughter'' 600 00:43:01,127 --> 00:43:04,597 of the ecclesiastical men and superiors of Cork. 601 00:43:04,647 --> 00:43:06,603 FERGAL: It sounds an extraordinary idea 602 00:43:06,647 --> 00:43:09,036 that you have religious men, spiritual figures, 603 00:43:09,087 --> 00:43:10,759 going to war with each other. 604 00:43:10,807 --> 00:43:14,720 I mean, it doesn't fit the notion we have of this island of saints and scholars. 605 00:43:14,767 --> 00:43:17,839 It doesn't fit the notion, but it is the reality. 606 00:43:17,887 --> 00:43:22,642 The Abbot of Armagh or the Bishop of Clonmacnoise 607 00:43:22,687 --> 00:43:25,884 had a social status equal to that of a king. 608 00:43:25,927 --> 00:43:27,963 (CAT MIA0WS) 609 00:43:28,007 --> 00:43:32,683 FERGAL: But a new power was to loom out of the northern seas- 610 00:43:38,607 --> 00:43:43,681 In 795, monks on an island near Dublin saw a fleet of ships approaching- 611 00:43:43,727 --> 00:43:48,596 The long ships with a dragon's head carved on the bow carried a force of warriors 612 00:43:48,647 --> 00:43:52,401 who would plunder the treasures accumulated by the monastery 613 00:43:52,447 --> 00:43:54,005 over two centuries- 614 00:44:01,327 --> 00:44:04,922 A monk wrote later of the terror of Viking attack- 615 00:44:04,967 --> 00:44:08,277 ''There were a hundred hard-steeled iron heads on one neck, 616 00:44:08,327 --> 00:44:13,117 ''and a hundred sharp, ready, never-rusting brazen tongues in every head- 617 00:44:13,167 --> 00:44:17,922 ''And a hundred garrulous, loud, unceasing voices from every tongue-'' 618 00:44:23,287 --> 00:44:26,882 The age of the Vikings had arrived- 619 00:44:28,727 --> 00:44:33,278 CLARE D0WNHAM: We're probably standing about three metres under street level, 620 00:44:33,327 --> 00:44:36,683 and this is where people would have been walking in the Viking age. 621 00:44:36,727 --> 00:44:41,403 FERGAL: I mean, there's no whitewashing the incredible terror that they sowed. 622 00:44:41,447 --> 00:44:43,722 From a fairly early stage, 623 00:44:43,767 --> 00:44:45,723 once Vikings are raiding the Irish coast, 624 00:44:45,767 --> 00:44:49,043 they're taking people captive to sell them on as slaves. 625 00:44:49,087 --> 00:44:50,884 So a good early example of that is in 821, 626 00:44:50,927 --> 00:44:53,487 the Vikings raided Howth, just north of Dublin, 627 00:44:53,527 --> 00:44:55,040 and took a great prey of women. 628 00:44:55,087 --> 00:44:57,555 So I think their fate was probably the slave market. 629 00:44:57,607 --> 00:45:01,805 It must have stricken absolute fear into the hearts of people, 630 00:45:01,847 --> 00:45:05,157 the idea of being captured and then sold abroad. 631 00:45:05,207 --> 00:45:09,041 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are some kind of snippets of Irish poetry 632 00:45:09,087 --> 00:45:11,442 testifying to the fear that people had. 633 00:45:11,487 --> 00:45:15,958 ''Lord protect us from these foreigners coming in and taking people away.'' 634 00:45:16,007 --> 00:45:21,843 There's an early I Ith-century tale about an Irish poet 635 00:45:21,887 --> 00:45:25,357 who's said to have been taken captive by Vikings and, and even as a man, 636 00:45:25,407 --> 00:45:28,524 he's been gang-raped by the Vikings on the ship. 637 00:45:28,567 --> 00:45:33,038 There's also a record in 940 of an Irish bishop taken captive 638 00:45:33,087 --> 00:45:36,204 from Dalkey Island, and he's so eager to escape 639 00:45:36,247 --> 00:45:39,478 he tries to swim out from the island and he drowns. 640 00:45:42,647 --> 00:45:46,845 The Vikings offer us the earliest example 641 00:45:46,887 --> 00:45:51,563 of those figures who will dominate the written and spoken stories of Ireland, 642 00:45:51,607 --> 00:45:53,404 the foreign invaders. 643 00:45:55,367 --> 00:45:57,722 But where did the raiders come from? 644 00:45:57,767 --> 00:46:01,123 And what drove them to Irish shores? 645 00:46:15,847 --> 00:46:18,805 The Vikings who would eventually descend on Ireland 646 00:46:18,847 --> 00:46:21,645 had their ancestral roots here in Norway. 647 00:46:21,687 --> 00:46:24,963 From these fjords, they created a maritime empire 648 00:46:25,007 --> 00:46:28,397 that stretched from the shores of America in the West 649 00:46:28,447 --> 00:46:31,007 to central Russia in the East. 650 00:46:34,887 --> 00:46:38,641 The Viking world of the 7th and 8th centuries was in a state of flux- 651 00:46:38,687 --> 00:46:42,362 Warrior clans fought for control of the best land- 652 00:46:44,327 --> 00:46:49,117 Land meant wealth and power- But there was too little to go around- 653 00:46:51,647 --> 00:46:55,037 In an early Norse poem, a mother says to her son, ''Get thee a ship 654 00:46:55,087 --> 00:46:58,636 ''and go out on the seas and kill men.'' 655 00:46:58,687 --> 00:47:01,155 They're lines which reflect a society 656 00:47:01,207 --> 00:47:05,041 where a man's worth was defined by his skill with the sword. 657 00:47:07,487 --> 00:47:11,275 What kind of society did these Viking warlords inhabit? 658 00:47:11,327 --> 00:47:14,922 Competition was actually the key element in this society. 659 00:47:14,967 --> 00:47:18,482 Who could travel the furthest, who was the bravest in battle, 660 00:47:18,527 --> 00:47:21,997 who could eat the most, and who drank the most. 661 00:47:22,047 --> 00:47:24,356 FERGAL: What is the principle dynamic 662 00:47:24,407 --> 00:47:28,036 that's driving them out of these fjords towards Ireland? 663 00:47:28,087 --> 00:47:32,877 It was important for the local chieftains to be able to give good gifts 664 00:47:32,927 --> 00:47:36,363 to their followers, their friends, or throw big parties. 665 00:47:36,407 --> 00:47:39,763 And there was not a lot of wealth in Norway. 666 00:47:39,807 --> 00:47:43,356 So I think that one of the main reasons they actually left for Ireland 667 00:47:43,407 --> 00:47:47,366 was just to plunder some Irish monasteries and churches and steal the goods. 668 00:47:47,407 --> 00:47:52,037 FERGAL: The Irish, in popular memory, tend to see the Vikings 669 00:47:52,087 --> 00:47:56,239 as rapists, pillagers and killers. Is that something you'd go along with? 670 00:47:56,287 --> 00:48:00,041 Partly, yes. But you have to look at the Vikings, 671 00:48:00,087 --> 00:48:04,046 that they can actually change...shapes over the night. 672 00:48:04,087 --> 00:48:09,161 0ne day they're actually killers, the next day they are actually traders. 673 00:48:09,207 --> 00:48:13,166 And on the third day they are cattlemen. 0n the fourth day they're settlers. 674 00:48:16,327 --> 00:48:18,682 For over 40 years, 675 00:48:18,727 --> 00:48:22,163 the Vikings raided Ireland's coastal villages and monasteries, 676 00:48:22,207 --> 00:48:25,165 carrying off plunder and slaves in their longboats- 677 00:48:29,647 --> 00:48:32,480 They struck suddenly and caught the Irish unawares- 678 00:48:35,487 --> 00:48:40,163 So the Vikings became bolder and began to sail down the rivers of Ireland- 679 00:48:42,447 --> 00:48:45,086 The raiders were to become settlers- 680 00:48:47,487 --> 00:48:50,160 The east coast of Ireland was strategically well placed 681 00:48:50,207 --> 00:48:53,643 for trading with an expanding Viking world- 682 00:49:01,287 --> 00:49:06,680 In the winter of 842, a substantial Viking fleet rounded the headland at Howth 683 00:49:06,727 --> 00:49:09,685 and sailed up the River Liffey- 684 00:49:20,527 --> 00:49:24,486 Here, at the ''black pool'' - in Irish, Dubh Linn - 685 00:49:24,527 --> 00:49:27,200 the Vikings hauled their longboats ashore. 686 00:49:27,247 --> 00:49:30,364 And just a few yards away from the banks of the River Liffey, 687 00:49:30,407 --> 00:49:33,319 they began to construct the first defensive stockade. 688 00:49:33,367 --> 00:49:37,360 From these small beginnings, Ireland's greatest city would emerge. 689 00:49:48,927 --> 00:49:52,840 Over the next century, Dublin would become a boom town, 690 00:49:52,887 --> 00:49:55,720 with the largest slave market in Europe- 691 00:49:59,647 --> 00:50:03,242 CLARE D0WNHAM: The Vikings had a huge trading network, which spread 692 00:50:03,287 --> 00:50:06,438 all the way down the Russian river systems to the Middle East, 693 00:50:06,487 --> 00:50:09,285 Constantinople, all the way across the North Atlantic, 694 00:50:09,327 --> 00:50:12,478 and Dublin was quite centrally placed within these long-distance routes. 695 00:50:12,527 --> 00:50:15,485 Ten bananas there, one euro. 696 00:50:15,527 --> 00:50:18,280 FERGAL: What kind of things would people have been buying in these markets? 697 00:50:18,327 --> 00:50:21,239 Amber from the Baltic, silk from Byzantium. 698 00:50:21,287 --> 00:50:24,120 Gold, silver, looted goods from Irish monasteries, 699 00:50:24,167 --> 00:50:27,079 all would have been traded through the port of Dublin. 700 00:50:27,127 --> 00:50:29,800 It would have been a very noisy place, bustling, crammed, 701 00:50:29,847 --> 00:50:34,443 houses next to each other, narrow streets. Lots of people milling around, 702 00:50:34,487 --> 00:50:38,958 shopping, exchanging things, gossiping. Kids, pigs, everything. 703 00:50:39,007 --> 00:50:42,443 FERGAL: And you'd probably have seen people from right across Europe in Dublin 704 00:50:42,487 --> 00:50:43,806 at this point. 705 00:50:43,847 --> 00:50:47,078 It would have been a really cosmopolitan place, with traders from all over Europe. 706 00:50:47,127 --> 00:50:49,800 And this is followed by a series of royal intermarriages 707 00:50:49,847 --> 00:50:52,486 and a lot of cultural interchange. 708 00:50:52,527 --> 00:50:55,803 So, by the 10th century, you've got a whole new culture emerging 709 00:50:55,847 --> 00:51:01,240 which is a kind of hybrid of Scandinavian and Irish, 710 00:51:01,287 --> 00:51:03,517 and it's very distinctive. You can see it in art styles 711 00:51:03,567 --> 00:51:07,242 and the culture of these two peoples. 712 00:51:21,007 --> 00:51:24,363 By the I Ith century, the Vikings who had settled in Ireland, 713 00:51:24,407 --> 00:51:28,320 the Hiberno-Norse, had been here for over a century and a half- 714 00:51:28,367 --> 00:51:33,043 They'd intermarried, become Christian and formed local alliances- 715 00:51:34,247 --> 00:51:36,363 They'd founded thriving port cities, 716 00:51:36,407 --> 00:51:39,001 like Waterford, Wexford, Cork and Limerick- 717 00:51:40,647 --> 00:51:43,559 They became enmeshed in Irish politics. 718 00:51:46,127 --> 00:51:49,085 They would learn the lesson of all conquerors here - 719 00:51:49,127 --> 00:51:51,561 the longer you stay around, the more likely you are 720 00:51:51,607 --> 00:51:54,405 to become drawn into the quarrels of your neighbours. 721 00:52:01,447 --> 00:52:04,837 This was a country where local Gaelic kings were fighting 722 00:52:04,887 --> 00:52:06,639 for land and supremacy- 723 00:52:11,767 --> 00:52:15,806 They did so as power was being centralised across Europe- 724 00:52:17,247 --> 00:52:21,923 Small kingdoms were eaten up by the leaders of emerging dynasties- 725 00:52:23,127 --> 00:52:27,643 In northern France, Rollo the Viking had founded the Norman empire- 726 00:52:30,847 --> 00:52:35,716 In England, power was consolidating around the house of Wessex- 727 00:52:39,727 --> 00:52:45,199 Such change could hardly have escaped the attention of an ambitious Irish king- 728 00:52:49,607 --> 00:52:52,519 This new leader was a man with the ruthlessness and energy 729 00:52:52,567 --> 00:52:53,966 to humble kingdoms. 730 00:52:54,007 --> 00:52:56,362 He stormed the strongholds of his enemies, 731 00:52:56,407 --> 00:52:59,922 and in four years was able to come here, to the great Rock of Cashel, 732 00:52:59,967 --> 00:53:02,561 and proclaim himself king of all Munster. 733 00:53:02,607 --> 00:53:06,566 He demanded tributes from the defeated - of wine and gold, 734 00:53:06,607 --> 00:53:09,758 and the most precious commodity of the age - cattle. 735 00:53:09,807 --> 00:53:12,321 They called him Brian of the Cattle Tributes. 736 00:53:12,367 --> 00:53:15,803 In the Irish, Brian Boru. 737 00:53:19,687 --> 00:53:23,566 Brian did not see himself as a king among equals, 738 00:53:23,607 --> 00:53:25,916 but as high king of all Ireland- 739 00:53:25,967 --> 00:53:30,279 And with a mighty army, he set about trying to control the island- 740 00:53:34,887 --> 00:53:38,721 D0NNCHADH O C0RRAIN: In the only statement of his that we know about, 741 00:53:38,767 --> 00:53:43,477 he describes himself as Imperator Scottorum, Emperor of the Irish. 742 00:53:43,527 --> 00:53:47,725 Imperator means a man who rules over many different peoples, 743 00:53:47,767 --> 00:53:52,887 and he saw himself as ruling equally over the Irish and the Vikings. 744 00:53:52,927 --> 00:53:57,921 He subjected Limerick to himself and made Limerick a dynastic capital. 745 00:53:57,967 --> 00:54:01,596 He subjected Cork and Waterford to himself. 746 00:54:01,647 --> 00:54:03,524 Dublin was next on the list. 747 00:54:10,967 --> 00:54:15,722 In Dublin City Hall, the legend of Brian is commemorated on the dome- 748 00:54:19,567 --> 00:54:23,196 In the telling of Ireland's story, he would become 749 00:54:23,247 --> 00:54:28,162 an icon of native resistance - the first nationalist hero--- 750 00:54:30,527 --> 00:54:34,645 ---his soldiers holy warriors who defeated a Viking invasion- 751 00:54:34,687 --> 00:54:38,043 But the truth is more complex- 752 00:54:39,887 --> 00:54:43,004 In I O14, after defeating the city of Waterford, 753 00:54:43,047 --> 00:54:46,517 Brian moved to confront the Gaelic kingdom of Leinster 754 00:54:46,567 --> 00:54:48,603 and the Viking port of Dublin- 755 00:54:49,767 --> 00:54:53,282 Irish and Viking united in defence against Brian- 756 00:54:53,327 --> 00:54:56,683 They recruited Viking mercenaries from Britain- 757 00:54:58,407 --> 00:55:01,240 It's thought Brian too had Vikings in his army- 758 00:55:03,167 --> 00:55:06,842 For both sides, Dublin was the glittering prize- 759 00:55:09,727 --> 00:55:12,480 D0NNCHADH O C0RRAIN: The Battle of Clontarf is not a battle 760 00:55:12,527 --> 00:55:15,963 between savage Vikings and the Irish. 761 00:55:16,007 --> 00:55:19,966 It's not the saving of Holy Ireland from the pagans. 762 00:55:20,007 --> 00:55:26,037 It is a power struggle in which Brian Boru was finally going to get Dublin, 763 00:55:26,087 --> 00:55:30,126 because every king wanted to control the trading cities. 764 00:55:39,447 --> 00:55:43,156 0n Good Friday 1014, the opposing forces faced each other 765 00:55:43,207 --> 00:55:45,004 at Clontarf, outside Dublin. 766 00:55:45,047 --> 00:55:49,837 There were two Irish armies, but both with their Viking allies. 767 00:55:49,887 --> 00:55:53,357 0f these Vikings, it was said they carried arrows, 768 00:55:53,407 --> 00:55:57,685 anointed and browned in the blood of dragons. 769 00:55:57,727 --> 00:56:00,764 The monks who wrote this account were highly partisan. 770 00:56:00,807 --> 00:56:04,436 After all, they'd been commissioned by a descendant of Brian Boru. 771 00:56:04,487 --> 00:56:07,479 0f his men, they said they had beautiful white hands. 772 00:56:09,007 --> 00:56:13,444 Hands that they would now use to hack, hew and maim. 773 00:56:14,807 --> 00:56:16,843 The battle lasted all day- 774 00:56:16,887 --> 00:56:18,479 (CLAM0UR 0F BATTLE) 775 00:56:18,527 --> 00:56:22,315 Late in the afternoon, the Dublin men and their allies began to fall back 776 00:56:22,367 --> 00:56:25,359 to the River Liffey and into the advancing tide- 777 00:56:25,407 --> 00:56:27,159 (CLAM0UR 0F BATTLE) 778 00:56:27,207 --> 00:56:30,517 An account written years later records 779 00:56:30,567 --> 00:56:34,719 that they ''retreated to the sea like a herd of cows, 780 00:56:34,767 --> 00:56:39,716 ''tormented by heat and insects- They were pursued closely-'' 781 00:56:39,767 --> 00:56:43,476 (CLAM0UR 0F BATTLE) 782 00:56:43,527 --> 00:56:46,485 By nightfall, bodies drifted on Dublin Bay, 783 00:56:46,527 --> 00:56:49,963 and the field at Clontarf was strewn with corpses- 784 00:56:51,567 --> 00:56:56,595 Brian had won the battle, but he wouldn't live to enjoy the fruits of victory. 785 00:56:56,647 --> 00:57:01,767 A Danish Viking called Brodar came hacking his way through the Irish lines 786 00:57:01,807 --> 00:57:03,559 and found Brian's tent. 787 00:57:03,607 --> 00:57:07,077 Entering inside, he saw the old king on his knees at prayer, 788 00:57:07,127 --> 00:57:09,322 and lifting his giant battleaxe, 789 00:57:09,367 --> 00:57:11,756 he cleaved Brian's head from his shoulders. 790 00:57:11,807 --> 00:57:14,002 In this version of the story, 791 00:57:14,047 --> 00:57:18,802 Brian becomes the first martyr for faith and fatherland in Irish history. 792 00:57:21,167 --> 00:57:24,284 Without Brian, his dynasty declined- 793 00:57:24,327 --> 00:57:27,842 There would be no all-powerful high king of Ireland- 794 00:57:29,727 --> 00:57:31,763 Clontarf resolved nothing. 795 00:57:31,807 --> 00:57:34,844 Indeed, so great was the fighting after Brian's death 796 00:57:34,887 --> 00:57:38,038 that one annalist described how competing kings 797 00:57:38,087 --> 00:57:40,920 had turned the country into a trembling sod. 798 00:57:40,967 --> 00:57:44,642 Ireland was now a ripe prize for foreign adventurers, 799 00:57:44,687 --> 00:57:49,807 and they would come here in the shape of the greatest military force in Europe, 800 00:57:49,847 --> 00:57:53,726 to launch on these shores a fateful conquest. 801 00:58:00,087 --> 00:58:04,046 Next week, we will see how the rise of the Norman empire 802 00:58:04,087 --> 00:58:06,521 changed the Story of Ireland-