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FERGAL KEANE: On the cusP
of a new century,

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Ireland is a country
traumatised by violence-

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The surface calm masks the bitter division

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caused by a failed rebellion in 1798-

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The Protestant Ascendancy remains
in power,

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and the Catholic majority
appear vanquished-

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But the coming century
will witness an epic transformation.

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The great issues of land, of faith

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and who should rule Ireland
will give birth to a mass politics

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of a kind never seen before in Europe.

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It is a story that reveals itself
in the impoverished countryside---

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---but also in the halls of Parliament-

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From the streets of protestant Ulster

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to the most far-flung outposts
of the British Empire-

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This is a story of conflict
and, above all, change-

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It is the story
of how modern Ireland was born-

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It lies here
among 25,000 other Acts of Parliament

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in a small room at Westminster-

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A Piece of paper that sought to end once
and for all England's problem in Ireland,

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by making Ireland part of the Union-

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Here is it, this Act of Union
of Great Britain and Ireland

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that binds together two nations.

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You feel a real sense of excitement
looking at this, touching it,

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because you think
of the great political campaigns

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that were inspired by the Act of Union

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but also of the thousands
who lost their lives

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in the struggle over what it represented.

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The first article describes how
from the ''First day of January 1801

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''and forever after, Britain and Ireland
shall be known as one kingdom,

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''the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland.''

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To this very day, men are willing to kill
to try and break the Union.

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The Union passed into law
at a time of international crisis-

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Britain faced war with France,

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and Ireland was dangerously unstable-

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A Protestant Parliament
ruled over a Catholic people-

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But bring both factions
into a larger kingdom,

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and Ireland's claustrophobic hatreds
would evaporate-

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That was the theory-

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And so protestant landlords were cajoled
and bribed with money and peerages---

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---and the Catholics promised reform
of the remaining penal laws

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that excluded them
from Parliament and public office-

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Nowhere was news of the Act of Union
greeted with more anticipation

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than in the leadership
of the Irish Catholic Church.

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There was an understanding
with the British Government

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that with Union would come
the granting of Catholic emancipation -

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full political rights for Catholics.

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At a stroke, one of the most divisive
issues in Ireland would be removed.

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Everything now depended
on what happened next at Westminster.

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The Prime Minister, William Pitt,
had looked at the example of Scotland,

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safely ensconced in the Union since 1746-

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But Pitt faced the opposition
of anti-Catholic forces in his Cabinet,

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who encouraged King George III
to oppose any change-

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The King believed that
to grant full civil rights to Catholics

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would violate his Coronation oath
to uphold the Protestant faith.

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In the middle of an assembly of MPs,
he stopped and shouted,

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''I will consider every man my enemy
who proposes that question to me.''

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Pitt was humiliated and backed down.

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Pitt resigned within the year-

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His failure changed
the course of Irish history-

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Had emancipation been granted
as was planned,

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in the 1790s or in the early 180Os

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as part of the Act of Union deal,

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I do not think that Catholicism in Ireland
would have taken on the shape it did

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and would have become so associated with
politics and later on with nationalism.

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It was that crucial delay
that drove Catholics into an alliance

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with forces which were not always
cooperative with the British state.

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Catholic alienation would be deepened
by economic decline-

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When the war with France ended in 1815,
agricultural prices collapsed,

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and a booming population
increased pressure on the land-

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This was a perilous situation

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in a country already
overwhelmingly dependent on farming-

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The land was subdivided
into ever-smaller portions.

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A foreign observer
described how the system worked.

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A wealthy man would
let out some land to four others.

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They in turn would rent it to maybe 20,
and they to another 1 OO people.

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They would then let it out
to 1 ,OOO poor labourers.

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Little wonder that the hunger for land

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would become one of the defining themes
of the Irish story.

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The Catholic peasantry were a people
without land, Political rights

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or a champion-

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Their liberator would be one of the most
remarkable figures of the 19th century -

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Daniel O'Connell-

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JOHN McCARTHY:
The typical 20th-century figure

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that O'Connell would have
the closest parallel to

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would be the late Martin Luther King
in America.

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King was able to mobilise
and politicise people

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who previously had been
rather passive and indifferent.

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O'Connell was born
into the small Catholic elite

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that had kept its lands
after the Penal laws-

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He was brought up here in County Kerry
but educated in France-

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There he witnessed the Terror
of the French Revolution,

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an experience that filled him with a
lifelong dread of revolutionary violence-

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- How would you describe O'Connell?
- O'Connell was a 19th-century liberal.

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That is he believed in constitutionalism,
in human rights.

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He supported that sort of thing in other
countries and wanted it in Ireland.

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In 1823, O'Connell brought the Catholic
Church directly into Irish Politics-

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His Catholic Association used
Church networks to mobilise the People

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to campaign for emancipation-

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JOHN McCARTHY: They started
collections outside the church

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where the peasants could give
a farthing a week,

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a penny a month, a shilling a year,

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and they could have a badge saying they
were a member of the Catholic Association.

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And his marshals in this,
his precinct captains, were the clergy.

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A Protestant bishop observed,

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''There is what we have
never before witnessed,

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''a complete union
of the Roman Catholics- ''

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O'Connell decided to Provoke a crisis-

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He would challenge the law
banning Catholics from Parliament

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unless they renounced their faith-

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In 1828, in County Clare,

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Daniel O'Connell became
the first Catholic in Britain or Ireland

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to stand for Parliament
in more than 100 years-

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O'Connell won easily,
but he also had support in Government-

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The crisis Presented Pragmatists
in the British Cabinet

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with the opportunity to repeal the
remaining laws against Roman Catholics-

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ROY FOSTER: Catholic emancipation
enables and empowers

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a whole world of Irish Catholics

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who previously, over the traumatic
first 20 years of the Union,

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have not seen any element of power
open to them.

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It enables them to feel, I think,
they have a stake.

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But there is a Part of Ireland
where the rise of O'Connell

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is greeted with fear-

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In Ulster, there were
more than a million Protestants,

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descendants of the settlers
who'd come in the 17th century-

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They ranged from landed gentry
to farm labourers, to factory workers-

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Many had Prospered,
creating thriving industry-

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Although some Protestant dissenters
had led the rebellion of 1798,

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sectarian conflict with Catholics
had helped to create

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a siege mentality among the growing
Protestant working class-

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It's hard to think when you look at
a shell like this that it once symbolised

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immense prosperity.

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To Ulster Protestants, the world that they
knew, the world that they felt secure in,

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was dependent on the link with Britain.

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It was that which guaranteed their jobs,

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their education,
their special place in society

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and, of course, their religious identity.

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When they looked around
the rest of the island

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and they saw the rise
of somebody like Daniel O'Connell,

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the growth in the power
of the Catholic Church,

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they felt panicked.

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O'Connell's supporters attempted
a Political invasion of Ulster-

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It failed, but sectarian fear escalated-

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PAUL BEW: Once you get clashes
between large groups of people,

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then you get these general fears
that actually, quite simply,

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they want to wipe us out.

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They've come here
with a large group of people,

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we're defending this piece of space
with our group of people.

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It becomes a very elemental,
very simple conflict.

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O'Connell failed to understand
the Power of Protestant fear-

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It was a failure Irish nationalists
and British governments

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would continually repeat-

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And if Protestants were alarmed
by the emancipation campaign,

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what O'Connell Planned to do next
would strike directly

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at the heart of the British Constitution-

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He was about to move from the Politics
of religion to those of union-

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Daniel O'Connell now set out
on his most daunting campaign of all -

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to repeal the Act of Union which joined
Britain and Ireland together as one nation

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and under which
this country was ruled from London.

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Now, O'Connell wasn't a revolutionary,

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he didn't want Ireland to leave
the wider British Empire.

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What his repeal campaign demanded
was an Irish Parliament,

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where Catholics would hold power.

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The majority of Catholic bishops
and Priests supported the campaign,

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and clerics went back into action
to rally the People-

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O'Connell held some of the largest
Political meetings in European history-

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The greatest gathering was at Tara,
seat of the old high kings---

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---where O'Connell's carriage took
two hours to Pass through the crowd-

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O'Connell stood here at Tara,

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reaching back into a mythic past
to inspire his people.

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Reports from his supporters
describe a crowd of a million people.

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Whatever the exact numbers,

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it was certainly the largest gathering
the country had ever seen.

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And it rattled the Government.

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Within three months, O'Connell
had been arrested and he would be jailed.

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The movement disintegrated-

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Mass demonstrations on their own
could not win repeal-

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O'Connell needed Political support
at Westminster, and he had none-

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Within three years he would be dead,

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taken mortally ill
on a Pilgrimage to Rome-

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But the tumult of O'Connell's era

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had created a generation
of more radical nationalists-

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Inspired the Gaelic Past,

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these Young Irelanders sought an identity

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that was Politically and culturally
separate to Britain-

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Their leader, Thomas Davis,
a Protestant writer and thinker,

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echoed an earlier generation
of Irish Protestants

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who'd led rebellion against Britain-

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''Righteous men, ''he wrote,
''must make our land a nation once again- ''

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That determination
will be immeasurably deepened

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by the events that unfold
in the fields of Ireland-

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Here the rural Poor subsisted
on overcrowded land

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and depended almost entirely
on Potatoes for their food-

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In 1845, disease attacked the croP-

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Phytophthora infestans would quickly
become known as ''the blight''-

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How did the blight work?
What did it do to potatoes?

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Well, basically, it rotted the potatoes.

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It's a travel...
Spores that travel in the air,

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and it comes in and it gets onto
the stalk, onto the leaf of the stalk,

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and it travels down through the stalk,

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down into the potato
and basically rots the potato.

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The blight swept west across Europe,

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killing 50,000 in Belgium,
an even greater number in Germany-

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In Scotland, tens of thousands emigrated
to escape the hunger-

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But none of this compared
to what would happen in Ireland-

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The first deaths occurred in 1846,

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and the Tory Government
of Sir Robert Peel responded

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by importing grain
to keep food Prices down,

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and by Putting the hungry to work
building roads and bridges

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so they could earn money to buy food-

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By the beginning of the following year,

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more than 750,000 People
were depending on Public works-

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FERGAL: What is the prevailing mentality
at that time towards a famine?

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Their initial response to a situation,

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which isn't at all as bad
as what it would become,

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is, I think, fairly generous and positive.

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As the crisis developed, I think attitudes
in London became less sympathetic.

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There's more exasperation and,
in certain quarters, actually hostility

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and frustration and a sense
that the Irish are not grateful,

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that they must do more to help themselves.

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By June 1846, there was a new Whig
Government led by Lord John Russell-

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The Whigs believed in the Prevailing
doctrine of laissez faire -

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minimal state intervention-

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Saving the starving
was not the Government's job

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but that of local landlords
and of charities-

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(BELL TOLLS)

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And so, as the crisis deepened, Government
support for Public works was removed-

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Some landlords were generous
and were bankrupted by the cost of relief-

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Others had no inclination to helP
and evicted the starving-

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Priests were heavily involved
in helping the People-

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In Clare, one reported how half
of his 1,000 Parishioners were dead-

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''Scores were thrown
beside the nearest ditch, ''he wrote,

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''and left to the mercy of dogs,
which had nothing to feed on- ''

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Food Prices soared far beyond the wages
of those still employed on Public works,

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00:17:45,607 --> 00:17:50,522
and Government soup kitchens were closed
after being open for just six months-

235
00:17:54,647 --> 00:17:59,562
Famine diseases like typhoid
and cholera swept through the Population-

236
00:18:11,607 --> 00:18:17,239
The workhouses Paid for by the landlords'
rates were besieged by starving People-

237
00:18:21,167 --> 00:18:24,842
Overcrowding became endemic
in many of these places.

238
00:18:24,887 --> 00:18:28,436
Workhouses would become
mansions of the dead.

239
00:18:28,487 --> 00:18:31,843
A visitor to the Fermoy workhouse
wrote of how

240
00:18:31,887 --> 00:18:34,720
''a pestilential fever
was raging through the place,

241
00:18:34,767 --> 00:18:39,283
''and all the horrors of disease
were aggravated by the foul air''.

242
00:18:41,487 --> 00:18:44,365
On the day of that visit, 30 sick children

243
00:18:44,407 --> 00:18:48,958
were found crammed into just three beds.

244
00:18:50,967 --> 00:18:54,960
With crops failing,
the Poor fell behind in their rents-

245
00:18:56,367 --> 00:18:58,756
Tens of thousands were evicted-

246
00:19:03,727 --> 00:19:07,925
Skibbereen in West Cork
was one of the hardest hit areas-

247
00:19:11,647 --> 00:19:16,277
In 1847, Lord George Bentinck
told Parliament of news he'd received

248
00:19:16,327 --> 00:19:18,443
from a local clergyman-

249
00:19:22,047 --> 00:19:24,003
''I have at this moment in my pocket,

250
00:19:24,047 --> 00:19:26,481
''a letter from the Protestant clergyman
of Skibbereen,

251
00:19:26,527 --> 00:19:28,722
''the Reverend Richard Boyle Townsend,

252
00:19:28,767 --> 00:19:31,998
''in which he says that in
the Poor Law Union of Skibbereen

253
00:19:32,047 --> 00:19:35,960
''10,000 Persons
have Perished from the famine- ''

254
00:19:38,687 --> 00:19:41,963
The Reverend Townsend became
what we would nowadays call

255
00:19:42,007 --> 00:19:44,237
a humanitarian campaigner.

256
00:19:44,287 --> 00:19:47,916
From the rectory here at Skibbereen
he wrote to newspapers

257
00:19:47,967 --> 00:19:50,527
and to powerful political figures.

258
00:19:50,567 --> 00:19:53,604
This son of the landed Protestant gentry

259
00:19:53,647 --> 00:19:59,279
took the full horror of the Irish famine
to the heart of the British establishment.

260
00:20:02,647 --> 00:20:04,683
Townsend even travelled to London

261
00:20:04,727 --> 00:20:09,005
to lobby the Permanent Secretary
to the Treasury, Charles Trevelyan-

262
00:20:10,047 --> 00:20:14,996
Relief schemes were failing, he said-
Emergency food supplies were needed-

263
00:20:17,007 --> 00:20:20,556
But Trevelyan saw the calamity
in starkly different terms-

264
00:20:22,767 --> 00:20:27,158
God had sent the famine
to teach the Irish a lesson, he wrote-

265
00:20:27,207 --> 00:20:29,721
That calamity
must not be too much mitigated-

266
00:20:29,767 --> 00:20:34,841
The real evil was the People's ''selfish,
Perverse and turbulent character''-

267
00:20:34,887 --> 00:20:36,286
To Irish nationalists,

268
00:20:36,327 --> 00:20:41,003
Trevelyan's callous words represented
the true voice of the union with Britain-

269
00:20:43,687 --> 00:20:47,600
What is it that motivates
Charles Trevelyan?

270
00:20:47,647 --> 00:20:50,957
He articulated ideas,
which I think were pervasive at the time.

271
00:20:51,007 --> 00:20:56,923
Things like self-reliance, market forces,
small government,

272
00:20:56,967 --> 00:20:59,117
the dangers of over-population.

273
00:20:59,167 --> 00:21:01,886
The danger also
of what economists would call

274
00:21:01,927 --> 00:21:05,078
moral hazard
in the context of famine relief -

275
00:21:05,127 --> 00:21:07,880
the sense that if you relieved the Irish
too generously,

276
00:21:07,927 --> 00:21:11,966
they wouldn't learn a lesson
and the same thing was going to happen

277
00:21:12,007 --> 00:21:13,884
in a...in a few decades again.

278
00:21:18,847 --> 00:21:22,078
Reverend Townsend's lobbying
brought newspaPermen

279
00:21:22,127 --> 00:21:26,086
and a number of influential
Public figures to West Cork-

280
00:21:28,247 --> 00:21:30,715
He showed them the cabins of the dying

281
00:21:30,767 --> 00:21:32,439
and the mass graves-

282
00:21:34,047 --> 00:21:37,357
Reverend Townsend brought his visitors
to this graveyard.

283
00:21:37,407 --> 00:21:40,922
Here they saw the horse-drawn carts
pull up with corpses.

284
00:21:40,967 --> 00:21:43,640
They saw them being emptied
into the ground,

285
00:21:43,687 --> 00:21:46,804
layer upon layer, without coffins.

286
00:21:47,927 --> 00:21:53,718
In this one mass grave
lie the remains of 9,OOO people.

287
00:21:59,167 --> 00:22:01,442
By the time the famine was over,

288
00:22:01,487 --> 00:22:05,878
it was estimated more than a million
had died of starvation and disease-

289
00:22:12,967 --> 00:22:17,119
Among them was
the Reverend Richard Boyle Townsend-

290
00:22:17,167 --> 00:22:21,399
He died from typhus
contracted from those he had been helping-

291
00:22:32,007 --> 00:22:34,680
CORMAC O'GRADA: You're talking
about a crisis, which,

292
00:22:34,727 --> 00:22:37,161
by world standards, it's a big famine,

293
00:22:37,207 --> 00:22:42,281
but by 19th-century European standards,
it's absolutely unique.

294
00:22:42,327 --> 00:22:46,957
At that time, Britain was capable
of doing much more than it did.

295
00:22:47,007 --> 00:22:48,838
I think one has to say that.

296
00:22:51,727 --> 00:22:55,959
An entire class of small tenants
and farm labourers vanished-

297
00:22:57,527 --> 00:23:00,963
Some landlords who had been
forced by the Government to Pay for relief

298
00:23:01,007 --> 00:23:02,804
went bankrupt-

299
00:23:02,847 --> 00:23:05,156
And there was a new Phenomenon -

300
00:23:05,207 --> 00:23:08,517
better-off Catholics who bought land
on bankrupt estates-

301
00:23:13,287 --> 00:23:17,075
More than a million of the Poor
took to the emigrant boats-

302
00:23:17,127 --> 00:23:21,405
MAN: # Farewell to you, old Ireland

303
00:23:21,447 --> 00:23:26,441
# Since I must go away

304
00:23:26,487 --> 00:23:31,083
# I now shake hands and bid goodbye

305
00:23:31,127 --> 00:23:35,723
#And can no longer stay

306
00:23:35,767 --> 00:23:40,443
# Our big ship lies in deep Lough Foyle

307
00:23:40,487 --> 00:23:45,402
# Bound for the New York shore

308
00:23:45,447 --> 00:23:49,918
#And I must go from all I know

309
00:23:49,967 --> 00:23:53,437
#And lovely Moneymore--- #

310
00:24:03,127 --> 00:24:07,006
For many emigrants, this was
their last sight of the Irish mainland.

311
00:24:07,047 --> 00:24:10,756
Ahead of them lay the Atlantic
with all its hardships.

312
00:24:10,807 --> 00:24:14,356
In one two-month period in 1847,

313
00:24:14,407 --> 00:24:18,639
nearly 5,OOO people
perished on the crossing.

314
00:24:18,687 --> 00:24:22,157
This mass migration
wouldn't just change the story of Ireland

315
00:24:22,207 --> 00:24:24,482
but of America too.

316
00:24:34,567 --> 00:24:38,719
The story of Irish Catholics in America
is a mix of romantic fable,

317
00:24:38,767 --> 00:24:42,760
Phenomenal social advancement
and hard politics.

318
00:24:42,807 --> 00:24:46,402
A million and a half Irish
left their own country for America

319
00:24:46,447 --> 00:24:48,165
during the years of the famine.

320
00:24:48,207 --> 00:24:51,677
By the middle of the 1850s, there were
more Irish living in New York City

321
00:24:51,727 --> 00:24:53,683
than there were in Dublin.

322
00:24:53,727 --> 00:24:56,605
When they arrived here in their boats
at the East River,

323
00:24:56,647 --> 00:25:00,686
they were the poorest of the poor,
fanning out into the city.

324
00:25:08,407 --> 00:25:11,285
America was absorbing millions of refugees

325
00:25:11,327 --> 00:25:15,036
from hunger and Political crisis
from across the world-

326
00:25:16,447 --> 00:25:20,122
The Irish flooded into the cities
of the American East Coast.

327
00:25:20,167 --> 00:25:22,044
This is now part of Chinatown,

328
00:25:22,087 --> 00:25:24,885
but back then,
it was called the Five Points district.

329
00:25:24,927 --> 00:25:29,443
Here the Irish jostled and competed
with Germans, Scandinavians, Dutch,

330
00:25:29,487 --> 00:25:32,604
with blacks who'd fled slavery
in the South.

331
00:25:32,647 --> 00:25:34,365
Charles Dickens visiting here

332
00:25:34,407 --> 00:25:37,046
described it as a place
that ''reeked of filth and dirt,

333
00:25:37,087 --> 00:25:41,000
''where even the houses
seemed old from debauchery''.

334
00:25:41,047 --> 00:25:44,562
It was a place where only the toughest
and the canniest survived.

335
00:25:46,847 --> 00:25:50,999
The Irish come off boats
down on the East River here in the 1840s,

336
00:25:51,047 --> 00:25:53,242
the lowest in terms of social status.

337
00:25:53,287 --> 00:25:56,962
And yet within a decade that's changed.
How do they do it?

338
00:25:57,007 --> 00:26:02,161
Well, they do it because they bring
with them something intangible,

339
00:26:02,207 --> 00:26:05,358
and that is a capacity
for political organisation,

340
00:26:05,407 --> 00:26:08,240
which they've acquired under the
tutorship, in a way, of Daniel O'Connell

341
00:26:08,287 --> 00:26:11,006
over the previous 30 years.

342
00:26:11,047 --> 00:26:16,599
No other people were able to organise
themselves at so low a social level.

343
00:26:16,647 --> 00:26:19,400
And within a decade of arriving,

344
00:26:19,447 --> 00:26:22,644
they had become the driving force
in New York politics.

345
00:26:24,967 --> 00:26:27,401
Many would find their Political outlet

346
00:26:27,447 --> 00:26:30,325
in the salons
of the American Democratic Party-

347
00:26:31,967 --> 00:26:35,721
But others among the Irish,
embittered by the cruelties of the famine,

348
00:26:35,767 --> 00:26:38,156
were looking back towards home-

349
00:26:43,207 --> 00:26:47,917
The Fenian Brotherhood, founded in 1858,
was rooted in the Young Ireland movement,

350
00:26:47,967 --> 00:26:51,403
which had launched a failed rebellion
a decade before-

351
00:26:54,047 --> 00:26:58,086
They set about raising Political support
and funds for a new revolution-

352
00:26:59,847 --> 00:27:03,476
By 1863, they were Powerful enough
to command large audiences

353
00:27:03,527 --> 00:27:06,087
at meetings in the Prestigious
Cooper Union,

354
00:27:06,127 --> 00:27:09,199
one of the great theatres
of American Political rhetoric,

355
00:27:09,247 --> 00:27:11,807
where Abraham Lincoln had once spoken-

356
00:27:11,847 --> 00:27:13,758
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

357
00:27:17,647 --> 00:27:21,196
Tell me, in essence,
what were the Fenians?

358
00:27:21,247 --> 00:27:24,842
The Fenians were essentially
the cry for revenge for the famine,

359
00:27:24,887 --> 00:27:26,115
that's what they were.

360
00:27:26,167 --> 00:27:29,443
And they were able to mobilise
over here in America,

361
00:27:29,487 --> 00:27:32,559
because they were beyond
British jurisdiction.

362
00:27:34,847 --> 00:27:38,044
The driving force is getting money
out of people -

363
00:27:38,087 --> 00:27:40,885
that's the ultimate test
of organisational capacity -

364
00:27:40,927 --> 00:27:44,920
to send back to Ireland,
and enormous amounts were collected.

365
00:27:51,327 --> 00:27:55,878
MAN: # The minstrel boy to the war is gone

366
00:27:55,927 --> 00:28:01,320
# In the ranks of death
you will find him--- #

367
00:28:01,367 --> 00:28:03,562
FERGAL: But it wasn't simply
a question of money-

368
00:28:03,607 --> 00:28:06,121
Irishmen had also gained
military experience

369
00:28:06,167 --> 00:28:08,044
fighting in the American Civil War-

370
00:28:08,087 --> 00:28:12,000
They would now try to strike at
British Power wherever they could find it-

371
00:28:14,207 --> 00:28:18,246
They hope in 1866, immediately
after the end of the Civil War,

372
00:28:18,287 --> 00:28:21,085
that if they can invade Canada,
as the closest British...

373
00:28:21,127 --> 00:28:23,197
- Invade Canada?
- Invade Canada.

374
00:28:23,247 --> 00:28:24,475
How many of them were going to do that?

375
00:28:24,527 --> 00:28:27,599
Well, it wasn't all that well planned,
you have to put it like that.

376
00:28:27,647 --> 00:28:28,636
How many men...?

377
00:28:28,687 --> 00:28:30,518
Just over 1 ,OOO tried to get into Canada.

378
00:28:32,967 --> 00:28:35,640
They won some skirmishes on the border,

379
00:28:35,687 --> 00:28:37,723
but it didn't work out successfully.

380
00:28:37,767 --> 00:28:42,283
And there was a second attempt,
which worked out even less successfully.

381
00:28:44,847 --> 00:28:48,840
But the Fenians understood
the Power of revolutionary gesture -

382
00:28:48,887 --> 00:28:51,082
the Propaganda of the deed-

383
00:28:53,767 --> 00:28:58,363
In 1867, they carried out the first acts
of Irish terrorism in Britain-

384
00:29:04,967 --> 00:29:08,357
When the accused were executed,
they became martyrs

385
00:29:08,407 --> 00:29:12,082
whose deaths and ideas
would inspire future revolutionaries-

386
00:29:14,847 --> 00:29:20,160
ROY FOSTER:
The idea that a self-elected elite

387
00:29:20,207 --> 00:29:23,404
will form a shock troop of the Irish
nationalist advance,

388
00:29:23,447 --> 00:29:27,360
this idea is, I think, influenced

389
00:29:27,407 --> 00:29:32,640
by certain movements on the Continent
in the 1830s, '40s, '50s.

390
00:29:32,687 --> 00:29:35,155
The...the, erm, anarchist movements.

391
00:29:35,207 --> 00:29:41,646
There are elements of all this
in their structure of cells,

392
00:29:41,687 --> 00:29:46,283
in their belief
that you have to work by conspiracy.

393
00:29:46,327 --> 00:29:52,243
A gestural act of violence,
often against a symbolic target.

394
00:29:52,287 --> 00:29:57,964
This kind of revolutionary politics
is part of the essence of Fenianism.

395
00:30:05,767 --> 00:30:09,885
A brief Fenian rebellion in Ireland
was quickly crushed,

396
00:30:09,927 --> 00:30:14,318
but they would be hugely influential
in a social revolution,

397
00:30:14,367 --> 00:30:19,600
a movement rooted, as with so much
of the history of the Irish 19th century,

398
00:30:19,647 --> 00:30:21,319
in the land-

399
00:30:28,167 --> 00:30:31,557
These farmers in County Kerry
are the descendants of men

400
00:30:31,607 --> 00:30:34,679
who were tenants
on the estates of landlords-

401
00:30:37,927 --> 00:30:41,124
Even the largest tenant farmers
couldn't claim to be secure

402
00:30:41,167 --> 00:30:43,397
from high rent increases or eviction-

403
00:30:51,887 --> 00:30:57,519
And when the Potato blight struck again
and threatened another famine in 1878,

404
00:30:57,567 --> 00:31:02,960
a movement emerged determined
to Protect the farmers from eviction-

405
00:31:07,607 --> 00:31:09,484
The great movement for change

406
00:31:09,527 --> 00:31:13,156
would be built around
the forefathers of men like these.

407
00:31:13,207 --> 00:31:16,119
The rural poor would be
mobilised into a force

408
00:31:16,167 --> 00:31:21,036
that sparked phenomenal social change
and created a political legend.

409
00:31:21,087 --> 00:31:25,922
It would be led by two men as different
from each other as it was possible to be,

410
00:31:25,967 --> 00:31:28,356
in background and personality.

411
00:31:32,647 --> 00:31:36,720
In 1879, a 31-year-old activist,
Michael Davitt,

412
00:31:36,767 --> 00:31:39,076
returned to his native County Mayo

413
00:31:39,127 --> 00:31:44,076
after spending seven years in British
Prisons for his Part in a Fenian Plot-

414
00:31:46,767 --> 00:31:51,158
Davitt had come back to Mayo
to rally farmers threatened with eviction

415
00:31:51,207 --> 00:31:53,402
and because he saw in the rural crisis

416
00:31:53,447 --> 00:31:58,077
the chance to Put his own socialist ideas
into Practice-

417
00:31:59,527 --> 00:32:02,166
LAURENCE MARLEY: Davitt was born in 1846,
at the height of the famine.

418
00:32:02,207 --> 00:32:06,359
At the age of four, Davitt, his three
sisters and his parents were evicted

419
00:32:06,407 --> 00:32:09,126
from their homestead in County Mayo.

420
00:32:09,167 --> 00:32:12,796
The family were forced in 1850
to emigrate to England.

421
00:32:12,847 --> 00:32:18,763
And all throughout his childhood,
Davitt was brought up with these images.

422
00:32:18,807 --> 00:32:20,877
FERGAL: And isn't the key thing
that he grows up

423
00:32:20,927 --> 00:32:25,717
profoundly shaped
by radical ideas of English socialism?

424
00:32:25,767 --> 00:32:27,803
LAURENCE MARLEY: Yes, that's true.

425
00:32:27,847 --> 00:32:30,202
In fact, his experiences would have
been more into tune

426
00:32:30,247 --> 00:32:31,760
with the industrial working class
of Lancashire.

427
00:32:31,807 --> 00:32:34,958
For him, that relationship
between them and their landlord

428
00:32:35,007 --> 00:32:36,918
was no different from a relationship

429
00:32:36,967 --> 00:32:39,959
between the industrial boss
and the industrial worker.

430
00:32:40,007 --> 00:32:43,920
Davitt was a child
of the Industrial Revolution

431
00:32:43,967 --> 00:32:48,006
and, at the age of 11,
had lost his right arm in a mill accident-

432
00:32:48,047 --> 00:32:52,120
Yet this class warrior
would form an alliance with an aristocrat-

433
00:32:53,607 --> 00:32:57,566
Charles Stewart Parnell
came from a Protestant land-owning family

434
00:32:57,607 --> 00:33:00,565
whose fortunes had declined
after the famine-

435
00:33:00,607 --> 00:33:04,395
From his American mother, he'd inherited
a strong anti-British sentiment

436
00:33:04,447 --> 00:33:07,007
and he would become a nationalist icon-

437
00:33:08,007 --> 00:33:11,363
ROY FOSTER: Parnell and Davitt
are a fascinating contrast,

438
00:33:11,407 --> 00:33:12,965
in almost every way you can think.

439
00:33:13,007 --> 00:33:17,797
Parnell, an aristocrat, a dictator,
as he was well known as.

440
00:33:17,847 --> 00:33:20,998
He even called one of his horses Dictator.

441
00:33:21,047 --> 00:33:25,723
Davitt, a socialist, who becomes
increasingly socialist with the years.

442
00:33:25,767 --> 00:33:29,646
But out of those differences came,
I think, a great deal of the strength

443
00:33:29,687 --> 00:33:34,477
of that astonishing decade
of roughly 1880 to 1890

444
00:33:34,527 --> 00:33:38,236
when such political success
seemed to be within the grasp

445
00:33:38,287 --> 00:33:40,118
of the Irish nationalist movement.

446
00:33:42,927 --> 00:33:46,761
Davitt admired Parnell's willingness
to confront the Government-

447
00:33:46,807 --> 00:33:50,800
The vehicle that would bring both men
to the forefront of nationalist Politics

448
00:33:50,847 --> 00:33:52,917
was the Irish Land League,

449
00:33:52,967 --> 00:33:57,438
which began, from October 1879,
to organise civil disobedience

450
00:33:57,487 --> 00:34:00,524
against increased rents and evictions-

451
00:34:06,807 --> 00:34:10,641
One of the first cases taken uP
by the League was that of a tenant farmer

452
00:34:10,687 --> 00:34:13,042
in Loona More, County Mayo-

453
00:34:13,087 --> 00:34:15,521
Anthony Dempsey
had fallen behind on his rent

454
00:34:15,567 --> 00:34:17,398
and faced eviction-

455
00:34:22,727 --> 00:34:26,037
These are relatives of Anthony Dempsey,
visiting his old cottage-

456
00:34:29,247 --> 00:34:31,158
JOHN DEMPSEY:
Thousands of people gathered here

457
00:34:31,207 --> 00:34:34,802
to prevent the eviction
of the Dempsey family.

458
00:34:36,647 --> 00:34:39,036
The biggest significance of it was that

459
00:34:39,087 --> 00:34:42,318
Charles Stewart Parnell
came to this scene.

460
00:34:42,367 --> 00:34:45,916
So he would have come up the road,
down over that way,

461
00:34:45,967 --> 00:34:49,084
- and come up with thousands of people.
- Yeah.

462
00:34:49,127 --> 00:34:52,199
We're led to believe that Parnell
came up the hill there on a white horse.

463
00:34:52,247 --> 00:34:56,286
Is that kind of... (LAUGHS)
...the Irish gift for romantic...

464
00:34:56,327 --> 00:34:59,046
romanticising things,
or did it really happen?

465
00:34:59,087 --> 00:35:04,002
I don't know, but it...it would have added
to the whole occasion if it did happen.

466
00:35:04,047 --> 00:35:07,722
Because that's how people saw him,
wasn't it? I mean, there's truth in that.

467
00:35:07,767 --> 00:35:10,201
They saw him as
the knight riding to rescue.

468
00:35:10,247 --> 00:35:13,125
JOHN DEMPSEY: When the police realised,
the major in charge

469
00:35:13,167 --> 00:35:15,556
called off the eviction
at that particular time.

470
00:35:20,927 --> 00:35:24,681
Vast sums of money were raised
through the Fenian networks in America

471
00:35:24,727 --> 00:35:27,321
and used to subsidise evicted families-

472
00:35:28,607 --> 00:35:32,646
The League was both rural trade union
and nationalist movement-

473
00:35:36,447 --> 00:35:38,597
A rent strike was declared-

474
00:35:38,647 --> 00:35:42,526
The League tapped into
rural traditions of coercion

475
00:35:42,567 --> 00:35:45,604
against those it called
''the People's enemies''-

476
00:35:45,647 --> 00:35:48,445
LAURENCE MARLEY: The Land League develops
a new tactic called Boycotting,

477
00:35:48,487 --> 00:35:50,796
or social ostracism.

478
00:35:52,887 --> 00:35:56,562
One of the other aspects of this
was what became known as moonlighting,

479
00:35:56,607 --> 00:35:59,440
where those who went against
the unwritten law would be visited

480
00:35:59,487 --> 00:36:03,116
or would receive letters
or warnings about their conduct,

481
00:36:03,167 --> 00:36:05,078
and even to have mock funerals

482
00:36:05,127 --> 00:36:09,837
that symbolised the end of them
as members of the community.

483
00:36:16,527 --> 00:36:19,724
But transformation in Ireland
is dependent on

484
00:36:19,767 --> 00:36:23,077
a Parallel but very different
revolution in Britain-

485
00:36:26,327 --> 00:36:30,639
It is the age of mass industrialisation
and rapid social change-

486
00:36:32,607 --> 00:36:36,441
In this evolving United Kingdom
dominated by the forces of industry,

487
00:36:36,487 --> 00:36:42,244
the old Ireland of landlords seems
out of step with the spirit of the age-

488
00:36:44,607 --> 00:36:47,326
Politics, too, was changing-
The vote had been extended

489
00:36:47,367 --> 00:36:50,006
to factory and farm workers-

490
00:36:50,047 --> 00:36:51,366
Parnell's Irish Party

491
00:36:51,407 --> 00:36:53,523
benefited from a new secret ballot,

492
00:36:53,567 --> 00:36:55,762
which undermined the Power of landlords

493
00:36:55,807 --> 00:36:58,321
to coerce their tenants
into voting for them-

494
00:36:58,367 --> 00:37:01,484
Irish nationalists
were a force in Parliament-

495
00:37:03,367 --> 00:37:06,757
The struggle for land rights
now moved to the Houses of Parliament,

496
00:37:06,807 --> 00:37:10,402
and it would take the energy and vision
of a British Prime Minister

497
00:37:10,447 --> 00:37:14,679
to introduce legislation that would have
a more far-reaching practical impact

498
00:37:14,727 --> 00:37:17,480
on the lives of rural communities

499
00:37:17,527 --> 00:37:20,200
than any other statute
in the past century.

500
00:37:21,447 --> 00:37:26,567
William Ewart Gladstone was a combination
of moralist and canny Politician-

501
00:37:26,607 --> 00:37:29,599
In 1881, he introduced a Land Act,

502
00:37:29,647 --> 00:37:32,002
which offered Irish tenants
security from eviction

503
00:37:32,047 --> 00:37:33,639
and a means of controlling their rent-

504
00:37:33,687 --> 00:37:36,042
After further agitation,

505
00:37:36,087 --> 00:37:40,319
Gladstone moved closer to meeting
the key demand of Davitt and Parnell -

506
00:37:40,367 --> 00:37:44,121
the right of Irish tenants
to buy their own land-

507
00:37:46,567 --> 00:37:49,559
ROY FOSTER: I think there's a strong
argument for saying that the hinge

508
00:37:49,607 --> 00:37:55,876
on which modern Irish history turns
is the Land War of 1879 to 1882.

509
00:37:55,927 --> 00:38:00,523
From 1881 , through to the Land Acts
of the early 20th century,

510
00:38:00,567 --> 00:38:07,962
you have the British state enabling
Irish tenants to buy out their holdings

511
00:38:08,007 --> 00:38:11,682
from the landlords and become
small ''peasant proprietors'',

512
00:38:11,727 --> 00:38:14,321
as the phrase of the day would have it.

513
00:38:14,367 --> 00:38:17,564
This has immense implications

514
00:38:17,607 --> 00:38:22,886
for the creation of a conservative -
with a small C - rural petite bourgeoisie.

515
00:38:25,967 --> 00:38:29,277
The social revolution
that begins with the Land War

516
00:38:29,327 --> 00:38:35,004
isn't the creation of a socialist state
as Davitt would have wanted,

517
00:38:35,047 --> 00:38:38,403
but it turned out to be
a conservative revolution,

518
00:38:38,447 --> 00:38:42,963
which is exactly what
Charles Stewart Parnell would have liked.

519
00:38:46,487 --> 00:38:50,002
There has been a long social revolution-

520
00:38:50,047 --> 00:38:52,720
The laws which forced Catholics
and Presbyterians

521
00:38:52,767 --> 00:38:56,999
to Pay for the upkeep of the Anglican
Church have already been overturned-

522
00:38:57,047 --> 00:39:00,244
It was now no longer the state Church-

523
00:39:01,887 --> 00:39:06,915
The Protestant Ascendancy was being
dismantled not by violent revolution

524
00:39:06,967 --> 00:39:09,959
but by Acts of a British Parliament-

525
00:39:12,327 --> 00:39:15,922
The Catholic bourgeoisie of farmers,
merchants and Professionals

526
00:39:15,967 --> 00:39:17,798
were the rising force-

527
00:39:17,847 --> 00:39:22,557
And their Church, already Powerful,
would come to dominate Irish life

528
00:39:22,607 --> 00:39:24,802
well into the modern age-

529
00:39:28,007 --> 00:39:29,679
In the new, confident Church,

530
00:39:29,727 --> 00:39:34,118
Cardinal Paul Cullen
had emerged as a Princely figure-

531
00:39:34,167 --> 00:39:38,046
He was ordained the same year that
Catholic emancipation was granted

532
00:39:38,087 --> 00:39:42,877
and rose to become Archbishop of Dublin
and Ireland's first Cardinal-

533
00:39:45,567 --> 00:39:49,196
Cullen set a mark on Irish Catholicism

534
00:39:49,247 --> 00:39:53,320
which was there until very, very recently.

535
00:39:53,367 --> 00:39:56,996
He set up an institutional framework -

536
00:39:57,047 --> 00:40:03,156
the orphanages, the schools, the churches,
the confraternities.

537
00:40:03,207 --> 00:40:05,960
All the paraphernalia, if you like,
of Catholic life.

538
00:40:06,007 --> 00:40:09,761
His era was also hugely influential
in shaping

539
00:40:09,807 --> 00:40:13,436
the personal and public piety
of the Irish.

540
00:40:13,487 --> 00:40:16,285
FERGAL: There's a pretty fierce attempt

541
00:40:16,327 --> 00:40:18,887
to control the Catholic population
on the part of Cullen

542
00:40:18,927 --> 00:40:21,157
and the kind of men
who came along with him.

543
00:40:21,207 --> 00:40:27,282
His interest is the security, the rights
and the position of the Church,

544
00:40:27,327 --> 00:40:33,596
and he will be as tough as he needs to be
to secure those Catholic interests.

545
00:40:35,847 --> 00:40:38,361
FERGAL: The story of the 19th century
in Ireland

546
00:40:38,407 --> 00:40:40,318
is one in which power shifts decisively.

547
00:40:40,367 --> 00:40:44,679
The great issues of religious freedom,
of land, have now been confronted,

548
00:40:44,727 --> 00:40:50,563
but there remains the most divisive
question of all - Home Rule.

549
00:40:50,607 --> 00:40:53,917
Up to now,
Ireland has been ruled from London,

550
00:40:53,967 --> 00:40:59,439
but the campaign to change that will lead
to the division that persists in Ireland

551
00:40:59,487 --> 00:41:00,761
to this very day.

552
00:41:03,167 --> 00:41:04,885
The new campaign will be led

553
00:41:04,927 --> 00:41:07,964
by the hero of the Land League,
Charles Stewart Parnell-

554
00:41:08,007 --> 00:41:12,000
Under Home Rule,
Ireland would stay in the Empire,

555
00:41:12,047 --> 00:41:16,598
but it would be ruled
not from London but Dublin,

556
00:41:16,647 --> 00:41:19,081
and by a nationalist-dominated
Parliament-

557
00:41:19,127 --> 00:41:23,166
By 1885, Parnell was in
a strong bargaining Position-

558
00:41:23,207 --> 00:41:26,677
His Party now held
the balance of Power in Parliament,

559
00:41:26,727 --> 00:41:30,561
and he found Gladstone a willing Partner-

560
00:41:30,607 --> 00:41:33,599
This deeply religious man
was beginning to see Ireland

561
00:41:33,647 --> 00:41:39,677
as a divine mission, and Home Rule
as a means of repaying the Irish

562
00:41:39,727 --> 00:41:41,558
for the cruelties of the past.

563
00:41:41,607 --> 00:41:45,646
And there was a pragmatic consideration.

564
00:41:45,687 --> 00:41:50,807
Gladstone needed the support of Parnell's
MPs to keep his Government in power.

565
00:41:50,847 --> 00:41:55,921
For moral and political reasons,
Ireland mattered as never before.

566
00:41:55,967 --> 00:42:00,643
By 1886, Gladstone was ready
to Put a Home Rule Bill

567
00:42:00,687 --> 00:42:03,042
before the House of Commons-

568
00:42:03,087 --> 00:42:05,840
Parnell and his MPs listened intently

569
00:42:05,887 --> 00:42:11,996
as Gladstone declared that this was
a golden moment, which rarely returns.

570
00:42:12,047 --> 00:42:15,119
The British Prime Minister
had placed his political prestige

571
00:42:15,167 --> 00:42:20,161
and the formidable weight of his oratory
behind self-rule for the Irish.

572
00:42:20,207 --> 00:42:21,526
But it wouldn't be enough.

573
00:42:21,567 --> 00:42:22,761
(JEERING)

574
00:42:22,807 --> 00:42:25,367
The Bill was defeated by 30 votes-

575
00:42:25,407 --> 00:42:28,126
Many of Gladstone's
own Liberal supporters,

576
00:42:28,167 --> 00:42:31,955
fearful that Home Rule could lead
to the break-up of the Empire,

577
00:42:32,007 --> 00:42:34,123
voted against him-

578
00:42:39,167 --> 00:42:42,682
In Ireland,
the Bill raised sectarian tension-

579
00:42:42,727 --> 00:42:47,926
Many Ulster Protestants saw Home Rule
as simple Rome Rule-

580
00:42:47,967 --> 00:42:52,165
On the day the Bill was defeated,
there were riots in Belfast-

581
00:42:55,967 --> 00:43:00,324
Here at Alexandra Dock, a rumour spread
that Catholics had attacked an Orangeman.

582
00:43:00,367 --> 00:43:04,155
Soon hundreds of shipyard workers
were streaming across the road.

583
00:43:04,207 --> 00:43:07,995
They set about the Catholics,
beating them with whatever came to hand.

584
00:43:08,047 --> 00:43:10,925
The Catholic workers,
some of them jumped into the water,

585
00:43:10,967 --> 00:43:12,719
trying to swim across the river.

586
00:43:12,767 --> 00:43:14,325
One man was drowned.

587
00:43:14,367 --> 00:43:17,996
By nightfall,
rioting had spread across Belfast.

588
00:43:22,847 --> 00:43:28,126
ROY FOSTER: Gladstone took an extremely
myopic view, I think it has to be said,

589
00:43:28,167 --> 00:43:33,639
of Ulster resistance,
in which he was accompanied by Parnell,

590
00:43:33,687 --> 00:43:39,762
who simply took the line that Ulster
had played a grand part in the 1798 rising

591
00:43:39,807 --> 00:43:43,083
and platonically
was part of nationalist Ireland,

592
00:43:43,127 --> 00:43:47,325
and these deluded Unionists
would come and see this in time.

593
00:43:50,287 --> 00:43:52,403
As news of the defeat of Home Rule

594
00:43:52,447 --> 00:43:54,597
spread through the streets of Belfast,

595
00:43:54,647 --> 00:43:57,525
Protestants in working-class areas
came out to celebrate.

596
00:43:57,567 --> 00:44:00,639
They marched behind Orange bands
and they lit bonfires.

597
00:44:05,647 --> 00:44:07,558
As the smoke curled up into the sky,

598
00:44:07,607 --> 00:44:10,838
it could have been read as a warning

599
00:44:10,887 --> 00:44:14,482
of an age of violence and division
that was to come.

600
00:44:19,247 --> 00:44:24,685
Parnell and Gladstone were to make one
more attempt at bringing about Home Rule-

601
00:44:24,727 --> 00:44:29,881
In December 1889, Parnell travelled
to Hawarden Castle in Flintshire,

602
00:44:29,927 --> 00:44:31,679
Gladstone's country home-

603
00:44:33,447 --> 00:44:37,486
The Irish party leader came here
to meet Gladstone as the year ended,

604
00:44:37,527 --> 00:44:43,716
and the possibility of a great new
campaign for Home Rule bubbled in the air.

605
00:44:43,767 --> 00:44:46,327
Until calamity descended.

606
00:44:47,487 --> 00:44:50,524
It was the biggest sex scandal
of its time-

607
00:44:50,567 --> 00:44:54,685
Parnell's nearly decade-long liaison
with a married woman, Katherine O'Shea,

608
00:44:54,727 --> 00:44:58,276
became Public when her husband,
from whom she was separated,

609
00:44:58,327 --> 00:45:00,204
sued for divorce-

610
00:45:01,527 --> 00:45:03,916
Her husband was one of Parnell's MPs-

611
00:45:04,927 --> 00:45:06,963
Victorian opinion was scandalised

612
00:45:07,007 --> 00:45:10,044
by false stories
about Parnell donning disguises

613
00:45:10,087 --> 00:45:11,964
and fleeing down a fire escape-

614
00:45:13,447 --> 00:45:18,202
His Party would now be confronted
with a stark choice by the Prime Minister-

615
00:45:21,247 --> 00:45:26,367
Gladstone realised that the forces ranged
against Parnell were simply too powerful,

616
00:45:26,407 --> 00:45:29,877
and within his own party,
the voices of the morally affronted

617
00:45:29,927 --> 00:45:31,679
were growing louder.

618
00:45:31,727 --> 00:45:34,400
He wrote to the Irish Parliamentary Party

619
00:45:34,447 --> 00:45:37,519
that if Parnell were to remain
as its leader,

620
00:45:37,567 --> 00:45:42,038
his own position as leader of the Liberals
would become impossible.

621
00:45:43,607 --> 00:45:46,485
In this way, Gladstone cut Parnell loose.

622
00:45:51,847 --> 00:45:53,963
But Parnell would not step down,

623
00:45:54,007 --> 00:45:58,683
even after his former allies,
the Catholic bishops, denounced him-

624
00:45:59,887 --> 00:46:03,880
At a bitter meeting in Westminster,
he faced his MPs-

625
00:46:03,927 --> 00:46:05,645
(JEERING)

626
00:46:05,687 --> 00:46:09,157
Parnell Placed his leadershiP
before the unity of the Party,

627
00:46:09,207 --> 00:46:10,560
and it split-

628
00:46:10,607 --> 00:46:12,757
The majority deserted him-

629
00:46:13,887 --> 00:46:17,800
He returned to Ireland to campaign,
facing often hostile crowds-

630
00:46:19,287 --> 00:46:22,518
His health worsened,
and he was dead within a year-

631
00:46:24,887 --> 00:46:31,360
ROY FOSTER: Parnell's fall and destruction
was a kind of classic tale of hubris.

632
00:46:31,407 --> 00:46:33,159
He was a titanic figure,

633
00:46:33,207 --> 00:46:38,327
but the flaws in his personality
were part of that titanic image,

634
00:46:38,367 --> 00:46:41,677
that kingly hauteur.

635
00:46:41,727 --> 00:46:45,083
When he fought his last campaigns,

636
00:46:45,127 --> 00:46:48,483
one of his tactics was to pour scorn

637
00:46:48,527 --> 00:46:51,997
on the very thing
that he himself had accomplished.

638
00:46:52,047 --> 00:46:56,006
He was now saying, ''Look, it would never
have happened. Never trust the British.''

639
00:46:56,047 --> 00:47:00,598
He is reverting to
an older Fenian-style kind of rhetoric,

640
00:47:00,647 --> 00:47:05,323
where Britain represents the infamous
thing that you can never trust,

641
00:47:05,367 --> 00:47:07,244
that will always do down Ireland.

642
00:47:07,287 --> 00:47:10,438
He's saying, ''Now they've done down me.''
He had done himself down.

643
00:47:12,127 --> 00:47:15,836
Vast crowds attended
Parnell's Dublin funeral-

644
00:47:15,887 --> 00:47:20,005
'A star has been laid low, ''
wrote the Poet WB Yeats-

645
00:47:28,807 --> 00:47:33,323
The age of the Political titans
was over - O'Connell and Parnell-

646
00:47:34,567 --> 00:47:37,718
But the Promise of Home Rule
had Prompted many nationalists

647
00:47:37,767 --> 00:47:39,997
to re-examine Irish identity-

648
00:47:40,047 --> 00:47:43,596
They reached back
into the mythical Past for inspiration-

649
00:47:45,327 --> 00:47:48,399
These cultural nationalists
sought an Irish Ireland,

650
00:47:48,447 --> 00:47:50,677
an identity utterly separate from Britain-

651
00:47:52,487 --> 00:47:54,364
Gaelic sports were revived-

652
00:47:54,407 --> 00:47:58,195
The Gaelic Athletic Association
repudiated English games

653
00:47:58,247 --> 00:48:00,556
in favour of sports like hurling-

654
00:48:00,607 --> 00:48:01,960
As James Joyce wrote,

655
00:48:02,007 --> 00:48:07,286
the ''racy of the soil''
were ''building up a nation once again''-

656
00:48:09,767 --> 00:48:14,522
The movement became one of the most
important organisations in Irish history-

657
00:48:16,407 --> 00:48:19,479
It also attracted radical nationalists-

658
00:48:21,607 --> 00:48:23,882
Several of the GAA 's founding members

659
00:48:23,927 --> 00:48:27,681
belonged to the Fenian
Irish Republican Brotherhood-

660
00:48:29,487 --> 00:48:31,796
The GAA would also become central

661
00:48:31,847 --> 00:48:34,566
to the first great campaign
of cultural nationalism -

662
00:48:34,607 --> 00:48:37,075
reviving the Irish language-

663
00:48:38,887 --> 00:48:41,401
(WOMAN SINGS IN GAELIC)

664
00:48:53,367 --> 00:48:56,200
Stretching back century over century,

665
00:48:56,247 --> 00:49:00,286
the Irish language had been
the dominant tongue on this island.

666
00:49:00,327 --> 00:49:03,399
But by the late 19th century,
that had changed.

667
00:49:03,447 --> 00:49:06,200
English was now widely spoken.

668
00:49:15,487 --> 00:49:18,126
(SINGS IN GAELIC)

669
00:49:23,127 --> 00:49:25,243
(TRANSLATION FROM GAELIC)

670
00:50:04,127 --> 00:50:09,281
The attempt to revitalise the language
led Douglas Hyde, a southern Protestant,

671
00:50:09,327 --> 00:50:11,887
to co-found the Gaelic League-

672
00:50:11,927 --> 00:50:14,043
Hyde was no revolutionary,

673
00:50:14,087 --> 00:50:18,956
but the movement attracted
a growing number of militant nationalists-

674
00:50:23,727 --> 00:50:28,039
ROY FOSTER: People like Douglas Hyde want
to keep politics out of the Gaelic League.

675
00:50:28,087 --> 00:50:31,204
But politics are never going to be kept
out of a movement,

676
00:50:31,247 --> 00:50:37,038
part of whose rhetoric
depends on the constant reiteration

677
00:50:37,087 --> 00:50:40,124
of Englishness as contamination.

678
00:50:40,167 --> 00:50:42,601
But this cultural renaissance

679
00:50:42,647 --> 00:50:45,878
isn't simply an attempt
to create a nationalist myth of Ireland-

680
00:50:45,927 --> 00:50:51,160
The Poet William Butler Yeats is an
Irishman rooted in the Protestant world

681
00:50:51,207 --> 00:50:53,641
but committed to nationalism-

682
00:50:53,687 --> 00:50:58,681
He writes in English but is inspired
by eastern mysticism, European modernism

683
00:50:58,727 --> 00:51:01,161
and Celtic mythology-

684
00:51:01,207 --> 00:51:05,598
Yeats and his colleagues are imbued
with the Past but open to the world-

685
00:51:07,367 --> 00:51:12,487
It comes from the kind of interest
in Irish literary origins,

686
00:51:12,527 --> 00:51:14,882
which has been going on
since the 1830s and '40s,

687
00:51:14,927 --> 00:51:16,963
with translations of old sagas

688
00:51:17,007 --> 00:51:21,762
and with an interest in the literary
content of...of the Irish language.

689
00:51:21,807 --> 00:51:26,119
And they're very alive
to a European tradition,

690
00:51:26,167 --> 00:51:28,681
and I would say that
one of the great inheritances

691
00:51:28,727 --> 00:51:30,843
they give to the Irish cultural tradition

692
00:51:30,887 --> 00:51:34,846
is that broadness, that sophistication,
that European-ness.

693
00:51:36,927 --> 00:51:40,636
The cultural ferment encompassed
revolutionaries and moderates,

694
00:51:40,687 --> 00:51:44,475
mystics and scholars,
and more than one literary giant-

695
00:51:44,527 --> 00:51:47,997
Yet for many Irish People,
it was not the imagined Ireland

696
00:51:48,047 --> 00:51:51,926
of the cultural nationalists
that framed their world view

697
00:51:51,967 --> 00:51:53,605
but a British Empire that,

698
00:51:53,647 --> 00:51:57,435
in the late 19th century,
had never seemed so Powerful-

699
00:51:58,447 --> 00:52:02,281
The Dublin of the revival
was an imperial city-

700
00:52:08,967 --> 00:52:13,324
From Queen Victoria's Civil Service
to the traders and the military,

701
00:52:13,367 --> 00:52:16,643
the Irish were embedded
in the imperial Project-

702
00:52:19,007 --> 00:52:21,965
Ireland was Part
of the largest empire in history,

703
00:52:22,007 --> 00:52:26,159
covering nearly a quarter
of the earth's land mass,

704
00:52:26,207 --> 00:52:31,076
and it offered endless opportunity
to the willing and the adventurous-

705
00:52:33,167 --> 00:52:37,001
In the East India Company,
a sixth of the administration was Irish,

706
00:52:37,047 --> 00:52:38,924
more than any other grouP-

707
00:52:41,087 --> 00:52:43,237
Nor was Irish imperial involvement

708
00:52:43,287 --> 00:52:46,597
confined
to the Protestant Ascendancy class-

709
00:52:47,927 --> 00:52:52,682
Civil servants, like the Cork-born John
Pope-Hennessy, from a Catholic family,

710
00:52:52,727 --> 00:52:55,719
rose to become
a reforming governor of Hong Kong-

711
00:52:57,287 --> 00:53:00,085
Soldiers like Luke O'Connor,
from Roscommon,

712
00:53:00,127 --> 00:53:04,120
joined the Army as a Private,
won the first ever Victoria Cross

713
00:53:04,167 --> 00:53:06,727
and retired as a Major General-

714
00:53:07,727 --> 00:53:10,287
In 1897, here in London,

715
00:53:10,327 --> 00:53:13,717
the Empire celebrated
the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria-

716
00:53:15,607 --> 00:53:19,600
Victoria could contemplate
her vast dominions with confidence.

717
00:53:19,647 --> 00:53:25,119
Even in Ireland, so long so troubled,
the Pax Britannica seemed secure.

718
00:53:25,167 --> 00:53:29,957
It would be shattered by events
many thousands of miles away,

719
00:53:30,007 --> 00:53:32,601
and they would resonate loudly in Ireland.

720
00:53:41,767 --> 00:53:44,486
At the southern tip of Africa,
the Boer Republics

721
00:53:44,527 --> 00:53:47,405
of the Free State and Transvaal
had risen in revolt

722
00:53:47,447 --> 00:53:50,120
against the encroaching British Empire-

723
00:53:53,727 --> 00:53:59,245
Irishmen working on the mines
joined the Boers in this white man's war-

724
00:54:01,247 --> 00:54:03,886
Militant nationalists
watching from Ireland

725
00:54:03,927 --> 00:54:06,077
would soon rally to the Boer cause-

726
00:54:09,767 --> 00:54:13,760
The man who would found Sinn Fein,
Arthur Griffith, came here,

727
00:54:13,807 --> 00:54:16,401
as did the great land campaigner,
Michael Davitt,

728
00:54:16,447 --> 00:54:20,486
who witnessed the British and the Boer
fighting hand to hand.

729
00:54:20,527 --> 00:54:24,122
And the shopkeeper's son from County Mayo,
John MacBride,

730
00:54:24,167 --> 00:54:26,362
led a brigade on the Boer side.

731
00:54:26,407 --> 00:54:28,477
As MacBride himself put it,

732
00:54:28,527 --> 00:54:31,963
fighting the British here in South Africa
was the next best thing

733
00:54:32,007 --> 00:54:34,077
to fighting them in Ireland itself.

734
00:54:35,727 --> 00:54:40,243
Among those who flocked to the Boer cause
was an Irish-American brigade

735
00:54:40,287 --> 00:54:42,926
drawn from the ranks of the old Fenians-

736
00:54:43,927 --> 00:54:48,318
They joined the hundreds who were
now fighting for the Boer President,

737
00:54:48,367 --> 00:54:49,641
Oom Paul Kruger-

738
00:54:51,727 --> 00:54:54,036
Reg, tell me about the Irish.

739
00:54:54,087 --> 00:54:57,363
How did the Boers view the Irish,
how did they see them?

740
00:54:58,647 --> 00:55:03,437
Yeah, they...they didn't
take to discipline very easily.

741
00:55:04,927 --> 00:55:07,521
The Boers actually
thought them a bit rough.

742
00:55:07,567 --> 00:55:09,319
They were a bit scared of them.

743
00:55:09,367 --> 00:55:13,758
Of course, anybody who...
who had a dislike for the British

744
00:55:13,807 --> 00:55:19,484
and a mistrust of the British
were very welcome to the Boer cause.

745
00:55:19,527 --> 00:55:24,726
My father, who during the war
met quite a few of them,

746
00:55:24,767 --> 00:55:29,682
said he rather got the idea,
or the impression,

747
00:55:29,727 --> 00:55:32,287
that they were
fighting against the British

748
00:55:32,327 --> 00:55:34,204
and not so much for the Boer cause.

749
00:55:35,727 --> 00:55:38,446
Back in Dublin,
the tenement children sang,

750
00:55:38,487 --> 00:55:43,766
''Sound the bugle, sound the drum,
and give three cheers for Kruger- ''

751
00:55:43,807 --> 00:55:46,924
FERGAL: Give me a sense of the passions
unleashed in Ireland by this conflict.

752
00:55:46,967 --> 00:55:50,562
In Dublin, which was the core
of the pro-Boer movement,

753
00:55:50,607 --> 00:55:52,199
the Irish pro-Boer movement,

754
00:55:52,247 --> 00:55:56,399
there were the worst riots that had
been seen on the streets of Dublin.

755
00:55:56,447 --> 00:56:01,760
The heroes of the Transvaal
became for a season

756
00:56:01,807 --> 00:56:03,798
the heroes of Irish nationalists.

757
00:56:09,127 --> 00:56:12,403
But there was another Irish reality
in South Africa-

758
00:56:13,407 --> 00:56:18,322
Far more Irishmen - some 40,000 -
fought on the British side-

759
00:56:23,527 --> 00:56:28,123
The conflict between different Irish
allegiances would be exposed brutally

760
00:56:28,167 --> 00:56:31,682
in December 1899,
at the Battle of Colenso---

761
00:56:32,687 --> 00:56:35,485
---one of the worst defeats
suffered by the British-

762
00:56:36,567 --> 00:56:40,526
John MacBride was Present
on the Boer side as they opened fire

763
00:56:40,567 --> 00:56:42,159
on the British Positions-

764
00:56:43,167 --> 00:56:46,477
British troops were pinned down
here in the long grass.

765
00:56:46,527 --> 00:56:48,199
Every time a soldier
tried to raise his head,

766
00:56:48,247 --> 00:56:50,477
he ran the risk of being shot by a sniper

767
00:56:50,527 --> 00:56:52,040
from the hills above.

768
00:56:52,087 --> 00:56:58,117
By the end of the battle, 50O men
were dead, 50O more were wounded,

769
00:56:58,167 --> 00:57:00,601
and by that stage,
MacBride would have known

770
00:57:00,647 --> 00:57:04,560
that many of those lying here
were fellow Irishmen.

771
00:57:11,487 --> 00:57:15,526
DONAL McCRACKEN:
These men were loyal to their regiments.

772
00:57:15,567 --> 00:57:18,400
You only have to count
the number of VCs that were won

773
00:57:18,447 --> 00:57:20,836
in these fields around us.

774
00:57:22,847 --> 00:57:27,875
There are more Irish people,
more Irish men buried in this valley

775
00:57:27,927 --> 00:57:29,758
than anywhere else
on the African continent.

776
00:57:34,887 --> 00:57:38,516
The Boers lost the war, but they had,
in the words of Rudyard Kipling,

777
00:57:38,567 --> 00:57:42,003
taught the Empire ''no end of a lesson''-

778
00:57:51,807 --> 00:57:56,597
The Boer War had proved that
there was a dedicated minority of Irish

779
00:57:56,647 --> 00:57:59,684
committed to breaking the link
with Empire,

780
00:57:59,727 --> 00:58:03,276
and although in South Africa
they were vastly outnumbered

781
00:58:03,327 --> 00:58:04,965
by those loyal to the Crown,

782
00:58:05,007 --> 00:58:06,725
it was the enemies of Britain

783
00:58:06,767 --> 00:58:09,725
who would dictate events
in the new century

784
00:58:09,767 --> 00:58:14,318
and propel Ireland
into an age of violent revolution.