1 00:00:09,087 --> 00:00:13,126 FERGAL KEANE: Ireland's modern story begins in an age of empire, 2 00:00:13,167 --> 00:00:16,716 but it will be convulsed by revolution- 3 00:00:16,767 --> 00:00:19,565 The old order is overthrown- 4 00:00:22,927 --> 00:00:27,682 The religious conflict that has endured for 30O years 5 00:00:27,727 --> 00:00:31,356 will lead to the division of Ireland for the first time in history- 6 00:00:36,287 --> 00:00:38,084 From the beginning of the story of Ireland, 7 00:00:38,127 --> 00:00:42,200 the island has been shaped by events beyond its shores, 8 00:00:42,247 --> 00:00:46,684 and this is never more true than in the modern era- 9 00:00:46,727 --> 00:00:52,438 In an age of world wars when Europe is twice rent apart by hatred, 10 00:00:52,487 --> 00:00:57,163 when tens of millions die in the name of ideology and nationalism, 11 00:00:57,207 --> 00:01:00,916 Ireland, too, will experience dramatic upheaval. 12 00:01:02,487 --> 00:01:06,719 1t is an age in which the island's people will confront not only 13 00:01:06,767 --> 00:01:11,966 the legacy of history, but the very idea of what it means to be Irish- 14 00:01:43,407 --> 00:01:45,125 Early in the last century, 15 00:01:45,167 --> 00:01:50,195 my forebears lived here in middle-class respectability in the city of Cork- 16 00:01:52,767 --> 00:01:55,884 1t was a world dominated by the British Empire, 17 00:01:55,927 --> 00:01:58,077 and Cork was a thriving garrison city- 18 00:01:59,327 --> 00:02:04,276 My great-grandfather was a sergeant in the Royal Irish Constabulary- 19 00:02:06,407 --> 00:02:08,602 But his service records are not kept in Cork- 20 00:02:08,647 --> 00:02:12,640 They're here at the National Archives in Kew- 21 00:02:15,287 --> 00:02:20,077 Here he is. 40739, Hassett, Patrick. 22 00:02:20,127 --> 00:02:24,484 5ft 10, same height as myself, from County Clare. 23 00:02:24,527 --> 00:02:27,803 In his mind, there was nothing unusual about him being sent, 24 00:02:27,847 --> 00:02:30,236 as we can see here, to serve in Belfast, 25 00:02:30,287 --> 00:02:32,243 because it was all one Ireland at the time. 26 00:02:32,287 --> 00:02:35,359 And he wouldn't have seen any contradiction 27 00:02:35,407 --> 00:02:36,999 between supporting the monarchy, 28 00:02:37,047 --> 00:02:39,845 but also supporting the idea of Home Rule for Ireland, 29 00:02:39,887 --> 00:02:41,878 because, remember, if Home Rule was granted, 30 00:02:41,927 --> 00:02:44,964 the country was still going to stay within the British Empire. 31 00:02:47,127 --> 00:02:50,881 And that empire really framed the world 32 00:02:50,927 --> 00:02:54,078 in which my great-grandfather grew up and in which he lived- 33 00:02:56,087 --> 00:02:59,045 Yet the image of a serene Ireland was deceptive- 34 00:02:59,087 --> 00:03:03,160 An Irish Catholic would never rise to the top of the R1C- 35 00:03:03,207 --> 00:03:05,357 1n Her Majesty's Civil Service, 36 00:03:05,407 --> 00:03:09,446 Catholics were noticeably absent from the more senior posts- 37 00:03:12,447 --> 00:03:16,122 The Act of Union had given Catholics economic power, 38 00:03:16,167 --> 00:03:20,206 but their political destiny remained in the hands of London- 39 00:03:21,447 --> 00:03:25,998 As the century turned, a view of an Irish future utterly separate from Britain 40 00:03:26,047 --> 00:03:29,357 was finding expression in cultural revival- 41 00:03:33,567 --> 00:03:37,845 One of the many artists attempting to forge a new national consciousness 42 00:03:37,887 --> 00:03:40,879 was the poet and playwright William Butler Yeats- 43 00:03:42,447 --> 00:03:47,999 1n 1903, with Lady Augusta Gregory, he founded the Abbey Theatre- 44 00:03:48,047 --> 00:03:52,006 1t would see the production of their play Kathleen Ni Houlihan, 45 00:03:52,047 --> 00:03:54,686 which represented Ireland as a beautiful woman 46 00:03:54,727 --> 00:03:57,764 for whom young men would sacrifice their lives- 47 00:03:57,807 --> 00:04:01,356 ''They shall be alive for ever,'' Yeats wrote- 48 00:04:02,407 --> 00:04:08,323 Later he would ask, ''Did that play of mine send out certain men the English shot?'' 49 00:04:10,767 --> 00:04:14,919 The cultural revival in sports, literature and theatre 50 00:04:14,967 --> 00:04:19,961 was profoundly influenced by the fear that Ireland was becoming British- 51 00:04:26,127 --> 00:04:30,564 MAN: There's a fear that Ireland is losing its identity, 52 00:04:30,607 --> 00:04:35,397 that if a new generation does not embrace identity and national sentiment 53 00:04:35,447 --> 00:04:36,880 and the national language and so on, 54 00:04:36,927 --> 00:04:39,680 that something is going to be lost, irretrievably lost. 55 00:04:47,047 --> 00:04:51,359 FERGAL: What was being written and talked about here in Dublin 56 00:04:51,407 --> 00:04:54,205 chimed with nationalist sentiments across the world. 57 00:04:54,247 --> 00:04:58,559 In 1911, Sun Yat-sen had declared his revolution in China. 58 00:04:58,607 --> 00:05:01,917 The following year, the African National Congress 59 00:05:01,967 --> 00:05:03,798 was founded in South Africa. 60 00:05:03,847 --> 00:05:06,315 And closer, in the Balkans, 61 00:05:06,367 --> 00:05:11,077 Serbian plotters were preparing acts that would change the world. 62 00:05:11,127 --> 00:05:16,645 Here in Ireland, the long dominance of those who'd advocated change 63 00:05:16,687 --> 00:05:20,680 through peaceful means was about to be challenged. 64 00:05:22,247 --> 00:05:25,364 Across Europe, there are premonitions of a cataclysm 65 00:05:25,407 --> 00:05:26,920 that will make a new world- 66 00:05:29,327 --> 00:05:32,603 1n Ireland, a poet and teacher declared bloodshed 67 00:05:32,647 --> 00:05:34,956 a cleansing and sanctifying thing- 68 00:05:37,887 --> 00:05:41,926 1nspired by Christ and the warriors of Gaelic myth, 69 00:05:41,967 --> 00:05:45,755 Patrick Pearse had come to idealise martyrdom- 70 00:05:45,807 --> 00:05:50,005 Pearse was the son of an English father and an Irish mother- 71 00:05:51,047 --> 00:05:55,086 At St Enda's, his school outside Dublin, he declared it his mission 72 00:05:55,127 --> 00:06:00,645 to counter what he called the murder machine of British education- 73 00:06:03,567 --> 00:06:07,276 Pearse told his pupils to be ready to work hard for the fatherland 74 00:06:07,327 --> 00:06:10,478 and, if necessary, to die for it- 75 00:06:13,527 --> 00:06:16,519 Pearse joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood, 76 00:06:16,567 --> 00:06:19,286 committed to the overthrow of imperial rule- 77 00:06:21,007 --> 00:06:24,636 His alienation from the bourgeois world of his childhood 78 00:06:24,687 --> 00:06:27,759 would deepen when he watched the combined forces 79 00:06:27,807 --> 00:06:30,958 of state power and a Catholic-led business elite 80 00:06:31,007 --> 00:06:34,363 suppress the 1913 strike in Dublin- 81 00:06:39,367 --> 00:06:44,122 But the conditions in which Patrick Pearse and other radicals would rebel 82 00:06:44,167 --> 00:06:47,637 were created by the British Government's attempts at reform- 83 00:06:50,287 --> 00:06:55,281 1n 1912, the Liberal Cabinet moved to introduce Home Rule, 84 00:06:55,327 --> 00:06:58,160 but in keeping a promise to Irish Catholics, 85 00:06:58,207 --> 00:07:00,163 it provoked the anger of Ulster Protestants- 86 00:07:01,247 --> 00:07:05,559 Home Rule was seen as an attempt to undo the Plantation of Ulster. 87 00:07:05,607 --> 00:07:07,484 It was seen as an attempt 88 00:07:07,527 --> 00:07:11,998 to bring the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, to bring them top, 89 00:07:12,047 --> 00:07:16,643 to effect a social revolution that would have seen Protestant Ulster, 90 00:07:16,687 --> 00:07:19,838 the Ulster that they had built, destroyed. 91 00:07:23,207 --> 00:07:25,596 Protestant opposition was led by a man 92 00:07:25,647 --> 00:07:30,118 misrepresented as much by his allies as his enemies- 93 00:07:30,167 --> 00:07:31,998 Edward Carson was a Dublin lawyer 94 00:07:32,047 --> 00:07:36,086 who to this day remains the great icon of Ulster Loyalism- 95 00:07:36,127 --> 00:07:41,440 Carson had been a fierce cross-examiner of his old college friend Oscar Wilde 96 00:07:41,487 --> 00:07:45,560 during a libel trial in which the writer denied his homosexuality- 97 00:07:45,607 --> 00:07:50,522 But this man, appropriated as an implacable Ulster Unionist, 98 00:07:50,567 --> 00:07:52,558 began with a very different agenda- 99 00:07:52,607 --> 00:07:55,997 Most Irish people would regard Carson 100 00:07:56,047 --> 00:07:59,835 as the arch partitionist, but that's not what Carson is about. 101 00:07:59,887 --> 00:08:06,326 Carson is about sustaining the union between Great Britain and all of Ireland, 102 00:08:06,367 --> 00:08:08,676 not just the northeastern corner. 103 00:08:08,727 --> 00:08:12,640 And he wants to make that union work for the benefit of all Irish people. 104 00:08:13,807 --> 00:08:18,039 But Carson understood that only in Ulster was there a Protestant population 105 00:08:18,087 --> 00:08:21,443 large enough to mobilise against Home Rule- 106 00:08:23,567 --> 00:08:29,358 0n September 28th 1912, here in Belfast City Hall, 107 00:08:29,407 --> 00:08:33,844 Edward Carson signed a solemn covenant pledging to defend Ulster from Home Rule. 108 00:08:33,887 --> 00:08:37,800 Almost a quarter of a million men followed his example. 109 00:08:39,367 --> 00:08:43,042 But how were they going to back up this declaration with deeds? 110 00:08:43,087 --> 00:08:47,956 The Ulster Unionist leadership now made a momentous decision. 111 00:08:49,927 --> 00:08:56,162 The Ulster Volunteer Force, formed in 1913, directly challenged the state- 112 00:08:56,207 --> 00:09:00,678 1t was encouraged in its threats of rebellion by British Conservatives, 113 00:09:00,727 --> 00:09:03,082 yet the Government took no action- 114 00:09:03,127 --> 00:09:09,236 Nationalists reacted by founding the Irish Volunteers to protect Home Rule- 115 00:09:09,287 --> 00:09:13,405 They were joined by the Irish Citizen Army, led by James Connolly, 116 00:09:13,447 --> 00:09:19,602 a Glasgow-born socialist who'd come to prominence in the 1913 strike in Dublin- 117 00:09:19,647 --> 00:09:24,323 MAN: When this paramilitarisation develops in the North, the reaction 118 00:09:24,367 --> 00:09:27,359 in nationalist Ireland is excitement. 119 00:09:27,407 --> 00:09:29,796 It's not fear. 120 00:09:29,847 --> 00:09:33,396 It's not a sense that a civil war may happen. 121 00:09:33,447 --> 00:09:35,756 It's, this is what Irishmen should do. 122 00:09:35,807 --> 00:09:39,117 Time and again, you hear it said famously about Patrick Pearse that, 123 00:09:39,167 --> 00:09:43,797 ''to see arms in the hands of Irishmen is an ennobling thing'', 124 00:09:43,847 --> 00:09:47,840 even if they're in the hands of Ulster Unionist Irishmen. 125 00:09:49,687 --> 00:09:52,485 FERGAL: It was, of course, a grand delusion. 126 00:09:52,527 --> 00:09:55,405 Both nationalists and the British Government seemed to have forgotten 127 00:09:55,447 --> 00:09:59,520 the bitter struggles with Loyalists over Home Rule in the previous century. 128 00:09:59,567 --> 00:10:02,320 It was as if they believed Ulster Protestants 129 00:10:02,367 --> 00:10:05,518 would eventually, peacefully, come round to the idea. 130 00:10:07,087 --> 00:10:09,317 But the Loyalists were busy arming themselves 131 00:10:09,367 --> 00:10:11,961 to fight whoever tried to impose Home Rule- 132 00:10:15,527 --> 00:10:18,883 0n 24th and 25th April 1914, 133 00:10:18,927 --> 00:10:22,886 25,000 rifles and three million rounds of ammunition 134 00:10:22,927 --> 00:10:28,718 were brought in through Larne and other ports and distributed across Ulster. 135 00:10:28,767 --> 00:10:31,804 These were German weapons being imported 136 00:10:31,847 --> 00:10:35,157 at a time of mounting international tension. 137 00:10:35,207 --> 00:10:39,246 It would be hard to imagine a greater challenge to the authority of the state. 138 00:10:42,007 --> 00:10:44,521 And yet the Government did nothing. 139 00:10:47,207 --> 00:10:51,758 But when nationalists imported guns the following July, they were confronted- 140 00:10:51,807 --> 00:10:57,040 This double standard helped to radicalise many more moderate nationalists- 141 00:10:57,087 --> 00:10:58,964 Tension steadily escalated 142 00:10:59,007 --> 00:11:03,285 until Ireland's quarrel was suddenly interrupted- 143 00:11:09,447 --> 00:11:11,403 MAN: During the First World War, 144 00:11:11,447 --> 00:11:14,917 you get a sea-change in the nature of Irish political opinion. 145 00:11:14,967 --> 00:11:16,400 People who had been thinking 146 00:11:16,447 --> 00:11:18,563 that constitutional methods would work 147 00:11:18,607 --> 00:11:20,723 changed their mind and felt that they wouldn't. 148 00:11:20,767 --> 00:11:22,837 People who felt that a more moderate goal was legitimate 149 00:11:22,887 --> 00:11:25,276 changed their minds and wanted something more radical. 150 00:11:31,367 --> 00:11:34,359 The war would claim the lives of as many as 30,000 Irishmen- 151 00:11:36,407 --> 00:11:38,477 More than 200,000 served- 152 00:11:43,207 --> 00:11:45,880 To the moderate Irish nationalist leader John Redmond, 153 00:11:45,927 --> 00:11:49,397 the war was a chance to make the case to Unionists for Home Rule- 154 00:11:49,447 --> 00:11:53,042 Catholics would show their loyalty to the empire- 155 00:11:55,927 --> 00:12:00,045 But as the war dragged on and casualties mounted, 156 00:12:00,087 --> 00:12:03,682 fears grew that Britain would introduce conscription in Ireland- 157 00:12:08,007 --> 00:12:13,445 Redmond's call to arms looked increasingly to have been a serious political mistake. 158 00:12:13,487 --> 00:12:16,797 There was growing disillusionment among nationalists, 159 00:12:16,847 --> 00:12:20,681 but Ireland wasn't seething with anti-British fervour. 160 00:12:20,727 --> 00:12:26,836 It would take the events of Easter 1916 to create the cataclysm. 161 00:12:29,327 --> 00:12:31,795 As Britain floundered on the Western Front, 162 00:12:31,847 --> 00:12:34,407 a small group of plotters gathered in Dublin- 163 00:12:36,527 --> 00:12:41,282 They were a minority, even within the revolutionary Republican Brotherhood- 164 00:12:43,247 --> 00:12:45,886 They included poets and hardened rebels, 165 00:12:45,927 --> 00:12:49,044 Pearse, who dreamed of blood sacrifice, 166 00:12:49,087 --> 00:12:52,284 and the champion of a workers'republic,James Connolly- 167 00:12:53,967 --> 00:12:56,037 They plotted the downfall of empire in Ireland 168 00:12:56,087 --> 00:13:01,207 here above the tobacco shop of the veteran 1RB man Tom Clarke- 169 00:13:04,327 --> 00:13:07,285 The rebels decided to move on Easter Sunday, 170 00:13:07,327 --> 00:13:09,204 date of Christ's resurrection- 171 00:13:09,247 --> 00:13:12,000 But the orders were countermanded by moderates- 172 00:13:15,367 --> 00:13:18,404 1n the chaos of order and counter-order, 173 00:13:18,447 --> 00:13:23,362 Pearse, Connolly and the other radicals made a fateful decision- 174 00:13:26,087 --> 00:13:28,760 They would strike with a drastically reduced force 175 00:13:28,807 --> 00:13:32,482 in Dublin on Easter Monday 1916- 176 00:13:35,207 --> 00:13:38,165 A detachment of Connolly's Citizen Army attacked Dublin Castle, 177 00:13:38,207 --> 00:13:42,246 symbol and seat of British power, but were repulsed- 178 00:13:43,607 --> 00:13:46,360 The main body of rebels led by Pearse and Connolly 179 00:13:46,407 --> 00:13:50,082 rushed down Sackville Street and took over the General Post Office- 180 00:13:53,167 --> 00:13:56,603 They raised the Irish tricolour above the building- 181 00:13:59,087 --> 00:14:02,284 Pearse stepped outside and read from a proclamation 182 00:14:02,327 --> 00:14:05,763 signed by himself and the six other leaders- 183 00:14:05,807 --> 00:14:09,561 He declared an Irish republic- 184 00:14:09,607 --> 00:14:13,395 ''1n the name of God and the dead generations, Ireland through us 185 00:14:13,447 --> 00:14:19,079 ''summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom-'' 186 00:14:22,327 --> 00:14:26,320 A witness watching from a balcony opposite described how boys quickly gathered up 187 00:14:26,367 --> 00:14:30,485 any copies of the proclamation they could find, because, as he put it, 188 00:14:30,527 --> 00:14:33,678 they would be worth a fiver when the beggars were hanged. 189 00:14:36,527 --> 00:14:39,997 The British were caught unawares, but by the end of the week, 190 00:14:40,047 --> 00:14:42,515 they outnumbered the rebels by ten to one- 191 00:14:44,167 --> 00:14:47,477 From the River Liffey, a gunboat fired- 192 00:14:47,527 --> 00:14:49,358 Irish regiments also fought the rebels- 193 00:14:49,407 --> 00:14:53,923 The Royal Dublin Fusiliers, who were drawn principally 194 00:14:53,967 --> 00:14:55,958 from the working-class districts of the city, 195 00:14:56,007 --> 00:14:59,920 were being rushed up along the quays here to join the battle near the GP0, 196 00:14:59,967 --> 00:15:03,277 when a shot rang out from a sniper across the river. 197 00:15:03,327 --> 00:15:07,923 Lieutenant Gerald Neilan, an Irish Catholic, fell dead. 198 00:15:09,927 --> 00:15:12,361 Elsewhere in the city, his younger brother Anthony 199 00:15:12,407 --> 00:15:14,841 was fighting on the rebel side. 200 00:15:18,887 --> 00:15:21,799 The majority of the dead of Easter week were civilians 201 00:15:21,847 --> 00:15:23,917 killed in the rain of shells and bullets 202 00:15:23,967 --> 00:15:27,357 that devastated the city centre in the British counterattack- 203 00:15:31,727 --> 00:15:35,606 Pearse and Connolly finally abandoned their headquarters at the GPO, 204 00:15:35,647 --> 00:15:38,207 surrendering on April 29th- 205 00:15:44,007 --> 00:15:48,319 As the rebels were led into captivity, they were jeered and jostled by the crowd. 206 00:15:48,367 --> 00:15:51,723 Many of the most vociferous were women whose husbands 207 00:15:51,767 --> 00:15:54,565 were away fighting on the Western Front. 208 00:15:54,607 --> 00:15:56,598 The rising had been crushed, 209 00:15:56,647 --> 00:16:00,435 and public opinion now seemed set against the rebels. 210 00:16:05,247 --> 00:16:08,000 Until the British made a grave miscalculation. 211 00:16:11,527 --> 00:16:14,519 The leaders were brought here to Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin 212 00:16:14,567 --> 00:16:17,843 and hastily court-martialled and sentenced to death- 213 00:16:28,087 --> 00:16:31,284 0ver a period of two weeks, 14 men were executed here, 214 00:16:31,327 --> 00:16:35,081 13 at this end, including Patrick Pearse, 215 00:16:35,127 --> 00:16:36,606 and up here, James Connolly, 216 00:16:36,647 --> 00:16:39,525 who had to be carried to his execution on a stretcher. 217 00:16:41,687 --> 00:16:44,838 The manner of their deaths and the number of executions 218 00:16:44,887 --> 00:16:48,402 would turn these men from being the leaders of a militant minority 219 00:16:48,447 --> 00:16:53,043 into martyrs who could be acclaimed by all of nationalist Ireland. 220 00:16:57,727 --> 00:17:02,084 The poet William Butler Yeats sensed the impact of the executions- 221 00:17:02,127 --> 00:17:04,561 ''1 write it out in a verse 222 00:17:04,607 --> 00:17:07,565 ''MacDonagh and MacBride And Connolly and Pearse 223 00:17:07,607 --> 00:17:10,201 ''Now and in time to be 224 00:17:10,247 --> 00:17:14,206 ''Wherever green is worn Are changed, changed utterly- 225 00:17:14,247 --> 00:17:17,364 ''A terrible beauty is born-'' 226 00:17:21,127 --> 00:17:24,642 Public anger deepened following mass arrests 227 00:17:24,687 --> 00:17:26,643 and the imposition of martial law- 228 00:17:28,487 --> 00:17:34,198 Here in the military archives in Dublin is a trove of witness accounts 229 00:17:34,247 --> 00:17:37,956 from young men who were radicalised by the events of Easter 1916 230 00:17:38,007 --> 00:17:40,396 and who joined the Volunteers in its wake- 231 00:17:44,287 --> 00:17:48,917 Matthew Davies from Roscommon - ''In 1916,'' he says, ''I was unattached to any group. 232 00:17:48,967 --> 00:17:52,164 ''After the rebellion there was an outcry to execute the fanatics. 233 00:17:52,207 --> 00:17:54,801 ''I felt we would have to do something about it.'' 234 00:17:54,847 --> 00:17:57,281 And of course, he formed a Volunteer unit in his area. 235 00:17:57,327 --> 00:18:01,639 The Volunteers evolved into the Irish Republican Army, 236 00:18:01,687 --> 00:18:05,521 and among the young men who flocked to join them was my grandfather, 237 00:18:05,567 --> 00:18:08,684 Paddy Hassett, the imperial policeman's son- 238 00:18:08,727 --> 00:18:11,287 Why would Paddy Hassett 239 00:18:11,327 --> 00:18:16,242 turn his back on that family tradition of service to the empire? 240 00:18:17,847 --> 00:18:20,759 The biggest factor was what had happened in Ireland. 241 00:18:20,807 --> 00:18:25,881 The impact of the 1916 rising and the executions 242 00:18:25,927 --> 00:18:28,999 and the round-ups that took place after it. 243 00:18:29,047 --> 00:18:31,481 I sense that that was what turned my grandfather 244 00:18:31,527 --> 00:18:35,281 and many, many other young men like him, against the British. 245 00:18:37,047 --> 00:18:40,039 But if the great cause of the Irish revolution 246 00:18:40,087 --> 00:18:44,763 had been a united republic, the consequence was very different- 247 00:18:44,807 --> 00:18:49,005 I think after 1916, with the dead dedicated to a republic, 248 00:18:49,047 --> 00:18:52,483 the fires of Easter week have forged a new national identity, 249 00:18:52,527 --> 00:18:54,119 which is to be Republican. 250 00:18:54,167 --> 00:18:56,806 Ulster Unionists find nothing in that whatsoever. 251 00:18:56,847 --> 00:18:59,202 They found little, if anything, in Home Rule - 252 00:18:59,247 --> 00:19:02,284 there's absolutely nothing for them in an Irish republic. 253 00:19:02,327 --> 00:19:05,524 It makes partition inevitable. 254 00:19:07,247 --> 00:19:12,002 1n the 1918 general election, Sinn Fein, led by veterans of the rising, 255 00:19:12,047 --> 00:19:13,765 won a sweeping majority- 256 00:19:13,807 --> 00:19:18,403 But instead of going to Westminster, the party set up an Irish republic- 257 00:19:21,447 --> 00:19:23,881 The Sinn Fein leader was Eamon de Valera, 258 00:19:23,927 --> 00:19:26,600 and his finance minister, Michael Collins- 259 00:19:26,647 --> 00:19:32,279 1n an atmosphere made worse by renewed British threats of conscription, 260 00:19:32,327 --> 00:19:35,205 Collins would find himself directing a guerrilla war- 261 00:19:37,527 --> 00:19:40,997 The IRA campaign which began in 1919 262 00:19:41,047 --> 00:19:43,959 was met with fierce reprisals against civilians 263 00:19:44,007 --> 00:19:46,601 by security forces like the Black and Tans- 264 00:19:48,167 --> 00:19:52,957 A state-sanctioned policy of reprisal increased public support for the IRA- 265 00:19:54,207 --> 00:19:56,846 And Irishmen killed fellow Irishmen- 266 00:19:56,887 --> 00:20:00,084 Police shot IRA men and vice versa- 267 00:20:02,367 --> 00:20:07,122 This is my father's hometown of Listowel in County Kerry- 268 00:20:08,567 --> 00:20:13,880 0n 20th January 1921, an IRA squad was lying in wait at Church Street. 269 00:20:13,927 --> 00:20:15,519 The man they were going to attack, 270 00:20:15,567 --> 00:20:19,640 District Inspector Tobias 0'Sullivan of the Royal Irish Constabulary, 271 00:20:19,687 --> 00:20:22,645 was coming up the street with his five-year-old son. 272 00:20:22,687 --> 00:20:27,807 The IRA squad ran up to him and shot him dead in front of the child. 273 00:20:27,847 --> 00:20:30,919 Now, the version of the story that I was given growing up 274 00:20:30,967 --> 00:20:34,482 was that a British soldier, not an Irish policeman, had been killed. 275 00:20:34,527 --> 00:20:37,405 Nor was there any mention that he'd been holding his child's hand 276 00:20:37,447 --> 00:20:38,846 when he was murdered. 277 00:20:38,887 --> 00:20:43,642 It was as if some parts of the story were simply too painful to tell. 278 00:20:47,367 --> 00:20:50,723 O'Sullivan had taken part in a raid on a nearby village- 279 00:20:54,127 --> 00:20:58,643 After two years of violence, both sides declared themselves ready to talk- 280 00:21:03,047 --> 00:21:07,916 1n October 1921, a Sinn Fein delegation led by Michael Collins 281 00:21:07,967 --> 00:21:10,800 arrived in London to discuss a political settlement- 282 00:21:13,687 --> 00:21:17,760 Michael Collins arrived as the 20th century's first celebrity rebel. 283 00:21:17,807 --> 00:21:21,766 In terms of his public image, a kind of Che Guevara for his age. 284 00:21:21,807 --> 00:21:26,119 But here, Collins would encounter a British negotiating team 285 00:21:26,167 --> 00:21:30,683 led by Lloyd George that was both experienced and tough. 286 00:21:30,727 --> 00:21:35,164 Whatever else might be conceded, an Irish republic was not on offer. 287 00:21:38,167 --> 00:21:42,524 26 counties of Southern Ireland would become the Irish Free State, 288 00:21:42,567 --> 00:21:47,197 with its own army but swearing an Oath of Allegiance to the British Crown- 289 00:21:47,247 --> 00:21:51,763 The Government had already allowed the six Protestant-dominated counties of Ulster 290 00:21:51,807 --> 00:21:55,038 to form a new state within the United Kingdom- 291 00:21:56,607 --> 00:22:00,122 But it wasn't Ulster that caused crisis for the Irish side- 292 00:22:00,167 --> 00:22:02,556 1n Dublin, de Valera accused Collins 293 00:22:02,607 --> 00:22:06,077 of having agreed to the Oath of Allegiance without his consent- 294 00:22:08,887 --> 00:22:12,323 When the Dail convened in Dublin in December 1921, 295 00:22:12,367 --> 00:22:16,838 de Valera denounced the Oath of Allegiance as an abandonment of the republic- 296 00:22:19,807 --> 00:22:25,484 Collins argued that the treaty gave Ireland the freedom to achieve freedom- 297 00:22:25,527 --> 00:22:29,202 The one-time comrades became bitter enemies- 298 00:22:30,967 --> 00:22:35,085 When the vote on the treaty came, it was perilously close - 299 00:22:35,127 --> 00:22:37,482 64 votes for, 57 against- 300 00:22:37,527 --> 00:22:40,041 De Valera led his supporters out of the Dail. 301 00:22:40,087 --> 00:22:43,284 As they went, Michael Collins shouted, ''Deserters, all!'' 302 00:22:43,327 --> 00:22:46,319 The slide to civil war had begun. 303 00:22:49,807 --> 00:22:53,516 A majority of the people supported the treaty, but couldn't stop a war 304 00:22:53,567 --> 00:22:56,525 characterised by extreme ruthlessness- 305 00:23:01,127 --> 00:23:03,004 Both sides committed atrocities- 306 00:23:04,567 --> 00:23:08,196 At Ballyseedy Cross in County Kerry, nine Republican prisoners 307 00:23:08,247 --> 00:23:11,398 were tied to a log and blown to pieces by a land mine, 308 00:23:11,447 --> 00:23:14,678 retaliation for the killing of Free State soldiers- 309 00:23:22,087 --> 00:23:26,319 The government army gradually captured the Republican strongholds- 310 00:23:26,367 --> 00:23:33,045 But on 22nd August 1922, Michael Collins was assassinated in County Cork- 311 00:23:36,967 --> 00:23:40,516 The Free State would triumph, but his loss was devastating- 312 00:23:42,367 --> 00:23:46,485 1n death, Collins would become a romantic icon, the great lost leader- 313 00:23:46,527 --> 00:23:50,998 Yet in some of his last writings, he espoused a patriotic pragmatism- 314 00:23:53,567 --> 00:23:57,765 ''True devotion,''Collins wrote, ''lay not in melodramatic defiance 315 00:23:57,807 --> 00:24:02,517 ''or self-sacrifice, but in steady, earnest effort-'' 316 00:24:09,087 --> 00:24:11,317 By the time the civil war ended in 1923, 317 00:24:11,367 --> 00:24:14,245 Ireland was a very different country to the united 318 00:24:14,287 --> 00:24:19,122 and equal nation imagined by the revolutionaries of 1916. 319 00:24:19,167 --> 00:24:22,045 The revolution had driven the British out. 320 00:24:22,087 --> 00:24:26,797 But it had also consolidated the prevailing social reality. 321 00:24:26,847 --> 00:24:32,763 This was a Catholic, largely rural and, above all, conservative society. 322 00:24:37,167 --> 00:24:41,001 1t was a society not dissimilar to that imagined 323 00:24:41,047 --> 00:24:44,198 by Ireland's first political titans- 324 00:24:44,247 --> 00:24:47,637 The settled country imagined by Daniel O'Connell, 325 00:24:47,687 --> 00:24:50,884 hero of Catholic emancipation in the 19th century- 326 00:24:50,927 --> 00:24:55,603 An Ireland of landowners, such as Charles Stewart Parnell envisioned, 327 00:24:55,647 --> 00:24:58,559 and which his Land League had done so much to create- 328 00:24:58,607 --> 00:25:02,964 A society whose fundamental desire now was for stability- 329 00:25:06,887 --> 00:25:08,161 1n the Protestant-ruled 330 00:25:08,207 --> 00:25:10,482 six counties of Ulster, electoral boundaries 331 00:25:10,527 --> 00:25:15,601 had been drawn to ensure majorities for Unionists in most areas- 332 00:25:15,647 --> 00:25:20,038 There had been fierce retribution against Catholics following IRA violence- 333 00:25:20,087 --> 00:25:25,036 More than 8,000 were driven from theirjobs, hundreds were killed- 334 00:25:28,287 --> 00:25:30,437 The Prime Minister James Craig 335 00:25:30,487 --> 00:25:33,604 was a patrician landowner and proud Orangeman- 336 00:25:33,647 --> 00:25:36,559 ALVIN JACKS0N: Catholic Northern Ireland, Catholic Ulster, 337 00:25:36,607 --> 00:25:39,280 does not really feature in his political agenda. 338 00:25:39,327 --> 00:25:44,959 Craig, I think, associates Catholicism with a challenge 339 00:25:45,007 --> 00:25:47,237 to the state that he finds himself ruler of. 340 00:25:47,287 --> 00:25:51,917 He associates Catholicism with subversion. 341 00:25:55,847 --> 00:26:02,878 But Unionism comes together from a variety of very different institutions and forces. 342 00:26:02,927 --> 00:26:05,521 It's absolutely not a monolithic group, 343 00:26:05,567 --> 00:26:11,324 and it contains a spectrum of those who are ferocious in their anti-Catholicism, 344 00:26:11,367 --> 00:26:15,997 across towards a more liberal take on the Union and Unionism. 345 00:26:22,527 --> 00:26:25,519 Across the river is Donegal in the South. 346 00:26:25,567 --> 00:26:27,762 This is Clady in County Tyrone, 347 00:26:27,807 --> 00:26:32,005 one of the six counties of the new Northern Ireland state. 348 00:26:32,047 --> 00:26:34,322 The Prime Minister James Craig 349 00:26:34,367 --> 00:26:38,440 had built here a Protestant state for a Protestant people. 350 00:26:38,487 --> 00:26:42,639 Many years later, a Unionist leader trying to forge peace with nationalists 351 00:26:42,687 --> 00:26:48,205 would ruefully acknowledge that this had been a cold house for Catholics, 352 00:26:48,247 --> 00:26:51,922 a place of discrimination and exclusion. 353 00:26:58,247 --> 00:27:02,001 TH0MAS BARTLETT: Catholics materially were better off in Northern Ireland 354 00:27:02,047 --> 00:27:04,515 than they were in the Irish Free State. 355 00:27:04,567 --> 00:27:07,798 But politics matters more than economics. 356 00:27:07,847 --> 00:27:11,123 Catholics were not welcome, and that was clear. 357 00:27:11,167 --> 00:27:16,878 They had to listen to a tirade of abuse coming up to 12th July every year. 358 00:27:16,927 --> 00:27:19,725 They had to listen to Unionist politicians boasting 359 00:27:19,767 --> 00:27:23,077 that they'd never employed a Catholic, never would employ a Catholic, 360 00:27:23,127 --> 00:27:24,924 wouldn't have one around the place. 361 00:27:24,967 --> 00:27:32,282 That sort of chilly feeling of not being wanted produces serious disaffection. 362 00:27:38,367 --> 00:27:41,006 But in the South, the new government of Cumann na nGaedheal, 363 00:27:41,047 --> 00:27:44,676 led by Michael Collins'heirs, had neither the military means, 364 00:27:44,727 --> 00:27:49,437 economic power or desire to wage a war of territorial redemption- 365 00:27:51,727 --> 00:27:53,797 The South opted for stability- 366 00:27:57,727 --> 00:28:01,402 Even with the arrival in power in 1932 of Eamon de Valera, 367 00:28:01,447 --> 00:28:03,881 now leading the Fianna Fail party, 368 00:28:03,927 --> 00:28:07,886 rhetoric would be a comforting substitute for action- 369 00:28:07,927 --> 00:28:14,321 Ireland united, Ireland free, these are the ideals 370 00:28:14,367 --> 00:28:20,442 to which enthusiastic young Ireland is now devoting its energy. 371 00:28:20,487 --> 00:28:24,560 TH0MAS BARTLETT: Whatever the rhetoric, whatever the propaganda campaigns, 372 00:28:24,607 --> 00:28:28,919 de Valera realised that unification was not going to happen, 373 00:28:28,967 --> 00:28:32,118 and he may even have seen advantages in that. 374 00:28:32,167 --> 00:28:35,796 I think the majority of Southerners were quite happy 375 00:28:35,847 --> 00:28:38,042 that Northern Ireland was gone, 376 00:28:38,087 --> 00:28:42,000 that the wretched Unionists were corralled in their area, 377 00:28:42,047 --> 00:28:47,167 and were not coming down and not interfering with their setup in the South. 378 00:28:54,727 --> 00:28:57,560 The founding father of Irish nationalism, Wolfe Tone, 379 00:28:57,607 --> 00:29:01,885 imagined a nation that united Catholic, Protestant and dissenter- 380 00:29:01,927 --> 00:29:05,237 But Ireland was now an island of two states 381 00:29:05,287 --> 00:29:09,644 in which religion would be a primary badge of identity- 382 00:29:09,687 --> 00:29:13,839 Here at the Phoenix Park in 1932, vast crowds gathered 383 00:29:13,887 --> 00:29:17,357 for a religious festival that would symbolise 384 00:29:17,407 --> 00:29:20,160 the character of the new Irish state. 385 00:29:20,207 --> 00:29:24,837 Whatever rhetorical gestures might be made to the Protestants of Ulster, 386 00:29:24,887 --> 00:29:27,037 this was a Catholic nation. 387 00:29:37,567 --> 00:29:41,446 MAN: The clergy, for somebody like de Valera, were very important. 388 00:29:41,487 --> 00:29:43,876 They were his advisors. 389 00:29:43,927 --> 00:29:48,637 The leaders also had brothers who were priests or nuns. 390 00:29:48,687 --> 00:29:52,839 That clerical establishment was very much integrated in a way 391 00:29:52,887 --> 00:29:55,526 that, if you were a political leader, 392 00:29:55,567 --> 00:30:00,277 the likelihood is that, if you were a Catholic, you would not be very distant 393 00:30:00,327 --> 00:30:04,639 from some relative or brother who was in orders or a nun. 394 00:30:04,687 --> 00:30:08,646 De Valera's landmark constitution of 1937 395 00:30:08,687 --> 00:30:11,804 avoided making Catholicism the state religion, 396 00:30:11,847 --> 00:30:15,362 offering instead a vaguer special position- 397 00:30:22,967 --> 00:30:26,243 Since the 19th century, Church power had been deeply embedded- 398 00:30:27,607 --> 00:30:30,679 Ireland was a nation of mass devotion, 399 00:30:30,727 --> 00:30:35,926 and the overwhelming majority of children were educated in Church-run schools- 400 00:30:35,967 --> 00:30:39,243 But this central role came at a price- 401 00:30:41,847 --> 00:30:45,123 Church control of education was close to absolute, 402 00:30:45,167 --> 00:30:49,126 but its power also extended deep into the criminal justice system. 403 00:30:49,167 --> 00:30:53,524 This is the old Letterfrack Industrial School in County Galway. 404 00:30:53,567 --> 00:30:56,286 It was one of a network of such institutions 405 00:30:56,327 --> 00:30:59,717 up and down the country where the state consigned children. 406 00:31:01,567 --> 00:31:05,082 Many of these institutions were set up under British rule- 407 00:31:05,127 --> 00:31:08,756 The new rulers of Ireland would prove as inadequate as the old 408 00:31:08,807 --> 00:31:10,798 in protecting the young- 409 00:31:19,087 --> 00:31:21,885 Physical and sexual abuse on a large scale 410 00:31:21,927 --> 00:31:24,487 was part of the secret history of the new state- 411 00:31:28,367 --> 00:31:32,724 MAN: You were constantly waiting to be set upon. 412 00:31:32,767 --> 00:31:35,645 St Joseph's Industrial School, Letterfrack, 413 00:31:35,687 --> 00:31:41,478 was an extremely violent place in an extremely violent Irish society. 414 00:31:42,727 --> 00:31:45,366 Mannix Flynn, who came from a poor Dublin background, 415 00:31:45,407 --> 00:31:47,398 was sent to Letterfrack in the early 1960s- 416 00:31:52,647 --> 00:31:57,562 An individual I saw one night being dragged out of the bed, his head beaten 417 00:31:57,607 --> 00:32:00,121 against a wall. 418 00:32:00,167 --> 00:32:02,920 What blood came out of the person, the brother then 419 00:32:02,967 --> 00:32:06,277 dragged this young boy up and down the dormitory, 420 00:32:06,327 --> 00:32:09,797 wiping him in his own blood to clean it off the floor. 421 00:32:09,847 --> 00:32:12,202 Depending on what kind of venom 422 00:32:12,247 --> 00:32:15,080 the individual who was perpetrating the violence on you, 423 00:32:15,127 --> 00:32:17,322 whatever brother or whatever civilian it was 424 00:32:17,367 --> 00:32:20,040 that was attached to the school, it could last for weeks. 425 00:32:21,807 --> 00:32:25,038 They were children from working-class backgrounds, from mixed families. 426 00:32:25,087 --> 00:32:29,922 Some of them were the children of mothers who had children out of wedlock. 427 00:32:29,967 --> 00:32:32,083 Some of them were from other institutions, 428 00:32:32,127 --> 00:32:33,958 having been in orphanages and orphaned. 429 00:32:34,007 --> 00:32:35,725 They were the dirty poor 430 00:32:35,767 --> 00:32:40,557 that didn't fit into the emerging Irish Catholic middle classes. 431 00:32:42,687 --> 00:32:46,316 This society, since the foundation of the state, has continued 432 00:32:46,367 --> 00:32:48,517 the containment of a class of people, 433 00:32:48,567 --> 00:32:52,242 a segregation of a class of people that it sees as God's mistake. 434 00:32:54,407 --> 00:32:58,082 Church influence spread far beyond the care of the young- 435 00:33:00,287 --> 00:33:05,156 From the bishops'palaces came regular diktats on cultural morality- 436 00:33:05,207 --> 00:33:08,563 Eamon de Valera's friend, the Archbishop of Dublin, 437 00:33:08,607 --> 00:33:13,476 John Charles McQuaid, kept a close eye on the republic's creative spirits- 438 00:33:19,087 --> 00:33:22,841 His files are a trove of insight into the thinking of the archbishop 439 00:33:22,887 --> 00:33:25,162 on a whole range of issues- 440 00:33:25,207 --> 00:33:27,641 This is the box relating to censorship. 441 00:33:27,687 --> 00:33:30,997 And in it, there's a letter from a parish priest who wants to put on 442 00:33:31,047 --> 00:33:34,835 a showing for his parishioners of the 0scar-winning movie Gigi- 443 00:33:34,887 --> 00:33:37,082 But the plan has to be abandoned. Why? 444 00:33:37,127 --> 00:33:41,484 Well, according to this file, the film contains a reference to a prostitute. 445 00:33:42,847 --> 00:33:46,157 Banned were some of the greatest names in the Irish literary canon- 446 00:33:46,207 --> 00:33:51,440 James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, Frank O'Connor and scores of others- 447 00:33:54,407 --> 00:33:58,878 And yet in this atmosphere of constraint, Irish literature flourished- 448 00:34:06,167 --> 00:34:10,445 Literature acquired a kind of weird glamour by virtue of being persecuted, 449 00:34:10,487 --> 00:34:13,081 probably in the way it did in Soviet Russia. 450 00:34:13,127 --> 00:34:16,676 If you say these people are important enough to suppress, 451 00:34:16,727 --> 00:34:19,639 you are saying they are very damned important. 452 00:34:19,687 --> 00:34:22,679 Remarkable talents like Flann O'Brien 453 00:34:22,727 --> 00:34:26,959 produced defiantly Irish masterpieces in a European surrealist tradition- 454 00:34:27,007 --> 00:34:32,365 DECLAN KIBERD: It's as if the radicalism got annulled in political politics 455 00:34:32,407 --> 00:34:34,762 and rerouted almost entirely into literature. 456 00:34:34,807 --> 00:34:39,927 The more repression there was at an official daylight level, 457 00:34:39,967 --> 00:34:43,118 the more creatively deranged the texts produced. 458 00:34:43,167 --> 00:34:47,524 It's as if the Irish were straights by day and swingers by night. 459 00:34:51,647 --> 00:34:57,199 De Valera followed Church advice on morality, but it was not his obsession- 460 00:34:57,247 --> 00:34:59,761 From the time he came to power in 1932, 461 00:34:59,807 --> 00:35:01,638 through his 16 years in office, 462 00:35:01,687 --> 00:35:04,838 his central preoccupation was Irish sovereignty- 463 00:35:04,887 --> 00:35:06,798 When World War II broke out, 464 00:35:06,847 --> 00:35:11,079 de Valera resisted Churchill's urgings to join the fight- 465 00:35:11,127 --> 00:35:14,005 Ireland remained neutral- 466 00:35:19,527 --> 00:35:22,439 DIARMAID FERRITER: There was a considerable degree of public support 467 00:35:22,487 --> 00:35:24,205 for that stance, and there was a considerable degree of pride 468 00:35:24,247 --> 00:35:26,966 in the idea that we could go our own way. 469 00:35:27,007 --> 00:35:28,565 Partly because this is a country 470 00:35:28,607 --> 00:35:30,996 that is still relatively raw from the civil war. 471 00:35:31,047 --> 00:35:35,643 And if de Valera had decided to go in and fight 472 00:35:35,687 --> 00:35:38,963 on the part of the Allies, it could well have divided the body politic. 473 00:35:40,007 --> 00:35:42,965 But it was an ambiguous neutrality- 474 00:35:43,007 --> 00:35:45,601 When the German air force attacked Belfast, 475 00:35:45,647 --> 00:35:50,038 de Valera sent firemen to help fight the blaze- 476 00:35:50,087 --> 00:35:52,965 Germans bailing out over the South were interned, 477 00:35:53,007 --> 00:35:56,636 while their Allied counterparts were allowed to return to Ulster- 478 00:35:56,687 --> 00:35:59,247 When the IRA declared war against Britain, 479 00:35:59,287 --> 00:36:02,006 de Valera imprisoned and even executed its members- 480 00:36:04,607 --> 00:36:08,600 Yet, on Hitler's death, de Valera offered his condolences to Germany- 481 00:36:12,567 --> 00:36:16,526 While Europe burned, de Valera set out his vision for an Ireland 482 00:36:16,567 --> 00:36:20,116 that would be distinctive in its culture and values- 483 00:36:22,487 --> 00:36:24,717 REC0RDING 0F DE VALERA: The Ireland that we dreamed of 484 00:36:24,767 --> 00:36:26,644 would be the home of a people 485 00:36:26,687 --> 00:36:30,805 who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living. 486 00:36:30,847 --> 00:36:35,443 0f a people who, satisfied with frugal comfort, 487 00:36:35,487 --> 00:36:39,082 devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit. 488 00:36:39,127 --> 00:36:43,678 A land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, 489 00:36:43,727 --> 00:36:47,845 with the romping of sturdy children, and the laughter of happy maidens. 490 00:36:50,167 --> 00:36:53,079 Yet to cast this giant of the Irish 20th century 491 00:36:53,127 --> 00:36:56,199 as an inward-looking nationalist would be wrong- 492 00:36:56,247 --> 00:36:58,522 He had chaired the League of Nations- 493 00:36:58,567 --> 00:37:03,243 The avoidance of wars and of the burden of preparatory armament 494 00:37:03,287 --> 00:37:05,881 is of such concern to humanity 495 00:37:05,927 --> 00:37:09,602 that no state should be permitted to jeopardise the common interest 496 00:37:09,647 --> 00:37:13,322 by selfish action contrary to the covenant. 497 00:37:13,367 --> 00:37:16,439 When the League was succeeded by the United Nations, 498 00:37:16,487 --> 00:37:19,479 de Valera made striking gestures of independence- 499 00:37:19,527 --> 00:37:22,087 From Dublin came his instructions 500 00:37:22,127 --> 00:37:24,846 to support Red China's application to join the UN, 501 00:37:24,887 --> 00:37:27,720 to the horror of America- 502 00:37:28,847 --> 00:37:31,315 He established the commitment which saw Irish troops 503 00:37:31,367 --> 00:37:34,404 serve in their thousands on peacekeeping missions- 504 00:37:37,567 --> 00:37:40,764 There is a real paradox here. De Valera was well aware 505 00:37:40,807 --> 00:37:44,846 of Ireland's international role, yet his vision for the Irish 506 00:37:44,887 --> 00:37:49,358 demanded that they remain uncontaminated by foreign ideas. 507 00:37:49,407 --> 00:37:52,877 It was a vision at odds with modernity. 508 00:37:53,967 --> 00:37:57,482 Economic conflict with Britain had damaged Ireland at the outset of his rule- 509 00:37:59,087 --> 00:38:01,601 Stagnation deepened with the years- 510 00:38:01,647 --> 00:38:05,276 Around half a million people would leave Ireland, 511 00:38:05,327 --> 00:38:08,125 most seeking a better life in Britain, 512 00:38:08,167 --> 00:38:12,445 the country de Valera had spent his life fighting against for Irish sovereignty- 513 00:38:18,567 --> 00:38:21,604 If you had to characterise the Ireland of de Valera, 514 00:38:21,647 --> 00:38:22,966 how would you describe it? 515 00:38:23,007 --> 00:38:26,283 MAN: Very inward-looking. Very complacent. 516 00:38:26,327 --> 00:38:29,603 And most of all, very poor. 517 00:38:29,647 --> 00:38:32,525 The last week in secondary school, 518 00:38:32,567 --> 00:38:34,159 the headmaster came in and asked us, 519 00:38:34,207 --> 00:38:37,836 those of us who were in the class - there were about 30 of us in the class - 520 00:38:37,887 --> 00:38:40,037 how many of us saw our future in Ireland, 521 00:38:40,087 --> 00:38:42,476 and the answer was two out of the 30. 522 00:38:42,527 --> 00:38:44,677 I was one of those two, by the way. 523 00:38:47,007 --> 00:38:51,956 By the time de Valera retired at the age of 7 7, Ireland wanted change- 524 00:38:53,647 --> 00:38:58,767 The leader who took over in 1959 was another veteran of revolution, 525 00:38:58,807 --> 00:39:01,082 but he displayed a steely pragmatism 526 00:39:01,127 --> 00:39:05,166 utterly different from de Valera's mystical vision of Irishness- 527 00:39:07,647 --> 00:39:12,437 Sean Lemass encouraged foreign investment, removed trade barriers, 528 00:39:12,487 --> 00:39:17,322 urged efficiency and modernisation in industry- 529 00:39:17,367 --> 00:39:20,086 We started off like all the other newly free countries, 530 00:39:20,127 --> 00:39:22,687 with the assumption that freedom alone was enough 531 00:39:22,727 --> 00:39:26,515 and that in freedom, economic difficulties would right themselves. 532 00:39:26,567 --> 00:39:28,683 We found out the hard way that this wasn't so. 533 00:39:31,207 --> 00:39:34,643 Ireland had begun to catch up with the great post-war modernisation- 534 00:39:36,567 --> 00:39:39,843 The young were beneficiaries of free secondary education 535 00:39:39,887 --> 00:39:44,119 and a society again open to outside cultural influence- 536 00:39:46,607 --> 00:39:50,043 Television challenged the voice of both priest and politician- 537 00:39:53,167 --> 00:39:55,806 Women joined the workforce in growing numbers 538 00:39:55,847 --> 00:39:58,042 and challenged discriminatory laws- 539 00:40:00,847 --> 00:40:03,805 And across the border, the changing world of the '60s 540 00:40:03,847 --> 00:40:07,078 seemed to inspire a new kind of Unionism- 541 00:40:10,567 --> 00:40:12,922 A leader emerged who offered a friendlier face 542 00:40:12,967 --> 00:40:16,118 to the Catholic minority and to the South- 543 00:40:24,927 --> 00:40:29,284 1n January 1965, O'Neill and Lemass made history 544 00:40:29,327 --> 00:40:31,841 by meeting together at Stormont - 545 00:40:31,887 --> 00:40:34,685 the beginnings of North-South detente- 546 00:40:34,727 --> 00:40:36,797 How important is that moment? 547 00:40:36,847 --> 00:40:41,921 ALVIN JACKS0N: I think it's symbolically of huge significance. This is the first 548 00:40:41,967 --> 00:40:47,439 official meeting of the two heads of state since the 1920s. 549 00:40:47,487 --> 00:40:50,001 TERENCE 0'NEILL: We discussed this during our meeting, 550 00:40:50,047 --> 00:40:51,719 which of us would get into the most trouble. 551 00:40:51,767 --> 00:40:53,962 I said I would, and he said he would. 552 00:40:54,007 --> 00:40:57,443 He did get into a certain amount of trouble during the first six weeks, 553 00:40:57,487 --> 00:40:59,284 but nothing to the trouble that I got into. 554 00:40:59,327 --> 00:41:04,117 IAN PAISLEY: Captain 0'Neill recently said that the South of Ireland 555 00:41:04,167 --> 00:41:07,955 was a very beautiful young lady 556 00:41:08,007 --> 00:41:13,081 and that he was very glad to talk to her over the hedge. 557 00:41:13,127 --> 00:41:16,597 We don't look upon the South of Ireland 558 00:41:16,647 --> 00:41:19,764 as a beautiful young lady... 559 00:41:19,807 --> 00:41:24,039 ALVIN JACKS0N: The liberal aspirations are very much overdue, 560 00:41:24,087 --> 00:41:30,117 but part of the difficulty with the 0'Neill project is 0'Neill himself. 561 00:41:33,927 --> 00:41:37,840 But 0'Neill is an extraordinarily patrician figure 562 00:41:37,887 --> 00:41:41,846 who does not connect with nationalism or Unionism 563 00:41:41,887 --> 00:41:45,004 and, in the end, is simply not able to deliver the votes. 564 00:41:47,087 --> 00:41:52,445 By 1968, O'Neill had been outflanked by the older forces of fear- 565 00:41:53,487 --> 00:41:55,876 Detente with the South was over- 566 00:41:58,527 --> 00:42:02,202 But in this year of rebellion, a movement rises in Northern Ireland 567 00:42:02,247 --> 00:42:04,522 to demand equal rights for Catholics- 568 00:42:07,767 --> 00:42:09,758 For the Ulster Protestants, the civil rights movement 569 00:42:09,807 --> 00:42:11,923 was the old Catholic conspiracy, 570 00:42:11,967 --> 00:42:16,757 not a movement for change inspired by the unrest of that momentous year- 571 00:42:26,607 --> 00:42:29,280 The following year, sectarian rioting erupted- 572 00:42:29,327 --> 00:42:31,602 The IRA, long in decline, re-emerged 573 00:42:31,647 --> 00:42:35,959 to present itself as the people's protector against a hostile state- 574 00:42:42,887 --> 00:42:45,845 Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries, 575 00:42:45,887 --> 00:42:49,277 policemen and soldiers, fought over the old ground- 576 00:42:51,647 --> 00:42:54,081 V0ICE REC0RDING 0F MAN: Nothing fired at them whatsoever. 577 00:42:54,127 --> 00:42:56,641 There weren't even stones thrown at them, and they opened fire. 578 00:42:56,687 --> 00:42:59,042 People ran in all directions. They call themselves an army. 579 00:42:59,087 --> 00:43:00,566 It was completely outrageous. 580 00:43:01,607 --> 00:43:07,079 NEWSREADER: The bus station was crowded when a bomb went off without warning. 581 00:43:07,127 --> 00:43:10,642 SEC0ND NEWSREADER: Within the space of 16 minutes alone, 13 blasts sent people 582 00:43:10,687 --> 00:43:13,121 screaming from one place of safety to another... 583 00:43:15,207 --> 00:43:18,643 THIRD NEWSREADER: An army helicopter was flown in to remove the casualties, 584 00:43:18,687 --> 00:43:21,247 and this was then caught in a separate explosion. 585 00:43:24,287 --> 00:43:27,165 (SH0UTING, BANGING AND WHISTLING) 586 00:43:28,247 --> 00:43:31,762 MARGARET THATCHER: There can be no question of political status. 587 00:43:31,807 --> 00:43:34,275 Crime is crime is crime. 588 00:43:37,887 --> 00:43:41,197 NEWSREADER: The Provisional IRA have said they planted the bomb 589 00:43:41,247 --> 00:43:44,523 at the Brighton hotel where Mrs Thatcher and her ministers are staying. 590 00:43:44,567 --> 00:43:46,762 MAN: Politics is the alternative to war. 591 00:43:46,807 --> 00:43:49,275 Politics is about dialogue. I'll talk to anyone. 592 00:43:49,327 --> 00:43:52,364 That doesn't mean that I approve of what they stand for. 593 00:43:54,767 --> 00:43:58,646 The war occasionally spilled over into the South- 594 00:43:58,687 --> 00:44:03,124 But partition had entrenched a separation of the mind- 595 00:44:03,167 --> 00:44:07,046 The six counties of Ulster truly seemed a world away- 596 00:44:07,087 --> 00:44:11,683 1n the republic, a younger generation pursued its own narrative of change, 597 00:44:11,727 --> 00:44:15,276 pushing at the boundaries of Church and of State- 598 00:44:19,607 --> 00:44:24,237 This changing sense of Irishness was the beginning of an extraordinary journey- 599 00:44:28,927 --> 00:44:32,078 The Republic of Ireland now looked increasingly beyond its shores, 600 00:44:32,127 --> 00:44:36,359 as part of a European community- 601 00:44:39,167 --> 00:44:42,716 Through the decades of change from the '60s to the '90s, 602 00:44:42,767 --> 00:44:46,521 Ireland moved from stagnation to growth- 603 00:44:46,567 --> 00:44:51,402 By the late '90s, it was among the richest countries in Europe- 604 00:44:56,487 --> 00:45:01,402 The country 1'd left in the recession of the 1980s was now the Celtic Tiger- 605 00:45:01,447 --> 00:45:05,998 Low corporate tax and a highly educated workforce 606 00:45:06,047 --> 00:45:07,844 helped to produce record growth- 607 00:45:10,327 --> 00:45:13,399 Coming back on holidays during the years of boom, 608 00:45:13,447 --> 00:45:17,486 it was hard to suppress a sense of shock at the sheer scale of the development. 609 00:45:17,527 --> 00:45:21,076 Pride, too, in a country that seemed to have shaken off 610 00:45:21,127 --> 00:45:24,597 the more inward-looking elements of its historic legacy. 611 00:45:24,647 --> 00:45:30,404 But - and I claim no great prescience here - I also had a lingering unease. 612 00:45:30,447 --> 00:45:32,722 Where was the money coming from? 613 00:45:32,767 --> 00:45:35,281 And who exactly was it benefiting? 614 00:45:36,847 --> 00:45:41,204 1nequality between rich and poor was still among the worst in Western Europe- 615 00:45:44,447 --> 00:45:50,124 And the idea of a new republic was undermined by the old deference to power- 616 00:45:52,287 --> 00:45:55,996 Whatever else might be said about the founding fathers of this state, 617 00:45:56,047 --> 00:45:58,003 the revolutionary generation, 618 00:45:58,047 --> 00:46:02,165 they were austere men, devoted to public service. 619 00:46:02,207 --> 00:46:05,643 But there emerged in this building a new kind of politician, 620 00:46:05,687 --> 00:46:08,155 one who understood that political power 621 00:46:08,207 --> 00:46:11,836 could be the pathway to great personal wealth. 622 00:46:11,887 --> 00:46:16,005 The man who came to symbolise the Irish politics of cronyism 623 00:46:16,047 --> 00:46:20,040 was Charles Haughey, leader of the party de Valera had founded- 624 00:46:20,087 --> 00:46:24,717 Talented and modernising, yet he lived like an Ascendancy lord, 625 00:46:24,767 --> 00:46:27,361 bankrolled by businessmen- 626 00:46:27,407 --> 00:46:30,160 W0MAN: Haughey entered a very different Ireland in the 1960s, 627 00:46:30,207 --> 00:46:32,767 demographically and economically. 628 00:46:32,807 --> 00:46:34,957 There were more urban people living in Ireland 629 00:46:35,007 --> 00:46:37,396 for the first time, than rural people, in its history. 630 00:46:37,447 --> 00:46:39,278 That brought on all sorts of pressures. 631 00:46:39,327 --> 00:46:41,204 More people wanted access to services, 632 00:46:41,247 --> 00:46:43,238 more people were looking for planning permission, 633 00:46:43,287 --> 00:46:44,845 where a lot of the corruption in Ireland was. 634 00:46:44,887 --> 00:46:50,166 New politicians stepped in. They were self-made men. 635 00:46:50,207 --> 00:46:53,882 While Ireland embraced Europe and the technology of modernity, 636 00:46:53,927 --> 00:46:58,876 the political system was rooted in 19th-century localism- 637 00:46:58,927 --> 00:47:03,125 Ireland's new political titan sailed his own yacht 638 00:47:03,167 --> 00:47:05,727 to the small island he owned- 639 00:47:05,767 --> 00:47:08,725 1n Ireland, the parish and not the nation 640 00:47:08,767 --> 00:47:12,282 remained the centre of the democratic universe- 641 00:47:12,327 --> 00:47:16,798 Land, such a fundamental obsession of the Irish psyche for centuries, 642 00:47:16,847 --> 00:47:19,281 was at the centre of the new clamber for wealth- 643 00:47:21,247 --> 00:47:24,000 Beginning in the 1960s, bribes had been paid 644 00:47:24,047 --> 00:47:27,198 to rezone green fields for building development- 645 00:47:27,247 --> 00:47:29,966 The lost fields of de Valera's Gaelic idyll 646 00:47:30,007 --> 00:47:32,885 were the new currency of wealth and power- 647 00:47:35,247 --> 00:47:36,760 Even as the country boomed, 648 00:47:36,807 --> 00:47:41,881 judicial tribunals revealed the scale of corruption in Irish public life- 649 00:47:42,967 --> 00:47:45,959 ELAINE BYRNE: The Moriarty Tribunal, which sat in this very yard, 650 00:47:46,007 --> 00:47:50,956 estimated that between 1979 and 1996, for a substantive phase 651 00:47:51,007 --> 00:47:53,601 when Charles Haughey was Taoiseach during that time, 652 00:47:53,647 --> 00:47:55,842 he received over nine million in donations. 653 00:47:55,887 --> 00:48:00,085 There seems to be a very clear relationship between Haughey receiving 654 00:48:00,127 --> 00:48:03,005 substantive amounts of donations when he was in power, 655 00:48:03,047 --> 00:48:04,480 and when he wasn't in power, 656 00:48:04,527 --> 00:48:06,677 he didn't seem to receive that much money at all. 657 00:48:08,967 --> 00:48:13,802 As Ireland turned towards a new millennium, the gleaming buildings rose- 658 00:48:13,847 --> 00:48:16,042 But old certainties unravelled- 659 00:48:17,927 --> 00:48:20,760 Scandals rocked the authority of the Church as the full scale 660 00:48:20,807 --> 00:48:23,446 of clerical child abuse was revealed- 661 00:48:23,487 --> 00:48:28,277 The tribunals continued to hear allegations of corruption in public life- 662 00:48:29,847 --> 00:48:34,875 Yet prosperity and the old habits of deference insured public quiescence- 663 00:48:37,127 --> 00:48:39,163 DIARMAID FERRITER: It's often been remarked 664 00:48:39,207 --> 00:48:42,722 that the Irish people are very sophisticated politically, 665 00:48:42,767 --> 00:48:44,519 that the Irish are very defiant, 666 00:48:44,567 --> 00:48:46,603 that the Irish are rebels. 667 00:48:46,647 --> 00:48:49,764 Now, when you contrast that with the lack of protest, 668 00:48:49,807 --> 00:48:54,085 with the lack of civic engagement, with the lack of a demand for accountability, 669 00:48:54,127 --> 00:48:56,436 for the abuse of power, you have to ask yourself, 670 00:48:56,487 --> 00:48:59,365 are a lot of those assertions about the Irish character 671 00:48:59,407 --> 00:49:02,683 and Irish rebelliousness actually mythical? 672 00:49:04,847 --> 00:49:08,886 But in 20O8, a financial catastrophe unleashed public anger- 673 00:49:10,447 --> 00:49:12,915 Ireland's economy was already in decline 674 00:49:12,967 --> 00:49:15,435 when America's property bubble exploded- 675 00:49:17,087 --> 00:49:20,045 1n Ireland, prices collapsed- 676 00:49:20,087 --> 00:49:21,918 Thousands were forced to emigrate- 677 00:49:21,967 --> 00:49:26,916 The ghost estates became the symbol of a nation in decline- 678 00:49:30,087 --> 00:49:35,002 Here, opposite Kilmainham Gaol, where the leaders of 1916 were executed, 679 00:49:35,047 --> 00:49:38,244 there's a monument which stands next to the empty office buildings 680 00:49:38,287 --> 00:49:40,881 of the Celtic Tiger- 681 00:49:42,967 --> 00:49:47,199 1t reminds the Irish people of the proclamation of a nation 682 00:49:47,247 --> 00:49:49,363 that would cherish all its children- 683 00:49:49,407 --> 00:49:53,685 As Ireland enters the second decade of the 21 st century, 684 00:49:53,727 --> 00:49:58,596 there seemed the possibility that the old way of doing things might be overthrown. 685 00:49:58,647 --> 00:50:02,083 This wasn't a transformation that could happen overnight 686 00:50:02,127 --> 00:50:03,924 or in the space of one election. 687 00:50:03,967 --> 00:50:06,640 But there were deeper stirrings of dissent 688 00:50:06,687 --> 00:50:10,965 that suggested that an entire political culture could be changed. 689 00:50:11,007 --> 00:50:14,363 And there was already a recent powerful example of that 690 00:50:14,407 --> 00:50:19,117 here on the island, in a place we might least have expected. 691 00:50:20,847 --> 00:50:24,044 MAN: If what has been agreed is implemented in full good faith, 692 00:50:24,087 --> 00:50:26,681 all of the people of Northern Ireland will gain. 693 00:50:26,727 --> 00:50:29,241 There are no victors, nor any losers. 694 00:50:32,807 --> 00:50:34,445 SEC0ND MAN: The agreement proposes changes 695 00:50:34,487 --> 00:50:39,038 in the Irish constitution and in British constitutional law 696 00:50:39,087 --> 00:50:44,081 to enshrine the principle that it is the people of Northern Ireland 697 00:50:44,127 --> 00:50:48,564 who will decide, democratically, their own future. 698 00:50:51,327 --> 00:50:54,524 I think the change came when war-weariness overtook war-readiness, 699 00:50:54,567 --> 00:50:58,003 and I think that happens sometime in the 1980s, 700 00:50:58,047 --> 00:51:00,481 and certainly by the early 1990s 701 00:51:00,527 --> 00:51:03,246 there was the feeling that this cannot go on. 702 00:51:03,287 --> 00:51:05,278 We're into the second generation now. 703 00:51:05,327 --> 00:51:07,602 People were committing atrocities 704 00:51:07,647 --> 00:51:10,639 who had not been born when the Troubles began. 705 00:51:11,687 --> 00:51:13,598 (EXPL0SI0N) 706 00:51:23,967 --> 00:51:25,685 The peace has so far endured 707 00:51:25,727 --> 00:51:29,436 the challenge of unreconciled Republican dissidents- 708 00:51:31,647 --> 00:51:37,244 But the pain of 30 years of killing haunts quiet living rooms across Ulster- 709 00:51:45,607 --> 00:51:49,919 W0MAN: We want better lives for our children and our grandchildren 710 00:51:49,967 --> 00:51:51,719 and their children too. 711 00:51:53,327 --> 00:51:56,797 FERGAL: That's a lovely photograph of the two of you, in a harbour somewhere. 712 00:51:56,847 --> 00:51:58,803 - In Ardglass. - Right. 713 00:51:58,847 --> 00:52:00,565 - Down at the coast. - Yeah. 714 00:52:04,807 --> 00:52:06,763 Bridget Mooney's husband, Raymond, 715 00:52:06,807 --> 00:52:09,879 was murdered in the grounds of a church in September 1986 716 00:52:09,927 --> 00:52:13,476 in retaliation for the IRA murder of a leading Loyalist- 717 00:52:15,047 --> 00:52:17,686 That's where we had our wedding reception. 718 00:52:17,727 --> 00:52:20,116 So, this is the two of you on the day of your wedding? 719 00:52:20,167 --> 00:52:22,761 - It is indeed. - Where were you married? 720 00:52:22,807 --> 00:52:24,160 In Ardoyne. 721 00:52:24,207 --> 00:52:26,038 So were you married in the same church 722 00:52:26,087 --> 00:52:28,362 - Raymond would later be murdered in? - Yeah. 723 00:52:28,407 --> 00:52:31,717 And all of my grandchildren who have been born so far, 724 00:52:31,767 --> 00:52:33,917 all of them christened in Ardoyne. 725 00:52:36,927 --> 00:52:39,487 So much of this conflict - and I'm not just talking about 726 00:52:39,527 --> 00:52:42,325 what's happened in the last 30 years, but for hundreds of years - 727 00:52:42,367 --> 00:52:46,326 has been driven by fear and by hatred. 728 00:52:46,367 --> 00:52:48,881 I just wonder, do you feel hatred, 729 00:52:48,927 --> 00:52:51,236 now, towards the people who killed your husband? 730 00:52:51,287 --> 00:52:52,276 No. 731 00:52:52,327 --> 00:52:54,522 For the simple reason, if... 732 00:52:54,567 --> 00:52:59,402 Hatred and bitterness are feelings 733 00:52:59,447 --> 00:53:04,805 and I refuse to let people who took my husband's life 734 00:53:04,847 --> 00:53:08,886 have any place in my body, 735 00:53:08,927 --> 00:53:10,918 in my heart, in my head. 736 00:53:10,967 --> 00:53:13,322 And no, I hate nobody. 737 00:53:13,367 --> 00:53:16,837 Have you ever wanted to, and have you ever thought about, 738 00:53:16,887 --> 00:53:18,559 leaving Northern Ireland? 739 00:53:18,607 --> 00:53:24,079 Never. Not while my husband's body's in the city cemetery. Never. 740 00:53:24,127 --> 00:53:27,517 And I've never even thought about it, no. No. 741 00:53:27,567 --> 00:53:29,797 And I'll never leave Northern Ireland now. 742 00:53:39,927 --> 00:53:42,760 The poet John Hewitt, writing at the height of the Troubles, 743 00:53:42,807 --> 00:53:49,246 urged that we should, ''Bear in mind these dead: I can find no plainer words.'' 744 00:53:49,287 --> 00:53:53,838 He was reflecting on a conflict in which men killed and died 745 00:53:53,887 --> 00:53:57,084 for the sake of contested identities. 746 00:53:57,127 --> 00:54:00,642 This was not, Hewitt implied, patriotism. 747 00:54:00,687 --> 00:54:05,044 ''Patriotism has to do with keeping the country in good heart, 748 00:54:05,087 --> 00:54:08,966 ''the community ordered with justice and mercy.'' 749 00:54:09,007 --> 00:54:15,924 Hewitt's lines might stand as one of the enduring lessons of the Irish story. 750 00:54:17,767 --> 00:54:21,806 MAN: The decommissioning of the arms of the IRA 751 00:54:21,847 --> 00:54:24,407 is now an accomplished fact. 752 00:54:24,447 --> 00:54:31,285 The IRA abandoned war, and Unionists agreed to share power with Catholics- 753 00:54:32,607 --> 00:54:37,237 After 30 years of war, in which more than 3,50O people died, 754 00:54:37,287 --> 00:54:42,281 the IRA accepted the partitioned Ireland agreed by Michael Collins and the British- 755 00:54:42,327 --> 00:54:46,718 Unity was an aspiration to be achieved by peaceful means- 756 00:54:54,727 --> 00:54:59,676 1n the South, the romantic nationalism of earlier generations had largely vanished- 757 00:55:03,407 --> 00:55:07,446 When the republic voted to abandon its territorial claim on the six counties, 758 00:55:07,487 --> 00:55:11,275 it seemed an act of practical patriotism- 759 00:55:13,207 --> 00:55:15,038 It's an acceptance 760 00:55:15,087 --> 00:55:18,443 of political reality and an acceptance of engagement with the outside world, 761 00:55:18,487 --> 00:55:19,886 including Northern Ireland. 762 00:55:19,927 --> 00:55:22,919 We no longer have to, as it were, wave the flag. 763 00:55:22,967 --> 00:55:27,199 There's a feeling of Irishness that is real, and much deeper, 764 00:55:27,247 --> 00:55:30,000 in my view, than what existed in the '30s and '40s. 765 00:55:33,007 --> 00:55:37,762 The republic is now having to accommodate a broader sense of Irishness- 766 00:55:39,807 --> 00:55:43,243 There is racism, but far-right politics have not taken root here- 767 00:55:46,487 --> 00:55:49,320 How many children have parents who are from outside of Ireland? 768 00:55:49,367 --> 00:55:51,437 How about yourself? Where are your parents from? 769 00:55:51,487 --> 00:55:53,523 - Russian. - And you over here? 770 00:55:53,567 --> 00:55:54,556 - Poland. - Lithuania. 771 00:55:54,607 --> 00:55:55,756 Lithuania, and Poland as well. 772 00:55:57,567 --> 00:56:01,321 1 O% of the population of the South is now foreign-born- 773 00:56:03,807 --> 00:56:06,879 These are the children of those who came here in the boom to find work- 774 00:56:06,927 --> 00:56:10,283 (THEY CHANT IN IRISH) 775 00:56:25,127 --> 00:56:29,723 Economic globalisation changed the idea of Irish identity- 776 00:56:32,727 --> 00:56:36,686 The old concept of an Irish identity, the one that I grew up with, 777 00:56:36,727 --> 00:56:40,561 which was that being Irish was Gaelic and Catholic, 778 00:56:40,607 --> 00:56:42,518 that's gone, really, hasn't it? 779 00:56:42,567 --> 00:56:45,923 There are still plenty of Gaels around, plenty of Catholics around, 780 00:56:45,967 --> 00:56:49,118 but what's nice about the time we're entering now is the sense that 781 00:56:49,167 --> 00:56:54,480 you don't have to be both of those things to be Irish 782 00:56:54,527 --> 00:57:00,045 and that Irish identity now can draw from many, many, many wells, 783 00:57:00,087 --> 00:57:03,682 and we're going to build, between us, the Ireland of tomorrow. 784 00:57:03,727 --> 00:57:08,198 And who can say what Irish identity will morph into? 785 00:57:17,367 --> 00:57:21,440 The first inhabitants of this island came from Europe- 786 00:57:24,007 --> 00:57:27,886 They were open to change and absorbed waves of invasion- 787 00:57:27,927 --> 00:57:33,206 They embraced a spiritual revolution and carried it to distant lands- 788 00:57:35,727 --> 00:57:39,117 The old hatreds have not vanished, 789 00:57:39,167 --> 00:57:42,239 but the Irish have moved to peaceful co-existence- 790 00:57:44,807 --> 00:57:48,561 There has been famine, revolution and civil war- 791 00:57:53,887 --> 00:57:55,843 But in an age of uncertainty, 792 00:57:55,887 --> 00:58:00,563 we can surely draw strength from the memory of what has been overcome- 793 00:58:03,007 --> 00:58:06,761 The story of Ireland has always been a narrative of change, 794 00:58:06,807 --> 00:58:09,367 unpredictable and dynamic. 795 00:58:09,407 --> 00:58:15,198 The past is no longer a melancholy burden or a reason to hate. 796 00:58:15,247 --> 00:58:18,000 We're never entirely free of the claims of history, 797 00:58:18,047 --> 00:58:20,607 but neither are we its prisoners. 798 00:58:20,647 --> 00:58:25,721 Ireland today is an island of possibility, an open island.