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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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Ripped By mstoll
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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 1800s
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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 100 people.
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They would then let it out
to 1,000 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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and Government soup kitchens were closed
after being open for just six months.
236
00:17:54,360 --> 00:17:59,275
Famine diseases like typhoid
and cholera swept through the population.
237
00:18:11,320 --> 00:18:16,952
The workhouses paid for by the landlords'
rates were besieged by starving people.
238
00:18:20,880 --> 00:18:24,555
Overcrowding became endemic
in many of these places.
239
00:18:24,600 --> 00:18:28,149
Workhouses would become
mansions of the dead.
240
00:18:28,200 --> 00:18:31,556
A visitor to the Fermoy workhouse
wrote of how
241
00:18:31,600 --> 00:18:34,433
"a pestilential fever
was raging through the place,
242
00:18:34,480 --> 00:18:38,996
"and all the horrors of disease
were aggravated by the foul air".
243
00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:44,078
On the day of that visit, 30 sick children
244
00:18:44,120 --> 00:18:48,671
were found crammed into just three beds.
245
00:18:50,680 --> 00:18:54,673
With crops failing,
the poor fell behind in their rents.
246
00:18:56,080 --> 00:18:58,469
Tens of thousands were evicted.
247
00:19:03,440 --> 00:19:07,638
Skibbereen in West Cork
was one of the hardest hit areas.
248
00:19:11,360 --> 00:19:15,990
In 1847, Lord George Bentinck
told Parliament of news he'd received
249
00:19:16,040 --> 00:19:18,156
from a local clergyman.
250
00:19:21,760 --> 00:19:23,716
"I have at this moment in my pocket,
251
00:19:23,760 --> 00:19:26,194
"a letter from the Protestant clergyman
of Skibbereen,
252
00:19:26,240 --> 00:19:28,435
"the Reverend Richard Boyle Townsend,
253
00:19:28,480 --> 00:19:31,711
"in which he says that in
the Poor Law Union of Skibbereen
254
00:19:31,760 --> 00:19:35,673
"10,000 persons
have perished from the famine. "
255
00:19:38,400 --> 00:19:41,676
The Reverend Townsend became
what we would nowadays call
256
00:19:41,720 --> 00:19:43,950
a humanitarian campaigner.
257
00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:47,629
From the rectory here at Skibbereen
he wrote to newspapers
258
00:19:47,680 --> 00:19:50,240
and to powerful political figures.
259
00:19:50,280 --> 00:19:53,317
This son of the landed Protestant gentry
260
00:19:53,360 --> 00:19:58,992
took the full horror of the Irish famine
to the heart of the British establishment.
261
00:20:02,360 --> 00:20:04,396
Townsend even travelled to London
262
00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:08,718
to lobby the Permanent Secretary
to the Treasury, Charles Trevelyan.
263
00:20:09,760 --> 00:20:14,709
Relief schemes were failing, he said.
Emergency food supplies were needed.
264
00:20:16,720 --> 00:20:20,269
But Trevelyan saw the calamity
in starkly different terms.
265
00:20:22,480 --> 00:20:26,871
God had sent the famine
to teach the Irish a lesson, he wrote.
266
00:20:26,920 --> 00:20:29,434
That calamity
must not be too much mitigated.
267
00:20:29,480 --> 00:20:34,554
The real evil was the people's "selfish,
perverse and turbulent character".
268
00:20:34,600 --> 00:20:35,999
To Irish nationalists,
269
00:20:36,040 --> 00:20:40,716
Trevelyan's callous words represented
the true voice of the union with Britain.
270
00:20:43,400 --> 00:20:47,313
What is it that motivates
Charles Trevelyan?
271
00:20:47,360 --> 00:20:50,670
He articulated ideas,
which I think were pervasive at the time.
272
00:20:50,720 --> 00:20:56,636
Things like self-reliance, market forces,
small government,
273
00:20:56,680 --> 00:20:58,830
the dangers of over-population.
274
00:20:58,880 --> 00:21:01,599
The danger also
of what economists would call
275
00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:04,791
moral hazard
in the context of famine relief -
276
00:21:04,840 --> 00:21:07,593
the sense that if you relieved the Irish
too generously,
277
00:21:07,640 --> 00:21:11,679
they wouldn't learn a lesson
and the same thing was going to happen
278
00:21:11,720 --> 00:21:13,597
in a... in a few decades again.
279
00:21:18,560 --> 00:21:21,791
Reverend Townsend's lobbying
brought newspapermen
280
00:21:21,840 --> 00:21:25,799
and a number of influential
public figures to West Cork.
281
00:21:27,960 --> 00:21:30,428
He showed them the cabins of the dying
282
00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:32,152
and the mass graves.
283
00:21:33,760 --> 00:21:37,070
Reverend Townsend brought his visitors
to this graveyard.
284
00:21:37,120 --> 00:21:40,635
Here they saw the horse-drawn carts
pull up with corpses.
285
00:21:40,680 --> 00:21:43,353
They saw them being emptied
into the ground,
286
00:21:43,400 --> 00:21:46,517
layer upon layer, without coffins.
287
00:21:47,640 --> 00:21:53,431
In this one mass grave
lie the remains of 9,000 people.
288
00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:01,155
By the time the famine was over,
289
00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:05,591
it was estimated more than a million
had died of starvation and disease.
290
00:22:12,680 --> 00:22:16,832
Among them was
the Reverend Richard Boyle Townsend.
291
00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:21,112
He died from typhus
contracted from those he had been helping.
292
00:22:31,720 --> 00:22:34,393
CORMAC O'GRÁDA: You're talking
about a crisis, which,
293
00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:36,874
by world standards, it's a big famine,
294
00:22:36,920 --> 00:22:41,994
but by 19th-century European standards,
it's absolutely unique.
295
00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:46,670
At that time, Britain was capable
of doing much more than it did.
296
00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:48,551
I think one has to say that.
297
00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:55,672
An entire class of small tenants
and farm labourers vanished.
298
00:22:57,240 --> 00:23:00,676
Some landlords who had been
forced by the Government to pay for relief
299
00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:02,517
went bankrupt.
300
00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:04,869
And there was a new phenomenon -
301
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:08,230
better-off Catholics who bought land
on bankrupt estates.
302
00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:16,788
More than a million of the poor
took to the emigrant boats.
303
00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:21,118
MAN: ♪ Farewell to you, old Ireland
304
00:23:21,160 --> 00:23:26,154
♪ Since I must go away
305
00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:30,796
♪ I now shake hands and bid goodbye
306
00:23:30,840 --> 00:23:35,436
♪And can no longer stay
307
00:23:35,480 --> 00:23:40,156
♪ Our big ship lies in deep Lough Foyle
308
00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:45,115
♪ Bound for the New York shore
309
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:49,631
♪And I must go from all I know
310
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:53,150
♪And lovely Moneymore... ♪
311
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:06,719
For many emigrants, this was
their last sight of the Irish mainland.
312
00:24:06,760 --> 00:24:10,469
Ahead of them lay the Atlantic
with all its hardships.
313
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:14,069
In one two-month period in 1847,
314
00:24:14,120 --> 00:24:18,352
nearly 5,000 people
perished on the crossing.
315
00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:21,870
This mass migration
wouldn't just change the story of Ireland
316
00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:24,195
but of America too.
317
00:24:34,280 --> 00:24:38,432
The story of Irish Catholics in America
is a mix of romantic fable,
318
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:42,473
phenomenal social advancement
and hard politics.
319
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:46,115
A million and a half Irish
left their own country for America
320
00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:47,878
during the years of the famine.
321
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:51,390
By the middle of the 1850s, there were
more Irish living in New York City
322
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:53,396
than there were in Dublin.
323
00:24:53,440 --> 00:24:56,318
When they arrived here in their boats
at the East River,
324
00:24:56,360 --> 00:25:00,399
they were the poorest of the poor,
fanning out into the city.
325
00:25:08,120 --> 00:25:10,998
America was absorbing millions of refugees
326
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:14,749
from hunger and political crisis
from across the world.
327
00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:19,835
The Irish flooded into the cities
of the American East Coast.
328
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:21,757
This is now part of Chinatown,
329
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:24,598
but back then,
it was called the Five Points district.
330
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:29,156
Here the Irish jostled and competed
with Germans, Scandinavians, Dutch,
331
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:32,317
with blacks who'd fled slavery
in the South.
332
00:25:32,360 --> 00:25:34,078
Charles Dickens visiting here
333
00:25:34,120 --> 00:25:36,759
described it as a place
that "reeked of filth and dirt,
334
00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:40,713
"where even the houses
seemed old from debauchery".
335
00:25:40,760 --> 00:25:44,275
It was a place where only the toughest
and the canniest survived.
336
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:50,712
The Irish come off boats
down on the East River here in the 1840s,
337
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:52,955
the lowest in terms of social status.
338
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:56,675
And yet within a decade that's changed.
How do they do it?
339
00:25:56,720 --> 00:26:01,874
Well, they do it because they bring
with them something intangible,
340
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:05,071
and that is a capacity
for political organisation,
341
00:26:05,120 --> 00:26:07,953
which they've acquired under the
tutorship, in a way, of Daniel O'Connell
342
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:10,719
over the previous 30 years.
343
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:16,312
No other people were able to organise
themselves at so low a social level.
344
00:26:16,360 --> 00:26:19,113
And within a decade of arriving,
345
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:22,357
they had become the driving force
in New York politics.
346
00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:27,114
Many would find their political outlet
347
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:30,038
in the salons
of the American Democratic Party.
348
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:35,434
But others among the Irish,
embittered by the cruelties of the famine,
349
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:37,869
were looking back towards home.
350
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:47,630
The Fenian Brotherhood, founded in 1858,
was rooted in the Young Ireland movement,
351
00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:51,116
which had launched a failed rebellion
a decade before.
352
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:57,799
They set about raising political support
and funds for a new revolution.
353
00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:03,189
By 1863, they were powerful enough
to command large audiences
354
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:05,800
at meetings in the prestigious
Cooper Union,
355
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:08,912
one of the great theatres
of American political rhetoric,
356
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:11,520
where Abraham Lincoln had once spoken.
357
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:13,471
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
358
00:27:17,360 --> 00:27:20,909
Tell me, in essence,
what were the Fenians?
359
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:24,555
The Fenians were essentially
the cry for revenge for the famine,
360
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:25,828
that's what they were.
361
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:29,156
And they were able to mobilise
over here in America,
362
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:32,272
because they were beyond
British jurisdiction.
363
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:37,757
The driving force is getting money
out of people -
364
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:40,598
that's the ultimate test
of organisational capacity -
365
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:44,633
to send back to Ireland,
and enormous amounts were collected.
366
00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:55,591
MAN: ♪ The minstrel boy to the war is gone
367
00:27:55,640 --> 00:28:01,033
♪ In the ranks of death
you will find him... ♪
368
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:03,275
FERGAL: But it wasn't simply
a question of money.
369
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:05,834
Irishmen had also gained
military experience
370
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:07,757
fighting in the American Civil War.
371
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:11,713
They would now try to strike at
British power wherever they could find it.
372
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:17,959
They hope in 1866, immediately
after the end of the Civil War,
373
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:20,798
that if they can invade Canada,
as the closest British...
374
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:22,910
- Invade Canada?
- Invade Canada.
375
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:24,188
How many of them were going to do that?
376
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:27,312
Well, it wasn't all that well planned,
you have to put it like that.
377
00:28:27,360 --> 00:28:28,349
How many men?
378
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:30,231
Just over 1,000 tried to get into Canada.
379
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:35,353
They won some skirmishes on the border,
380
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:37,436
but it didn't work out successfully.
381
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:41,996
And there was a second attempt,
which worked out even less successfully.
382
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:48,553
But the Fenians understood
the power of revolutionary gesture -
383
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:50,795
the propaganda of the deed.
384
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:58,076
In 1867, they carried out the first acts
of Irish terrorism in Britain.
385
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:08,070
When the accused were executed,
they became martyrs
386
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:11,795
whose deaths and ideas
would inspire future revolutionaries.
387
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:19,873
ROY FOSTER:
The idea that a self-elected elite
388
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:23,117
will form a shock troop of the Irish
nationalist advance,
389
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:27,073
this idea is, I think, influenced
390
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:32,353
by certain movements on the Continent
in the 1830s, '40s, '50s.
391
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:34,868
The... the, erm, anarchist movements.
392
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:41,359
There are elements of all this
in their structure of cells,
393
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:45,996
in their belief
that you have to work by conspiracy.
394
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:51,956
A gestural act of violence,
often against a symbolic target.
395
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:57,677
This kind of revolutionary politics
is part of the essence of Fenianism.
396
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:09,598
A brief Fenian rebellion in Ireland
was quickly crushed,
397
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:14,031
but they would be hugely influential
in a social revolution,
398
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:19,313
a movement rooted, as with so much
of the history of the Irish 19th century,
399
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:21,032
in the land.
400
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:31,270
These farmers in County Kerry
are the descendants of men
401
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:34,392
who were tenants
on the estates of landlords.
402
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:40,837
Even the largest tenant farmers
couldn't claim to be secure
403
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:43,110
from high rent increases or eviction.
404
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:57,232
And when the potato blight struck again
and threatened another famine in 1878,
405
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:02,673
a movement emerged determined
to protect the farmers from eviction.
406
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:09,197
The great movement for change
407
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:12,869
would be built around
the forefathers of men like these.
408
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:15,832
The rural poor would be
mobilised into a force
409
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:20,749
that sparked phenomenal social change
and created a political legend.
410
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:25,635
It would be led by two men as different
from each other as it was possible to be,
411
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:28,069
in background and personality.
412
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:36,433
In 1879, a 31-year-old activist,
Michael Davitt,
413
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:38,789
returned to his native County Mayo
414
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:43,789
after spending seven years in British
prisons for his part in a Fenian plot.
415
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:50,871
Davitt had come back to Mayo
to rally farmers threatened with eviction
416
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:53,115
and because he saw in the rural crisis
417
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:57,790
the chance to put his own socialist ideas
into practice.
418
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:01,879
LAURENCE MARLEY: Davitt was born in 1846,
at the height of the famine.
419
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:06,072
At the age of four, Davitt, his three
sisters and his parents were evicted
420
00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:08,839
from their homestead in County Mayo.
421
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:12,509
The family were forced in 1850
to emigrate to England.
422
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:18,476
And all throughout his childhood,
Davitt was brought up with these images.
423
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:20,590
FERGAL: And isn't the key thing
that he grows up
424
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:25,430
profoundly shaped
by radical ideas of English socialism?
425
00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:27,516
LAURENCE MARLEY: Yes, that's true.
426
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:29,915
In fact, his experiences would have
been more into tune
427
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:31,473
with the industrial working class
of Lancashire.
428
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:34,671
For him, that relationship
between them and their landlord
429
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:36,631
was no different from a relationship
430
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:39,672
between the industrial boss
and the industrial worker.
431
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:43,633
Davitt was a child
of the Industrial Revolution
432
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:47,719
and, at the age of 11,
had lost his right arm in a mill accident.
433
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:51,833
Yet this class warrior
would form an alliance with an aristocrat.
434
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:57,279
Charles Stewart Parnell
came from a Protestant land-owning family
435
00:32:57,320 --> 00:33:00,278
whose fortunes had declined
after the famine.
436
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:04,108
From his American mother, he'd inherited
a strong anti-British sentiment
437
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:06,720
and he would become a nationalist icon.
438
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:11,076
ROY FOSTER: Parnell and Davitt
are a fascinating contrast,
439
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:12,678
in almost every way you can think.
440
00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:17,510
Parnell, an aristocrat, a dictator,
as he was well known as.
441
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:20,711
He even called one of his horses Dictator.
442
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:25,436
Davitt, a socialist, who becomes
increasingly socialist with the years.
443
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:29,359
But out of those differences came,
I think, a great deal of the strength
444
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:34,190
of that astonishing decade
of roughly 1880 to 1890
445
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:37,949
when such political success
seemed to be within the grasp
446
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:39,831
of the Irish nationalist movement.
447
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:46,474
Davitt admired Parnell's willingness
to confront the Government.
448
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:50,513
The vehicle that would bring both men
to the forefront of nationalist politics
449
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:52,630
was the Irish Land League,
450
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:57,151
which began, from October 1879,
to organise civil disobedience
451
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:00,237
against increased rents and evictions.
452
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:10,354
One of the first cases taken up
by the League was that of a tenant farmer
453
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:12,755
in Loona More, County Mayo.
454
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:15,234
Anthony Dempsey
had fallen behind on his rent
455
00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:17,111
and faced eviction.
456
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:25,750
These are relatives of Anthony Dempsey,
visiting his old cottage.
457
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:30,871
JOHN DEMPSEY:
Thousands of people gathered here
458
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:34,515
to prevent the eviction
of the Dempsey family.
459
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:38,749
The biggest significance of it was that
460
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:42,031
Charles Stewart Parnell
came to this scene.
461
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:45,629
So he would have come up the road,
down over that way,
462
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:48,797
- and come up with thousands of people.
- Yeah.
463
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:51,912
We're led to believe that Parnell
came up the hill there on a white horse.
464
00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:55,999
Is that kind of... (LAUGHS)
...the Irish gift for romantic...
465
00:34:56,040 --> 00:34:58,759
romanticising things,
or did it really happen?
466
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:03,715
I don't know, but it... it would have added
to the whole occasion if it did happen.
467
00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:07,435
Because that's how people saw him,
wasn't it? I mean, there's truth in that.
468
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:09,914
They saw him as
the knight riding to rescue.
469
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:12,838
JOHN DEMPSEY: When the police realised,
the major in charge
470
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:15,269
called off the eviction
at that particular time.
471
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:24,394
Vast sums of money were raised
through the Fenian networks in America
472
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:27,034
and used to subsidise evicted families.
473
00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:32,359
The League was both rural trade union
and nationalist movement.
474
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:38,310
A rent strike was declared.
475
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:42,239
The League tapped into
rural traditions of coercion
476
00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:45,317
against those it called
"the people's enemies".
477
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:48,158
LAURENCE MARLEY: The Land League develops
a new tactic called Boycotting,
478
00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:50,509
or social ostracism.
479
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:56,275
One of the other aspects of this
was what became known as moonlighting,
480
00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:59,153
where those who went against
the unwritten law would be visited
481
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:02,829
or would receive letters
or warnings about their conduct,
482
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:04,791
and even to have mock funerals
483
00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:09,550
that symbolised the end of them
as members of the community.
484
00:36:16,240 --> 00:36:19,437
But transformation in Ireland
is dependent on
485
00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:22,790
a parallel but very different
revolution in Britain.
486
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:30,352
It is the age of mass industrialisation
and rapid social change.
487
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:36,154
In this evolving United Kingdom
dominated by the forces of industry,
488
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:41,957
the old Ireland of landlords seems
out of step with the spirit of the age.
489
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:47,039
Politics, too, was changing.
The vote had been extended
490
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:49,719
to factory and farm workers.
491
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:51,079
Parnell's Irish Party
492
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:53,236
benefited from a new secret ballot,
493
00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:55,475
which undermined the power of landlords
494
00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:58,034
to coerce their tenants
into voting for them.
495
00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:01,197
Irish nationalists
were a force in Parliament.
496
00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:06,470
The struggle for land rights
now moved to the Houses of Parliament,
497
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:10,115
and it would take the energy and vision
of a British Prime Minister
498
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:14,392
to introduce legislation that would have
a more far-reaching practical impact
499
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:17,193
on the lives of rural communities
500
00:37:17,240 --> 00:37:19,913
than any other statute
in the past century.
501
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:26,280
William Ewart Gladstone was a combination
of moralist and canny politician.
502
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:29,312
In 1881, he introduced a Land Act,
503
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:31,715
which offered Irish tenants
security from eviction
504
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:33,352
and a means of controlling their rent.
505
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:35,755
After further agitation,
506
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:40,032
Gladstone moved closer to meeting
the key demand of Davitt and Parnell -
507
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:43,834
the right of Irish tenants
to buy their own land.
508
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:49,272
ROY FOSTER: I think there's a strong
argument for saying that the hinge
509
00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:55,589
on which modern Irish history turns
is the Land War of 1879 to 1882.
510
00:37:55,640 --> 00:38:00,236
From 1881, through to the Land Acts
of the early 20th century,
511
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:07,675
you have the British state enabling
Irish tenants to buy out their holdings
512
00:38:07,720 --> 00:38:11,395
from the landlords and become
small "peasant proprietors",
513
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:14,034
as the phrase of the day would have it.
514
00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:17,277
This has immense implications
515
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:22,599
for the creation of a conservative -
with a small C - rural petite bourgeoisie.
516
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:28,990
The social revolution
that begins with the Land War
517
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:34,717
isn't the creation of a socialist state
as Davitt would have wanted,
518
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:38,116
but it turned out to be
a conservative revolution,
519
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:42,676
which is exactly what
Charles Stewart Parnell would have liked.
520
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:49,715
There has been a long social revolution.
521
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:52,433
The laws which forced Catholics
and Presbyterians
522
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:56,712
to pay for the upkeep of the Anglican
Church have already been overturned.
523
00:38:56,760 --> 00:38:59,957
It was now no longer the state Church.
524
00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:06,628
The Protestant Ascendancy was being
dismantled not by violent revolution
525
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:09,672
but by Acts of a British Parliament.
526
00:39:12,040 --> 00:39:15,635
The Catholic bourgeoisie of farmers,
merchants and professionals
527
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:17,511
were the rising force.
528
00:39:17,560 --> 00:39:22,270
And their Church, already powerful,
would come to dominate Irish life
529
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:24,515
well into the modern age.
530
00:39:27,720 --> 00:39:29,392
In the new, confident Church,
531
00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:33,831
Cardinal Paul Cullen
had emerged as a princely figure.
532
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:37,759
He was ordained the same year that
Catholic emancipation was granted
533
00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:42,590
and rose to become Archbishop of Dublin
and Ireland's first Cardinal.
534
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:48,909
Cullen set a mark on Irish Catholicism
535
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:53,033
which was there until very, very recently.
536
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:56,709
He set up an institutional framework -
537
00:39:56,760 --> 00:40:02,869
the orphanages, the schools, the churches,
the confraternities.
538
00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:05,673
All the paraphernalia, if you like,
of Catholic life.
539
00:40:05,720 --> 00:40:09,474
His era was also hugely influential
in shaping
540
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:13,149
the personal and public piety
of the Irish.
541
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:15,998
FERGAL: There's a pretty fierce attempt
542
00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:18,600
to control the Catholic population
on the part of Cullen
543
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:20,870
and the kind of men
who came along with him.
544
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:26,995
His interest is the security, the rights
and the position of the Church,
545
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:33,309
and he will be as tough as he needs to be
to secure those Catholic interests.
546
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:38,074
FERGAL: The story of the 19th century
in Ireland
547
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:40,031
is one in which power shifts decisively.
548
00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:44,392
The great issues of religious freedom,
of land, have now been confronted,
549
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:50,276
but there remains the most divisive
question of all - Home Rule.
550
00:40:50,320 --> 00:40:53,630
Up to now,
Ireland has been ruled from London,
551
00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:59,152
but the campaign to change that will lead
to the division that persists in Ireland
552
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:00,474
to this very day.
553
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:04,598
The new campaign will be led
554
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:07,677
by the hero of the Land League,
Charles Stewart Parnell.
555
00:41:07,720 --> 00:41:11,713
Under Home Rule,
Ireland would stay in the Empire,
556
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:16,311
but it would be ruled
not from London but Dublin,
557
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:18,794
and by a nationalist-dominated
Parliament.
558
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:22,879
By 1885, Parnell was in
a strong bargaining position.
559
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:26,390
His party now held
the balance of power in Parliament,
560
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:30,274
and he found Gladstone a willing partner.
561
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:33,312
This deeply religious man
was beginning to see Ireland
562
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:39,390
as a divine mission, and Home Rule
as a means of repaying the Irish
563
00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:41,271
for the cruelties of the past.
564
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:45,359
And there was a pragmatic consideration.
565
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:50,520
Gladstone needed the support of Parnell's
MPs to keep his Government in power.
566
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:55,634
For moral and political reasons,
Ireland mattered as never before.
567
00:41:55,680 --> 00:42:00,356
By 1886, Gladstone was ready
to put a Home Rule Bill
568
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:02,755
before the House of Commons.
569
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:05,553
Parnell and his MPs listened intently
570
00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:11,709
as Gladstone declared that this was
a golden moment, which rarely returns.
571
00:42:11,760 --> 00:42:14,832
The British Prime Minister
had placed his political prestige
572
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:19,874
and the formidable weight of his oratory
behind self-rule for the Irish.
573
00:42:19,920 --> 00:42:21,239
But it wouldn't be enough.
574
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:22,474
(JEERING)
575
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:25,080
The Bill was defeated by 30 votes.
576
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:27,839
Many of Gladstone's
own Liberal supporters,
577
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:31,668
fearful that Home Rule could lead
to the break-up of the Empire,
578
00:42:31,720 --> 00:42:33,836
voted against him.
579
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:42,395
In Ireland,
the Bill raised sectarian tension.
580
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:47,639
Many Ulster Protestants saw Home Rule
as simple Rome Rule.
581
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:51,878
On the day the Bill was defeated,
there were riots in Belfast.
582
00:42:55,680 --> 00:43:00,037
Here at Alexandra Dock, a rumour spread
that Catholics had attacked an Orangeman.
583
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:03,868
Soon hundreds of shipyard workers
were streaming across the road.
584
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:07,708
They set about the Catholics,
beating them with whatever came to hand.
585
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:10,638
The Catholic workers,
some of them jumped into the water,
586
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:12,432
trying to swim across the river.
587
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:14,038
One man was drowned.
588
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:17,709
By nightfall,
rioting had spread across Belfast.
589
00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:27,839
ROY FOSTER: Gladstone took an extremely
myopic view, I think it has to be said,
590
00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:33,352
of Ulster resistance,
in which he was accompanied by Parnell,
591
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:39,475
who simply took the line that Ulster
had played a grand part in the 1798 rising
592
00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:42,796
and platonically
was part of nationalist Ireland,
593
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:47,038
and these deluded Unionists
would come and see this in time.
594
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:52,116
As news of the defeat of Home Rule
595
00:43:52,160 --> 00:43:54,310
spread through the streets of Belfast,
596
00:43:54,360 --> 00:43:57,238
Protestants in working-class areas
came out to celebrate.
597
00:43:57,280 --> 00:44:00,352
They marched behind Orange bands
and they lit bonfires.
598
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:07,271
As the smoke curled up into the sky,
599
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:10,551
it could have been read as a warning
600
00:44:10,600 --> 00:44:14,195
of an age of violence and division
that was to come.
601
00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:24,398
Parnell and Gladstone were to make one
more attempt at bringing about Home Rule.
602
00:44:24,440 --> 00:44:29,594
In December 1889, Parnell travelled
to Hawarden Castle in Flintshire,
603
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:31,392
Gladstone's country home.
604
00:44:33,160 --> 00:44:37,199
The Irish party leader came here
to meet Gladstone as the year ended,
605
00:44:37,240 --> 00:44:43,429
and the possibility of a great new
campaign for Home Rule bubbled in the air.
606
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:46,040
Until calamity descended.
607
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:50,237
It was the biggest sex scandal
of its time.
608
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:54,398
Parnell's nearly decade-long liaison
with a married woman, Katherine O'Shea,
609
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:57,989
became public when her husband,
from whom she was separated,
610
00:44:58,040 --> 00:44:59,917
sued for divorce.
611
00:45:01,240 --> 00:45:03,629
Her husband was one of Parnell's MPs.
612
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:06,676
Victorian opinion was scandalised
613
00:45:06,720 --> 00:45:09,757
by false stories
about Parnell donning disguises
614
00:45:09,800 --> 00:45:11,677
and fleeing down a fire escape.
615
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:17,915
His party would now be confronted
with a stark choice by the Prime Minister.
616
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:26,080
Gladstone realised that the forces ranged
against Parnell were simply too powerful,
617
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:29,590
and within his own party,
the voices of the morally affronted
618
00:45:29,640 --> 00:45:31,392
were growing louder.
619
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:34,113
He wrote to the Irish Parliamentary Party
620
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:37,232
that if Parnell were to remain
as its leader,
621
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:41,751
his own position as leader of the Liberals
would become impossible.
622
00:45:43,320 --> 00:45:46,198
In this way, Gladstone cut Parnell loose.
623
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:53,676
But Parnell would not step down,
624
00:45:53,720 --> 00:45:58,396
even after his former allies,
the Catholic bishops, denounced him.
625
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:03,593
At a bitter meeting in Westminster,
he faced his MPs.
626
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:05,358
(JEERING)
627
00:46:05,400 --> 00:46:08,870
Parnell placed his leadership
before the unity of the party,
628
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:10,273
and it split.
629
00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:12,470
The majority deserted him.
630
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:17,513
He returned to Ireland to campaign,
facing often hostile crowds.
631
00:46:19,000 --> 00:46:22,231
His health worsened,
and he was dead within a year.
632
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:31,073
ROY FOSTER: Parnell's fall and destruction
was a kind of classic tale of hubris.
633
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:32,872
He was a titanic figure,
634
00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:38,040
but the flaws in his personality
were part of that titanic image,
635
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:41,390
that kingly hauteur.
636
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:44,796
When he fought his last campaigns,
637
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:48,196
one of his tactics was to pour scorn
638
00:46:48,240 --> 00:46:51,710
on the very thing
that he himself had accomplished.
639
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:55,719
He was now saying, "Look, it would never
have happened. Never trust the British."
640
00:46:55,760 --> 00:47:00,311
He is reverting to
an older Fenian-style kind of rhetoric,
641
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:05,036
where Britain represents the infamous
thing that you can never trust,
642
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:06,957
that will always do down Ireland.
643
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:10,151
He's saying, "Now they've done down me."
He had done himself down.
644
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:15,549
Vast crowds attended
Parnell's Dublin funeral.
645
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:19,718
"A star has been laid low,"
wrote the poet WB Yeats.
646
00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:33,036
The age of the political titans
was over - O'Connell and Parnell.
647
00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:37,431
But the promise of Home Rule
had prompted many nationalists
648
00:47:37,480 --> 00:47:39,710
to re-examine Irish identity.
649
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:43,309
They reached back
into the mythical past for inspiration.
650
00:47:45,040 --> 00:47:48,112
These cultural nationalists
sought an Irish Ireland,
651
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:50,390
an identity utterly separate from Britain.
652
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:54,077
Gaelic sports were revived.
653
00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:57,908
The Gaelic Athletic Association
repudiated English games
654
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:00,269
in favour of sports like hurling.
655
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:01,673
As James Joyce wrote,
656
00:48:01,720 --> 00:48:06,999
the "racy of the soil"
were "building up a nation once again".
657
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:14,235
The movement became one of the most
important organisations in Irish history.
658
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:19,192
It also attracted radical nationalists.
659
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:23,595
Several of the GAA 's founding members
660
00:48:23,640 --> 00:48:27,394
belonged to the Fenian
Irish Republican Brotherhood.
661
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:31,509
The GAA would also become central
662
00:48:31,560 --> 00:48:34,279
to the first great campaign
of cultural nationalism -
663
00:48:34,320 --> 00:48:36,788
reviving the Irish language.
664
00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:41,114
(WOMAN SINGS IN GAELIC)
665
00:48:53,080 --> 00:48:55,913
Stretching back century over century,
666
00:48:55,960 --> 00:48:59,999
the Irish language had been
the dominant tongue on this island.
667
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:03,112
But by the late 19th century,
that had changed.
668
00:49:03,160 --> 00:49:05,913
English was now widely spoken.
669
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:17,839
(SINGS IN GAELIC)
670
00:49:22,840 --> 00:49:24,956
(TRANSLATION FROM GAELIC)
671
00:50:03,840 --> 00:50:08,994
The attempt to revitalise the language
led Douglas Hyde, a southern Protestant,
672
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:11,600
to co-found the Gaelic League.
673
00:50:11,640 --> 00:50:13,756
Hyde was no revolutionary,
674
00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:18,669
but the movement attracted
a growing number of militant nationalists.
675
00:50:23,440 --> 00:50:27,752
ROY FOSTER: People like Douglas Hyde want
to keep politics out of the Gaelic League.
676
00:50:27,800 --> 00:50:30,917
But politics are never going to be kept
out of a movement,
677
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:36,751
part of whose rhetoric
depends on the constant reiteration
678
00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:39,837
of Englishness as contamination.
679
00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:42,314
But this cultural renaissance
680
00:50:42,360 --> 00:50:45,591
isn't simply an attempt
to create a nationalist myth of Ireland.
681
00:50:45,640 --> 00:50:50,873
The poet William Butler Yeats is an
Irishman rooted in the Protestant world
682
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:53,354
but committed to nationalism.
683
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:58,394
He writes in English but is inspired
by eastern mysticism, European modernism
684
00:50:58,440 --> 00:51:00,874
and Celtic mythology.
685
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:05,311
Yeats and his colleagues are imbued
with the past but open to the world.
686
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:12,200
It comes from the kind of interest
in Irish literary origins,
687
00:51:12,240 --> 00:51:14,595
which has been going on
since the 1830s and '40s,
688
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:16,676
with translations of old sagas
689
00:51:16,720 --> 00:51:21,475
and with an interest in the literary
content of... of the Irish language.
690
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:25,832
And they're very alive
to a European tradition,
691
00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:28,394
and I would say that
one of the great inheritances
692
00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:30,556
they give to the Irish cultural tradition
693
00:51:30,600 --> 00:51:34,559
is that broadness, that sophistication,
that European-ness.
694
00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:40,349
The cultural ferment encompassed
revolutionaries and moderates,
695
00:51:40,400 --> 00:51:44,188
mystics and scholars,
and more than one literary giant.
696
00:51:44,240 --> 00:51:47,710
Yet for many Irish people,
it was not the imagined Ireland
697
00:51:47,760 --> 00:51:51,639
of the cultural nationalists
that framed their world view
698
00:51:51,680 --> 00:51:53,318
but a British Empire that,
699
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:57,148
in the late 19th century,
had never seemed so powerful.
700
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:01,994
The Dublin of the revival
was an imperial city.
701
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:13,037
From Queen Victoria's Civil Service
to the traders and the military,
702
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:16,356
the Irish were embedded
in the imperial project.
703
00:52:18,720 --> 00:52:21,678
Ireland was part
of the largest empire in history,
704
00:52:21,720 --> 00:52:25,872
covering nearly a quarter
of the earth's land mass,
705
00:52:25,920 --> 00:52:30,789
and it offered endless opportunity
to the willing and the adventurous.
706
00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:36,714
In the East India Company,
a sixth of the administration was Irish,
707
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:38,637
more than any other group.
708
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:42,950
Nor was Irish imperial involvement
709
00:52:43,000 --> 00:52:46,310
confined
to the Protestant Ascendancy class.
710
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:52,395
Civil servants, like the Cork-born John
Pope-Hennessy, from a Catholic family,
711
00:52:52,440 --> 00:52:55,432
rose to become
a reforming governor of Hong Kong.
712
00:52:57,000 --> 00:52:59,798
Soldiers like Luke O'Connor,
from Roscommon,
713
00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:03,833
joined the Army as a private,
won the first ever Victoria Cross
714
00:53:03,880 --> 00:53:06,440
and retired as a Major General.
715
00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:10,000
In 1897, here in London,
716
00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:13,430
the Empire celebrated
the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria.
717
00:53:15,320 --> 00:53:19,313
Victoria could contemplate
her vast dominions with confidence.
718
00:53:19,360 --> 00:53:24,832
Even in Ireland, so long so troubled,
the Pax Britannica seemed secure.
719
00:53:24,880 --> 00:53:29,670
It would be shattered by events
many thousands of miles away,
720
00:53:29,720 --> 00:53:32,314
and they would resonate loudly in Ireland.
721
00:53:41,480 --> 00:53:44,199
At the southern tip of Africa,
the Boer Republics
722
00:53:44,240 --> 00:53:47,118
of the Free State and Transvaal
had risen in revolt
723
00:53:47,160 --> 00:53:49,833
against the encroaching British Empire.
724
00:53:53,440 --> 00:53:58,958
Irishmen working on the mines
joined the Boers in this white man's war.
725
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:03,599
Militant nationalists
watching from Ireland
726
00:54:03,640 --> 00:54:05,790
would soon rally to the Boer cause.
727
00:54:09,480 --> 00:54:13,473
The man who would found Sinn Féin,
Arthur Griffith, came here,
728
00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:16,114
as did the great land campaigner,
Michael Davitt,
729
00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:20,199
who witnessed the British and the Boer
fighting hand to hand.
730
00:54:20,240 --> 00:54:23,835
And the shopkeeper's son from County Mayo,
John MacBride,
731
00:54:23,880 --> 00:54:26,075
led a brigade on the Boer side.
732
00:54:26,120 --> 00:54:28,190
As MacBride himself put it,
733
00:54:28,240 --> 00:54:31,676
fighting the British here in South Africa
was the next best thing
734
00:54:31,720 --> 00:54:33,790
to fighting them in Ireland itself.
735
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:39,956
Among those who flocked to the Boer cause
was an Irish-American brigade
736
00:54:40,000 --> 00:54:42,639
drawn from the ranks of the old Fenians.
737
00:54:43,640 --> 00:54:48,031
They joined the hundreds who were
now fighting for the Boer President,
738
00:54:48,080 --> 00:54:49,354
Oom Paul Kruger.
739
00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:53,749
Reg, tell me about the Irish.
740
00:54:53,800 --> 00:54:57,076
How did the Boers view the Irish,
how did they see them?
741
00:54:58,360 --> 00:55:03,150
Yeah, they... they didn't
take to discipline very easily.
742
00:55:04,640 --> 00:55:07,234
The Boers actually
thought them a bit rough.
743
00:55:07,280 --> 00:55:09,032
They were a bit scared of them.
744
00:55:09,080 --> 00:55:13,471
Of course, anybody who...
who had a dislike for the British
745
00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:19,197
and a mistrust of the British
were very welcome to the Boer cause.
746
00:55:19,240 --> 00:55:24,439
My father, who during the war
met quite a few of them,
747
00:55:24,480 --> 00:55:29,395
said he rather got the idea,
or the impression,
748
00:55:29,440 --> 00:55:32,000
that they were
fighting against the British
749
00:55:32,040 --> 00:55:33,917
and not so much for the Boer cause.
750
00:55:35,440 --> 00:55:38,159
Back in Dublin,
the tenement children sang,
751
00:55:38,200 --> 00:55:43,479
"Sound the bugle, sound the drum,
and give three cheers for Kruger. "
752
00:55:43,520 --> 00:55:46,637
FERGAL: Give me a sense of the passions
unleashed in Ireland by this conflict.
753
00:55:46,680 --> 00:55:50,275
In Dublin, which was the core
of the pro-Boer movement,
754
00:55:50,320 --> 00:55:51,912
the Irish pro-Boer movement,
755
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:56,112
there were the worst riots that had
been seen on the streets of Dublin.
756
00:55:56,160 --> 00:56:01,473
The heroes of the Transvaal
became for a season
757
00:56:01,520 --> 00:56:03,511
the heroes of Irish nationalists.
758
00:56:08,840 --> 00:56:12,116
But there was another Irish reality
in South Africa.
759
00:56:13,120 --> 00:56:18,035
Far more Irishmen - some 40,000 -
fought on the British side.
760
00:56:23,240 --> 00:56:27,836
The conflict between different Irish
allegiances would be exposed brutally
761
00:56:27,880 --> 00:56:31,395
in December 1899,
at the Battle of Colenso...
762
00:56:32,400 --> 00:56:35,198
...one of the worst defeats
suffered by the British.
763
00:56:36,280 --> 00:56:40,239
John MacBride was present
on the Boer side as they opened fire
764
00:56:40,280 --> 00:56:41,872
on the British positions.
765
00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:46,190
British troops were pinned down
here in the long grass.
766
00:56:46,240 --> 00:56:47,912
Every time a soldier
tried to raise his head,
767
00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:50,190
he ran the risk of being shot by a sniper
768
00:56:50,240 --> 00:56:51,753
from the hills above.
769
00:56:51,800 --> 00:56:57,830
By the end of the battle, 500 men
were dead, 500 more were wounded,
770
00:56:57,880 --> 00:57:00,314
and by that stage,
MacBride would have known
771
00:57:00,360 --> 00:57:04,273
that many of those lying here
were fellow Irishmen.
772
00:57:11,200 --> 00:57:15,239
DONAL McCRACKEN:
These men were loyal to their regiments.
773
00:57:15,280 --> 00:57:18,113
You only have to count
the number of VCs that were won
774
00:57:18,160 --> 00:57:20,549
in these fields around us.
775
00:57:22,560 --> 00:57:27,588
There are more Irish people,
more Irish men buried in this valley
776
00:57:27,640 --> 00:57:29,471
than anywhere else
on the African continent.
777
00:57:34,600 --> 00:57:38,229
The Boers lost the war, but they had,
in the words of Rudyard Kipling,
778
00:57:38,280 --> 00:57:41,716
taught the Empire "no end of a lesson".
779
00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:56,310
The Boer War had proved that
there was a dedicated minority of Irish
780
00:57:56,360 --> 00:57:59,397
committed to breaking the link
with Empire,
781
00:57:59,440 --> 00:58:02,989
and although in South Africa
they were vastly outnumbered
782
00:58:03,040 --> 00:58:04,678
by those loyal to the Crown,
783
00:58:04,720 --> 00:58:06,438
it was the enemies of Britain
784
00:58:06,480 --> 00:58:09,438
who would dictate events
in the new century
785
00:58:09,480 --> 00:58:14,031
and propel Ireland
into an age of violent revolution.
786
00:58:17,500 --> 00:58:25,500
Ripped By mstoll