Michael Palin's Great Railway Journeys - Derry To Kerry 1993

[Music] the British government calls it Londonderry most of those who live here call it Derry this is the first and most obvious sign of the deep divisions that have shaped the city's history [Music] reminders of war dominate the great stone walls were built around a town called Derry nearly 400 years ago to protect the newly arrived colonists from England and Scotland to whose settlement James the first gave a Charter and the name of Londonderry today's fortifications are the legacy of that decision the present troubles began down here in the Bogside twenty-five years ago but Ireland never had it easy a hundred and fifty years ago my own great-grandmother fled the country from the potato famines that claimed so many lives my railway journey which begins here in Derry at the northern end of the line is in a sense two journeys one tracing that best kept of all transport secrets the Irish railway system and the other an attempt to trace the peléan line back to my own Irish ancestor I begin this journey into the past by trying to catch up with the present to find out what it feels like to live in the middle of such conflict and confrontation well Gary seems to be undergoing something of a revival as investment in housing and tourism they've restored a two-mile stretch of the old Donegal railway as a link line to the main station it's here on a 60-year old rail bus by the River Foyle I met Kate Gosselin's born and bred in the city I mean Derry to most outsiders Londonderry I'm never quite sure which way you're supposed to refer to but I mean it is synonymous with the troubles that sort of the present troubles which began here 25 years ago I mean how did that affect your own childhood how where were you what was going on I think I mean you are aware of but I certainly have a lot of memories of school riots tear gas I mean I can remember getting me stung a few times because you're wearing a school uniform that denotes what school you're from you're also aware of always the checkpoints and you know the security businesses on but that is lessened over the years what do you feel about the city now and if what I've seen image it looks to be rather a fine city undergoing a bit of a regeneration you know it's about shops cafes it looks pretty good how do you feel about it I feel very very pleased I don't know I think a lot of money is coming to Darien over the last few years there is a great regeneration what are the band sizes well I suppose you'd have to say that violence is continuing you know 24 25 years during the line there's [Music] 25 years ago the railways of Northern Ireland were fighting a rearguard action in the face of savage service cuts down in the Republic the West of Ireland was virtually abandoned by rail a direct line from one end of the railway system to the other Derry to carry is 250 miles on the map but 650 miles sneaking around the coast where the big cities live mind you if you're not in a hurry this can be pretty good the Irish love their history and won't let their elway's die special excursions like this one behind an 80 year old veteran of the Great Northern Railway is full of those who like Tom Devitt refused to forget I was a relief Clark on the railway but of course of that before that I was an ordinary clerk you see and a little turn coaster ban which was the junction for the lovely McAuliffe sleep brilliant and I'll tell you why it's called after one of the mountains and you see it when you're born from Belfast interpreters on your right hand same sleeve bullion of the copper Valley Railway which ran alongside the railway in the road it didn't run crawled and there was one place and that stopped because it was held up by a goat a big goat and the goat belonged to a woman and the crawler Maggie cooter or Maggie counter you see and the boot used to stay there and the fireman used to tell people the but Maggie thought that was enough cool and on the same for her take the fire she called the Putin [Music] numbers don't tame outpost taming taming the trend see what sort of performance the engines putting up for the day I'm walking up today she's been doing very very she what do you time it by your friend they're looking out of the window he's concentrating hard on what main post every quarter for mail and that we can to save her but with our teams and the stop watches what speed we're actually doing over the border mail how we going very good so one train enthusiast sort of pan Irish non-sectarian oh oh I would say that all right Michael yes it's a united united front for steam [Music] in a land where so much of the language is dedicated to the subtleties of division and confrontation this is a fair point these people belong to the railway Preservation Society of all honor and the engine they so lovingly restored first ran in the days when Ireland was all one country [Music] there is something about railways that unites there's also something about railways that makes life seem tantalizing this simple it's a world in which choices are made of course is mapped out Pal has already plotted and the direction is always full [Music] the North Irish coast is good to look at big skies wide bays broad beaches and chunky limestone cliffs frame the line dramatically and it only gets better [Music] [Music] this is dunluce castle perch so precariously on its cliff top but the entire kitchen once slipped into the sea while a meal was being prepared [Music] the Giant's Causeway is already in the scene it's a basalt rocks split into 37,000 polygamous colonies or if you prefer it built by the giant finn mccool to bring his loved one over from Scotland and this is the 10:15 to Belfast you couldn't have chosen a better season for travelling because just look around you the greenery is so unsullied you know the traffic hasn't dirty don't know where see beautiful green shoots and little white Hawthorn things like that very often very seldom do I nearly had a heart attack this morning when I bought my ticket it was 8 pounds 90 I think the last time I traveled it was three pounds how long ago Noby than I care to remember oh sure 10 15 years do people use the Train not your friends northerner that knows very qurikancha see and most because I support of remoteness of living accommodation and so important that you can afford it at all you have an old banger of some type and you use it have you an old banger no no 5-2 years old single track and stately speeds show where the transport priorities lie in Northern Ireland but it certainly stops you from rushing I [Music] probably missed this altogether if I'd been on one of those Euro expresses Shane's castle ancient home of the O'Neill's on the banks of Loch Erne a was destroyed by fire 170 years ago [Music] [Music] here amongst the green fields and woods of county antrim the present Lord O'Neill has set about rescuing some of Ireland's rich heritage of narrow-gauge locos I'm afraid it's fairly noisy what I want to know is how you how you became Lord O'Neill the engine-driver well I think I probably it was almost born I kept my model railway gang until I was getting all the myths everything put it away for a bit we started having children we got it out again but now I've always had a deep interest in rubber this is an extension of many flavors railways as a boy yes it's a bit more than that in the commune a does provide it's a tourist attraction yeah but unfortunately in the context of Northern Ireland of a moment where tourists are a bit scared it's not as good as it all [Applause] [Music] are you as far as you're aware the only Lord who is also an engine driver do you know other other driving peers I think we're fairly small group tourism in Northern Ireland may never be an easy ride it's quality not quantity or after I can thoroughly recommend the Shane's castle railway as one of the slowest but happiest ways to cross the province [Music] Belfast capital of Northern Ireland is one of my favorite cities certainly no contender in an urban beauty contest what she lacks in looks she makes up for in energy courage and determination Belfast not only lives with the daily problems caused by its fiercely divided communities it contrives to try and live well there's not an ounce of self-pity here or a hint of self apology this soldier is a Belfast boy for him it's the best city in the world then why do some of its citizens still want to destroy it I take a trip along Falls Road with either Oswald a local businessman who refuses to take sides this is a totally Nash just part of Belfast 100% be a hundred percent honest and Catholic and in fact this had developed in the latter end of the last century based on some of the linen Mills as the Catholic population came in from outer north of Ireland in fact is a cable which depicts Bobby Sands the hunger striker and a hero absolutely but would be a hero of a particular section of the community because what has to recognize this a community and that is entirely nationalism has its own traditions its own culture which hasn't entirely been respected over the years which has led to all of the alienation it really isn't what I expected you know it doesn't look like the war zone it's painted I mean there's school children coming home from school and they're all front gardens and hospitals and all that well it's an amenity at all in fact if you looked around the streets the falls and the shankel people go about their normal business as you and I would in what really are predominantly working cast territory you don't have to look far behind the apparent normality of shops schools and churches to see the signs of something peculiar Irish the myths and legends of military defiance history politics and religion entwined [Music] the root of the north are problems of the fact that the Protestant unions community of North Island a minority in the whole of Ireland whereas the classic Nashes community of Northern Ireland or the minority in the north each in fact fear appears the other we are not in fact loyalists Protestant unionist Shang cult which takes his name in fact from the Irish for all Church believe it or not though we've come from a district which will speak Irish your district that doesn't speak Irish but they the two of them are actually right back up one against the other that boat I'll totally juxtaposed and I was separated by peace lines when I go to confront a piece line for some three miles in fact this separates the shankel from the Falls Road and you're now looking at no-man's land between the two communities which was in fact the very seat of the troubles in the early part of the 1970s - a stranger to Belfast you know you would look at this and say this is complete desolate wasteland is more reminiscent of Berlin than than anything we'd expect to see in our own country is there anything positive at all yes what you're looking at is each side has its own culture its own tradition and no one should Travis - the fact that these communities have a vibrancy and life of their own but in reality you're looking at two traditions two cultures two nationalities and that is the essence of the problem they tried to find a solution to the problem here at Stormont castle once the seat of government in Northern Ireland they failed and now it stands helpless and redundant but it's not all bad news a stone throw from Stormont the film industry is alive and well at the film industry of the 1950's that is Knowles Spence built the Tudor cinema from a chicken shed in the garden of his suburban bungalow his brother Roy another Hollywood tycoon explains emails of where we're standing I would say there must be fifteen the Klan become synonymous there's an epidemic awesome in this area what reason why that's a very difficult question to answer as I've tried to analyze this myself and that's difficult to know about the nineteen seventies you know when cinemas in general we're having a bad in hang and cinemas and Belfast were having it even worse because of the troubles all right you know I think in central Belfast and must have been about two or three summers to go to and about that time people started to develop their own home cinemas yes no manager and projectionists explains his program policy French films I suppose you would call them they're not mainstream films but as a tarik stuff like fifties JD movies juvenile delinquency fellows from the 50s or science horror films from the fifties nearly all fifty films is that your particular taste yes it has but a inflict upon offers projection audience coming in tonight yes it's not as tonight yes indeed does that mean the other cinemas are either run like this in people's back gardens and all that but they're also different kinds of films are you in competition oh absolutely not no some people like to show musicals and some show Western some shows film noir from the 40s I just happen to like the 50s and special days and those particular B movies they call them and how'd you rate the film tonight I think the audience is going to enjoy it very much [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] I actually enjoyed the audience rather more than the film where else but in Hollywood County down when people turn up in costumes from the movie I can't wait to see the audience for Jurassic Park back in Belfast another day begins at the Europa Hotel proud holder of the title of most bombed Hotel in Europe for me it's a short walk across the road to the Royal Opera House to meet its administrator my old friend Michael Barnes he's primarily responsible for my affection for Belfast and it is a cruel irony that three weeks after we filmed a 1,000 pound bomb went off at this very spot blasting away the wall of his magnificent theatre for the second time in three years but today our destination is the brand new after Transport Museum I'm afraid our fondness for Belfast is matched only by an excessive fondness for all things railway sort of vintage would this be this early 20th century and would have been chugging around no doubt and the outskirts of Belfast taking commuters int B so many different railway companies you know different GNR it is Great Northern and of course was the Great Northern in England but I mean Dundalk norian Green or railway company in Britannia shaking hands with Hibernia yes green or was a cross-channel port the sign I mean the variety of places that there are on there yes Ravana left has no railway anymore then we gon sign ball it ever seen Ireland once had 200 separate railway companies mostly they required small engines for short distances but they had their giants as well the biggest the biggest train biggest engine to run in Ireland yes and largely from from Dublin to Cork there were three of these and the touching thing is that this magnificent wreck motive because it really is magnificent was actually a present from the south to the north and yeah nice friendly change cross borders absolutely they do and it's in beautiful condition and I think it could one day you know steam again today is cross-border services leave Belfast for Dublin four times daily and they're set to improve eighty million pounds is to be spent upgrading the Enterprise Service which is run jointly by north and south yet only four years ago the terrorists tried to kill it off altogether the response from both sides was the creation of the peace train by Chris Hudson from Dublin and Sam McCrory from Belfast October 1989 but a group of people decided that the policy of the IRA hard of bombing and disturbing the lane between Belfast and Dublin didn't make sense and it was time someone pointed this out to them and tell us it and the way in which they were challenged was that a tree and was chartered a big notice is put across a problem in history and was filled with people from right across the debate with academics politicians ordinary folk and we made the journey then from Dublin to Belfast and we brought the Dubliners north and then we all went back turn again bringing a northerners to the show to make a point in one of the nice things I have happened to me was recently there was a football match between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and a gang of lads from the Shankill Road which is in the heart of loyalist Belfast called the shanky of defenders pub phoned me up and said will you come to the match with us and I went to the match and I was up on the terrace of them and they had union jacks and loyalist flags but they carried a peace train banner and one of the funny things is every time they held up a Union Jack some of the Dublin supporters down on the lower Terrace had apoplexy screaming abuse at this Union Jack but when they take that down and broke the peace train banner to be cheers and applause for the peace train so in that sense we like to claim that it's working [Applause] we're running through South Armagh rolling hills and Meadows quilted with dry stone walls it's also bandit country and the beauty can be deadly as we cross the border I'm left with two potent images of the north the military digging in on one side of the Train and a wedding on the other life goes on 113 miles south of Belfast and twice its size is doubly once the second city of the British Empire now the capital of the Irish Republic great British buildings like the post office are now shrines of independent Ireland and though the streets and faces have a familiar feel to them there are characters here who could only be found in our like Molly Malone's ancient and modern in O'Connell Street the Irish show that they can be as grand with their past as anyone else but their national heroes range from the local Jim Larkin the trade union leader William dog on the railway builder to the world-renowned furniture James Joyce [Music] for a country of only three and a half million people Ireland continues to produce more than her fair share of world beaters I rode the train around Dublin Bay with one of them the edge from u2 a most successful rock band of our time as a combination of healthy disrespect Authority and traditions within the Irish that attracts them to things like music rock and roll and writing if you notice all that all the great Irish writers they tended to to really take liberties with the form you know James Joyce been the obvious example we do what was created his own language yeah English language yeah us for a while with this way of looking at things was very it's very much a zone and I think that spirit of questioning not taking this value I'm kind of being a little bit suspicious as given the Irish a very particular way of looking at the world most most other people just take the back [Music] there's something deeply kind of personal about the way that people relate to you in our that deflates the whole impersonality of being a star which [Music] the whole idea of us being ambassadors people looking to us for leadership or some clue as to why they should act or think she terrifies us and we really would much prefer [Music] more than half Dublin's million-strong population is under 25 and growing every year it's all a far cry from the dark days of the 19th century when young Irish men and women couldn't wait to get out of the country [Music] in the national library I begin my search for one of them my own great-grandmother her name was Rita Gallaher I know she went to America but I want to know where she came from I've enlisted the help of Tom Linder to professional genealogist well we have here at the end of discerning which basically delineates all the names throughout Ireland by county do you have any idea was there family tradition as to where she came from or well I mean it's sort of temporary on the west I mean that's all I know is she left at some time between probably 44 and 54 America from I think trolly yes and someone told me there's a place called blended villages where a lot of people that from yes if she was from the area of like corker to berry she could have left a minute ago she also could have left from Cork or possibly she might have left from Limerick there's there's avenues open it all depends on what happened in her village at the time no as usual there's the name gallery and these just if everyone in Ireland every family in Ireland is indexed in this bike humble however humble because these are just tides payers or rent payers or whatever they have to be recorded it's like a census only a little bit more generally an to biographical information do you know any other information that we can sort of try to narrow this down a little bit more well I know that she she went to the States and she was adopted I assume doctor by lady called Caroline Watson okay sometimes referred to as her aunt but we don't think it was her aunt but she was Caroline Watson of Burlington New Jersey and there that much know what is also an Irish name so right there we have a clue you don't think it's a clue because it happened on the American side but you have to realize that oftentimes people who left Ireland went to people who they're new in America so what the next thing she could have been but it gives us an opportunity to cross-reference the two names that way we can look for a place in Cork temporary whatever that has the surname Gallaher and well yeah immediately we're narrowing it down is this sort of ancestor tracing it big business yeah it's amazing actually it is when I first started genealogy about 15 years ago I always thought well I'm the only one who's interested in doing anything about my family but as we started doing more and more research it was amazing to see the growth one of the things that helped our company particularly was Hibernian research did ronald reagan's and his history he's brought up by a cowboy family well i amazing of his ancestors were dirt farmers but uh that's just another story generations earlier mom did you move it from place to place they moved they moved with the work that was the phrase what was demand for dirt they knew that this is trinity college dublin founded at the time of Elizabeth the first as a bastion of Protestant Anglo Ireland the people's religion on the other hand was always Catholicism and the local priest is still very much at the center of things [Music] this is the all priest show a highly successful charity fundraiser with its own fan club they play up to three shows a week and I've even toured father Gary Sullivan learnt guitar at the same school as u2 [Music] [Applause] [Music] well ladies I suppose so you've seen the old pre-show before and as you know the course of the evening are going to beat all sorts of priests we got fat face skinny priests hair D please Baldy priest all sorts of priests so we usually start by singing a bit of a hymn you can remain seated with this one sister not all the women of Ireland are happy with the Catholic Church abortion remains illegal here and until very recently contraceptives could only be bought on a doctor's prescription but tonight is for entertainment not politics and the church displays an impressive determination to let it scab [Music] [Applause] perfect Berkeley says I can't know what's wrong with you business it must be the drink no as a matter as I Chi I was born in England actually born in England went to school in Scott [Music] might have been the Guinness or the sprightly company of sister Eileen but I found myself one over with shamefully [Music] the audience [Music] leaving the fleshpots of dublin along the first stretch of public railway to be opened outside England William Dagon's Dublin to Kingstown line of 1834 and by a stroke of luck on a steam run down to Rosslyn only this time I have to earn the ride there's a knack to this that fred astaire would have been proud of I can't tell you how all the driver is but the engines 71 [Music] for several years she suffered the ultimate indignity of being used as a stationary boiler but recently rebuilt the cost of more than thirty thousand pounds sorry pumps as they have in Ireland she was relaunched last year by Mary Robinson the president nowadays it seems there's no retirement age 50 [Music] meanwhile back on the footplate one of the trainee drivers is having second thoughts about his new vocation Bellevue police all avoid easily you're one of the only three that survived the course scholarship and you hate doing it anyway [Music] after an exhilarating run along unspoiled coastline through the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains we make a slow triumphant progress through the town of Wexford after which our arrival at the Rosslare ferry terminal is a sad anticlimax what's more it's Sunday and from here on our ish rail is closed there's nothing for it but to seek alternative transport these boys look privatized to me you know I'm fine except I've my plight seems to touch them deeply and amazingly I find myself co-opted to the harley-davidson owners club of Ireland [Music] as the only Sunday rail service in these parts heads back to Dublin I hit the two-lane blacktop heading for Waterman [Music] for some unexplained reason southeast island is a mecca for bikers and though most of my escort soon get bored swifty Amon and Mike stay with me underneath the leather they see more Rotary Club at Hells Angels watch out what what do you do [Music] puppy more serious than that it's a wild time [Music] these are no ordinary hogs the one a man's riding is an electric lied in blue once owned by Sid Vicious [Music] [Applause] true to their word and his name Swifties railway replacement service delivers me well ahead of schedule the outskirts of Waterford where the pace changes quite dramatically [Music] [Music] an old chain fairy conveys me for deliciously unfriended speed across the river black water to an island where the weary traveler can find a modest little B&B castle with its layers of history as thick as the walls seems an appropriate place to learn from my genealogist of his latest piece of detective work he's found Britta Gallaher's marriage certificate in Paris neither of her parents were mentioned in it which is unusual he's also located a nest of mid 19th century Gallaher's recorded as living near the village of but event in North Cork it isn't far away and the journey can be done by train going west from Waterford along the Blackwater Valley through Clonmel and Tipperary to Limerick Junction then south on the Dublin Cork mainline - but events know no station it'll have to be mallow there being no train until tomorrow I have time to visit one of my favourite authors who lives nearby for 60 years she's written wickedly comic books about the Anglo Irish aristocracy among whom she was brought up the things weren't always easy for Molly keen when she started out she had to use a male suit in him in my generation you know the whole thing was he was not around if you are talking like reserves and sort of thing which has really died out now but still still most of the boys most of the most of the boys of those families were all sent to public schools in England even if they could afford it - Eton and Harrow both the boys when you started right you wanted to write yes I mean you see everything strictly there was always the air and and the girls didn't laugh as long as he was alright and that was very much the way of it what sort of things did you write start with I wrote this I'm sure there is sentimental little pieces about the beauty of the great outdoors and about horses and about just it no sex no love well then I came home discovered my sister having a myopathy I was very jealous eight seventy and then got shut up in my bed still in a state of jealousy and thought well I I write about life as I know it'll be when I'm a little bit older but I never never read my books again I have a sort of a feeling that it's like that terrible verse in the Bible do you know the verse I mean it talks about the dog returning to his vomit oh it's always on my mind Monday morning on the Tipperary line and ancestor hunting begins in earnest all change here for mallow and cork this is the longest platform in Ireland not many people know that a chap who looked not unlike me said my great-granny left from trolley he made his prediction with so much conviction the BBC paid him to see this is the fastest service on Irish rail connecting Dublin with the second biggest city Cork in two and a half hours unlike most other things in Ireland it's marketed not for its past but its future afternoon no sir would you like set of headphones um I love everything you've got yes okay well first I just had it I tell you make a siege these seats are just also here is the table concept we have a life yeah and then there's a light up here she even offered me a fax machine but I don't know I suppose I'm old-fashioned hello Tom yes I'm I'm speeding into the heart of garlic and Gallaher territory thanks very much for sending the material I got it in hotel in Waterford yeah the paling Gallaher stuff well we're going down to mallow and then I'm I'm gonna check this place but event out and one or two villages around there cuz North Cork seems good good hunting ground for the Gallaher connection [Music] this is not a tourist board film or a street in Disneyland it's the village of but event and it proves that everything you heard about Ireland is true I've been told I can't miss the local historian he runs the filling station and the local shop and the pump station grocery store oh yeah just and in the old days we did a little bit better than that because right outside there was a bakery or anything yeah so this was this the was this the bakery for the whole village all I know there were several more small because there were small Baker's at that time there were no major Baker's around the area and each each town had its own self-contained bakeries how far are we going back here we gone back to 1901 1902 H I I need your help because I'm looking for graveyard oh I'll be delighted to show you doing I'll take you there but first can I send you up a lovely pint first things first look after the living but urban churchyard yielded no Gallaher's there might have been in the parish records but they were either buried elsewhere or were too poor to afford a decent tombstone it is and there's a very interesting thing about the church as you see that steeple in the background yeah it it is actually the steeple that created towards to purchase two gentlemen by the name of O'Callahan and Blake believing to have the two best hunters in the country had a wager as to who would reach the steeple of the st. Leger Trustin done well first and they'd just from outside outside the defense here they took off over four and a half miles of very rough country first obstacle there they are big river flowing fast ravine down and up but they were prepared for this challenge and they they made the trip they made the trip they both survived and O'Callahan won the challenge and as you can now see the world the one famous one steeplechase I chased from the steeple of st. John's and butterman to the st. Leger church and Douglas was born tony is comprehensive knowledge of everything eventually points me to a village called glen worth some twenty miles away here at last I found the name I was looking for gala has who died in the 1820s they could have been breeches family but there's no mention of any women folks or there's no way of knowing my ancestor remains frustratingly elusive in fact the closer I get the more the options widen back at but haven't the shadows lengthen and the evening sport begins this is the ancient and lethal game of Road bowling basically all you need is banknotes bolas a 28-ounce cast iron boar and a row betsa laid as to which team can get their ball three miles up the road quickest it's not quite the Royal in ancient but an appreciative gallery of barroom bowlers follows the action even have stewards in crested Blazers this is serious stuff is throwing from this mark that's where the first throw came to rest it would be considered by our own standards relatively poor truth is not what's the distance between this and the other three just under about fifty meters and no one seems to be worried about closing the road it's like holding Wimbledon and Piccadilly Circus [Applause] [Music] with the right technique and skillful use of the camera as I follow the crowd on this long summer evening I have the oddest sensation that no time has passed it could be Brito Gallaher walking beside me this is all that remains of the old trolley and Dingle and light railway it runs across two miles of reclaimed marshland to a little place called Glen oval where stands a windmill which is probably the last thing that millions of departing emigrants saw of their country Glen oval is the most westerly station in Ireland truly the end of the line today parties of schoolchildren descend on the well-scrubbed Heritage Center where a clean and wholesome present tries vainly to recapture the grim realities of the past [Music] between 1845 and 1851 one and a half million people left Ireland 18% of the population from a land devastated by famine they took to the oceans of the world in conditions so mean and filthy that the vessels were often simply known as coffin ships my great-grandmother was among them I looked through the benefit passenger lists in vain for not all complete summer in Cork or dairy or Limerick many more are held in the ports of entry and aspersa must face the fact that she may never have been recorded but at least by going to but event and coming here to blend Ville I can imagine how it might have been and what she might have seen as she left her homeland forever a hundred and forty years ago [Music] for now it's back to trolley and home I found what remains of the railways of Ireland but I'll still to find Peter Galahad that journey is only just beginning [Music]

Channel: Sam B

Views: 171,565

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Id: n_PzUzaf5uc

Length: 54min 20sec (3260 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 04 2013