Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 4, Episode 24 - Newbridge to Roscrea - full transcript
In 1840, one man transformed travel
in Britain and Ireland.
His name was George Bradshaw,
and his railway guides inspired
the Victorians to take to the tracks.
Stop by Stop
he told them where to travel,
what to see and where to stay.
Now, 170 years later,
I'm making a series of journeys across
the length and breadth of these islands
to see what of Bradshaw's world remains.
For this leg of my train journey
across the Irish Republic,
I'm using an 1880s edition
of my Bradshaw's Guide
to travel across tracks
that were laid in the 19th century
when Great Britain and Ireland were
a single state under Queen Victoria.
On this stretch, I'll visit the Irish
National Stud, a bucking experience...
Oh, the horse is going very fast!
It's absolutely exhausting!
I'll discover that life was harsh
for Ireland's poor...
When you came in here,
you gave up everything
and you signed up to
a life within the workhouse.
and I'll uncover an astronomical feat
of Victorian engineering.
- (Michael) What a construction.
- It was known locally as the monster.
Having sampled the rural charms
of the south of the country,
I'm continuing my journey
through the Irish Midlands
before veering out west to end up on
the impressive Atlantic coast in Galway.
Starting out in County Kildare,
I'm travelling on what was,
in Bradshaw's day,
the Great Southern and Western Railway,
through County Laois
and finishing in County Ofialy.
During Queen Victoria's reign, the
British Army made use of the railways
to maintain order in an
increasingly rebellious Ireland.
At my next stop, Newbridge,
my Bradshaw's tells me,
"There was an encampment
on a large scale,
which was the temporary sojourn
of the Prince of Wales in 1861."
I shall be interested to find out more
about that royal visit.
The encampment referred to
is the Curragh Camp.
The vast open flats of the Curragh Plain
had, for hundreds of years,
provided the perfect terrain
for military manoeuvres
and cavalry training.
At the outbreak of
the Crimean War tn the 1850s,
the British Army made it
a permanent training base.
- Charlie.
- Hello, Michael.
Sergeant Charlie Walsh is the
curator of the Military Museum.
Ah, I see here you've got a display
about the Prince of Wales, 1861.
This is referred to in my
Bradshaw's Guide, his sojourn here.
Why was the Prince of Wales
sojourned on the Curragh?
(Charlie) The prince was to be
based here for ten weeks,
where he was inducted
and trained in military manoeuvres.
He was also to be trained in how to
conduct himself in a social situation.
The prince,
eldest son of Victoria and Albert,
was considered by his parents
something of a wild child.
And at 19, he was sent to the Curragh
for his military training.
His parents expected him to rise
from ensign to Brigade Commander
in just ten weeks.
Even so, this sociable prince
found time for fun.
Now, this actually says
"The Prince and the Showgirl".
What's this story?
The Prince and the Showgirl.
Well, what happened one night
was that, whilst the prince was, erm,
in the company of some senior officers
that were having a function,
and when the senior officers went to
bed, the junior officers and the prince
were still up drinking.
And what happened is, apparently, that
the junior officers then smuggled in
an actress into the prince's quarters.
By the time news of
the prince's amorous adventures
with the actress Nettie Clifden
had broken,
he was back in England
and studying at Cambridge University.
Prince Albert was furious
at his sows indiscretion.
Already unwell, on 25 November 1861,
the Prince Consort travelled to
Cambridge to confront his son.
Although they reached a reconciliation,
just one month later,
Prince Albert died.
Now, Queen Victoria, it has been said,
that she blamed
the early death of her husband
on what happened here in the Curragh
due to the prince's activities.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
So, this showgirl was a lady who was no
better than she should be, as they say.
- Er, I'll leave that uncommented.
- (laughs)
From the Crimean War
through to the First World War,
the Curragh was one of the British
Army's most important training bases,
stationing up to 30,000 troops
at any onetime.
That was all to change, however.
In 1921, after years of
conflict and bloodshed,
the Angie-Irish Treaty was signed,
which ended British rule
in much of Ireland.
And on 16 May 1922,
the British handed over the camp
to the Irish Free State Army.
Do you get the impression the British
Army left in a kind of careless hurry?
No, we've actually found documents
where the British Army were quite
meticulous in the cleanliness
of the camp before they handed it over
to the new National Army.
They went right down
into the small detail.
They actually blackened the fire grates,
they ironed the billiard table cloths
and, also, even went as far as
sharpening the billiard table cues
for the new National Army.
A sign of respect
after all that bitterness.
It is, indeed. it's a sign of
the way things are moving on now.
On that momentous day,
the Irish Tricolour
was hoisted up the flagpole
and has flown over the camp ever since.
The Curragh is still an active training
base for the Irish Defence Forces,
now deployed in UN, EU and NATO
peace enforcing missions.
I'm on my own Irish manoeuvres, however,
so it's back to Newbridge Station.
As I continue my journey,
my Bradshaw's says,
"A little to the side of the line
is the Curragh race course,
the Newmarket of Ireland on a fine down
six miles long."
So it seems then that the Curragh tun'
has not just been the home to armies,
it also has a horsey pedigree.
I'm not stopping
to have a flutter, though;
I'm bypassing the race course,
and crossing the plain to
the next stop along, Kildare,
because just a few furlongs from here
is the Irish National Stud,
the seed of Irish horse racing.
I'm hoping that Chief Executive
John Osborne can tell me how geology,
the military and the railways
all combined
to help the sport of kings
to reign supreme here.
Well, now, how did Irish racing
start here at the Curragh?
Well, racing is associated with the army
officers quite a bit wherever you go.
The army officers, for fun,
would entertain themselves by
taking each other on at horse racing.
And then they formed a tun' club,
and from the tun' club,
they would challenge each other
to match races,
and racing evolved in the same way
it has done in other pans of the world.
And the Curragh was a perfect place
to locate horse racing,
as an open plain with plenty of
areas to gallop your horse.
(horse whinnies loudly)
There's a commentary
on our conversation.
Erm, the origins of the
National Stud, where we are now
(John) It was bought in 1900 by, erm,
a brewer of Scots descent
called William Hall Walker.
And he was a sportsman
who won the 1896 Grand National.
And, I think with the proceeds
of that particular escapade,
he bought this farm and convened it
into an elite stud farm.
And he had some very eccentric ideas
about how it should be done.
And from the very start,
he used to mate his mares by horoscope.
- And he was fascinated by astrology.
- (laughs)
And everybody laughed then, too.
Until he became the champion breeder
for ten years between 1905 and 1915.
(Michael) How important have
the trains been in your history?
Well, the train would have been
the artery for horse racing as well
and a lot of the Irish racecourses,
not coincidently,
evolved close to the mainline railways.
We take for granted how easy it is
to ship horses twice
around the globe nowadays,
but back then, the race horses
travelled by train as well.
In Bradshaws day,
so close was the relationship
between the railway and racing,
that the course had its own sidings
and the Great Southern
and Western Railway Company
sponsored an annual race,
which is still run today:
The Railway Stakes.
I'm just wondering about
any famous equine names
that would have been rail passengers
over the years.
Ambush was a famous red.
He was the winner of
the 1900 Grand National
for the Prince of Wales at the time.
And also, great champions
like Pretty Polly,
who was a great race mare,
would have travelled by train,
and Bahram, the Aga Khan's
Triple Crown winner in the '30s,
would also have travelled by train.
In 1917, William Hall Walker
gifted his farm, lock stock and saddle,
to the Crown, with the intention that
it would become the first National Stud,
and Ireland has been rewarded
with wand-class winners ever since.
Sinead Hyland, marketing coordinator,
has agreed to fill me in
on the more intricate workings
of the Stud.
Sinead,
I think I understand the word "stud",
but how does the business really work?
Well, we're one of the only
stud farms open to the public.
Stud, I suppose, it encompasses
all of the stallions here.
They're our main source of income.
We've six stallions this year,
and we're pretty much wrapping up
our breeding season now.
The horses have "ladies" who will
visit them up to four times a day.
- Four times a day?
- Four times a day, yes.
We also have a teaser. He has
probably the worst job on the farm.
Who's a teaser?
Teaser is, erm, for ladies, it's their
first time visiting one of our stallions
and, erm, he gets them...
he gets them ready, basically.
- But he's a horse?
- He's a horse, a little pony stallion.
(Michael) Right.
(Sinead) This is actually our
top stallion, invincible Spirit.
- (Michael) What a fantastic horse.
- He's beautiful,
even to somebody who doesn't know
what to look for in a thoroughbred.
I mean, he's a beautiful specimen.
He stands at 60,000 euros,
and he covered 136 mares this year,
so he is, erm, he's our top dog.
Just take that a bit more slowly.
You're saying that every time
he covers a mare, 60,000 euros?
- Just like that.
- And he covered 134 in a year?
Yep, up to. He would have about...
Up to four ladies a day would visit him.
Impressive.
That's over 8,000,000 euros a year.
However, the Stud aims to produce
not just thoroughbred horses,
but also first-class jockeys,
as for the last 40 years, ifs been
home to Ireland's Racing Academy.
That is one of the most bizarre sights
I ever saw.
I had no idea that this went on.
This is how you train jockeys?
It is. This is Barry Walsh here.
(Barry) OK, guys, let's turn them off
there for a sec. Turn them off.
He's raring to go.
- Barry.
- How are you? Pleased to meet you.
I'm Michael. It's lovely to see you.
So... (laughs)
- Would you like to have a go yourself?
- (laughs) How could I refuse?
(Barry) If you just sort of
swing your leg over, then.
(Michael) Good deal easier
than getting on a real horse.
- (Barry) You say that now.
- (Michael laughs)
(Barry) OK? One, two, three, up you get.
Keeping your hands down.
Bring your knee back a small bit.
Head up. And always looking
where you're going. OK?
So you can just sit back down there,
and we'll start her off.
OK? One, two, three, up you go.
Hands down. Ease back a small bit.
Don't crouch down too much now.
Don't over-exaggerate.
A little bit quicker.
(laughs)
Oh, my goodness.
Now, I've got to relax, haven't I?
Nice and relaxed.
Backwards and forwards.
So easy to relax in this position!
- Keep that left hand quiet.
- Enjoying the ride.
- (they laugh)
- Hands down. Knees in.
- Think you can stride quicker?
- Stride quicker.
Whoa. Whoa. Look ahead.
Oh, the horse is going very fast now.
It's absolutely exhausting!
I'm running out of breath.
I'm exhausted.
(Sighs)
Ah, a politician jockeying for position.
Unseated again.
I'm returning to the iron horse
to resume my journey west.
I'll be crossing the border
from County Kildare into County Laois.
- Ls this free?
- It is.
Thank you.
My next stop will be in Portarlington,
which my Bradshaw's tells me
was formerly called Cooletoodera.
"William III gave it to
General Rouvigny,
who settled it with
French and Flemish Protestants
and built the two churches."
And I believe that the railway station
also shows sign
of this little town's heritage.
- My Stop. Bye-bye.
- Bye-bye.
Opened In 1847, Portarlington was
and still is a focal point
on the Irish Rail Network.
On the Dublin to Cork mainline,
today it's a busy junction
where passengers can branch off to
Galway, Ballina and Westport.
Back in Bradshaws day,
the lines weren't as numerous.
But this picturesque station provided
a vital rest stop for early travellers.
Portarlington really is
the finest looking station
I've seen in the Irish Republic,
with its gables and its Tudor chimneys
and its bell tower.
Apparently, there used to be
a bell in the tower
because trains would make
a special long stop here
to allow passengers to get off
and eat and drink in the dining room,
and then the bell would ring to
tell them it was time to get aboard
and the train was about to go.
Which makes Portarlington
a pretty hospitable place
and somewhere that I'm happy to
break my journey and end my day.
We a new day, and I'm continuing
through the Irish Midlands
deeper into county Laois
before ending in County Offaly.
In Victorian Ireland,
third-class tickets made it possible
for millions to take the train.
Even so, rail travel would have been
beyond the wildest dreams
of the poorest.
I'm going to alight at Ballybrophy
to find out how life was lived
by those who had nothing.
(announcement)
Shortly arriving at Ballybrophy.
Thank you for travelling with
larnród Éireann.
(Michael) Between 1720 and 1820,
the population of Ireland exploded,
doubling in size from three million
to over six.
Unlike England, which was undergoing
an industrial Revolution,
in rural Ireland,
employment was virtually non-existent
and land,
upon which the Irish labourer relied,
was both costly to rent
and overly sub-let.
By the end of the 18th century,
about a third of the country
was near starvation level.
Poverty was endemic.
State intervention became unavoidable.
The government's solution
was the workhouse.
We come to Donaghmore Workhouse,
now a museum,
to meet its chairman, Trevor Stanley.
- Trevor.
- Michael.
(exhales) An extraordinary
complex of buildings here.
What were they originally?
Er, buildings were structured
in such a way
that we had the girls' and boys'
dormitories to the front,
the men and the women's dormitories
in the middle
and the infirmary at the back.
First of all, you've told me
something I hadn't realised,
the men and women and boys and girls
were split up on arrival.
Very much so.
One of the strict rules that they had
within the workhouse in Ireland
was to divide the families.
And that was ultimately not to
encourage people into the workhouse.
When you came in here,
you gave up everything
and you signed up to a life
within the workhouse.
The 1838 Irish Poor Law Act
decreed that poor relief was available
in the workhouse only.
It was this or nothing.
The country was divided
into 130 administrative unions,
each containing a workhouse.
They were set up and run
by an elected Board of Guardians
financed by a levy
on the local landowners,
their principle being that
property was to pay for poverty.
I know the law in Ireland,
although it's slightly later
than the law in England,
was based on the same thing.
And the idea was that you were
going to have poor people,
but you had to absolutely discourage
them from entering the workhouse.
It had to be the worst possible thing.
And I think the expression was
that the conditions in a workhouse
had to be "less eligible"
than life outside.
(Trevor) They had to be harsher.
They had to give up
whatever holdings that they had outside,
and those holdings were
divided up to other people
within the landlord estates.
When they came in here,
they literally lost their dignity.
The ethos of the workhouse was that
inmates should be worse clothed,
worse lodged and worse fed
than people outside.
However, even the Poor Law
Commissioners recognised
that the standard of living
for most Irish poor was so low
that it would be difficult
to establish one even lower.
The workhouse system was so despised
that, despite widespread poverty,
in 1846, the number of inmates
across the country's workhouses
stood at just 43, 000,
less than half their capacity.
- Unchanged since Victorian times.
- I'm afraid so, Michael.
(Michael) This was the boys' dorm?
You can see the whitewashed walls.
Whitewash was used to keep disease down
because the lime would kill
the bacterias and the bugs.
This room, I always say, is built
for ventilation and not for comfort
because you have air vents
between each window
and you have air vents
under the plinth as well, too.
It's terrible, but it's interesting that
the Victorians understood the connection
between disease and lack of cleanliness
and they understood
the need for ventilation.
I mean, this is quite advanced
in some ways.
It is, and I suppose
they learnt very quickly
because when you put a group of
50, 60, 70 boys into any room
and if they have a sniffle or a cold,
it spreads through like wildfire.
I imagine the death rate
was pretty ghastly.
Death rates would have been pretty high
in workhouses in general
because people were at
such a low ebb in coming in.
The food, the accommodation
was not designed to fatten them up,
or to improve them,
it was just basic maintenance.
And that obviously led to
a lot of disease.
Typhus, dysentery, cholera
would have been the three main diseases.
Death inside the workhouse was common,
but by 1847,
those outside became victims of famine
as successive potato crops failed.
The workhouses were deluged.
By 1851, their population stood
at 217,000,
more than double
their intended capacity.
Workhouses designed for hundreds
were forced to house thousands.
So, tell me how the system began to
creak and crumble under the famine.
Well, I suppose the ultimate breakdown
of the system was
that the people that came in here
had no way of getting back out.
And emigration was a method of getting
people out and to reduce numbers,
but, ultimately, that was only for
families that were healthy.
So for other people,
they had to stay here.
And, obviously, the whole system
began to crumble after that.
By the early 20th century,
it was clear that the workhouse system
needed radical reform.
A royal commission in 1906
recommended the system be abolished.
The workhouses were designed to use
public money to relieve poverty,
but to make it shameful, so as
not to discourage people from working
if they could remain independent.
The scale of misery unleashed by
the famine overwhelmed the system,
adding to resentment against landowners
and the British establishment.
My Bradshaw's enticingly tells me of
the Roscrae and Parsonstown line
22.5 miles long.
"On arriving at the town of Roscrae,
it divides into two branches."
"The one to the northwest
to Parsonstown or Birr,
near Parsonstown Castle,
seat of the Earl of Rosse
with a famous telescope here."
Unfortunately, the line
no longer stretches so far.
And so my quest for that
renowned astronomical instrument
means that I must alight at Roscrea.
Victorians were as passionate about
scientific exploration
as they were about rail travel.
Whether professional or amateur, their
thirst for knowledge was insatiable.
And Birr Castle, an ancestral seat
deep in the Irish bogs,
became an unexpected centre of
scientific discovery.
The current Earl of Rosse
is going to enlighten me.
- Hello. You're welcome, Michael.
- Thank you very much indeed.
- Ta' failte romhat, as we say.
- That's a very nice welcome.
The Parsons, the family name of
the Earls of Rosse,
have been at Birr Castle since 1620.
We one of the oldest
inhabited homes in the county,
and one particular ancestor
interests me.
My Bradshaw's says there's a famous
telescope here. Which ancestor was that?
That was my great, great grandfather,
the third Earl. I'm number seven.
And he was my great, great grandfather
who built this telescope,
that we're just going to see here,
in the 1840s.
It was completed
just before the famine really struck.
(Michael) I read about this telescope
in the book,
but it gave me no hint of
how enormous it was going to be.
What a construction.
(Earl) It was known locally as
the monster, His Lordship's monster.
And it certainly was the biggest in the
world for three quarters of a century.
It enabled him to see further into space
than anyone had ever
been able to see before.
William Parsons, the third Earl,
graduated from Oxford University
with a first class honours degree
in mathematics.
But he was simply an extraordinary
and enthusiastic amateur.
That makes this 16-ton telescope,
with its 72" mirror,
an even more outstanding feat of
engineering and architecture.
With a new telescope of this power,
what new discoveries were enabled?
I think the Whirlpool Galaxy
was the most significant
of the discoveries that he made here,
and literally during the first few
months of the operation of the telescope
in 1845.
The discovery, what, that galaxies
had a kind of spiral shape, is this?
Were spiral in shape, like the
one that is called the Whirlpool,
of which we have one of
the most beautiful drawings
in the galleries here.
Because everything he saw, he drew.
But it all had to be made here,
entirely by the people of Birr,
mobilising the coopers to make
the curved beams of the tube,
the carpenters to make
things like the galleries,
and, of course, the blacksmiths
to make all the ironwork.
And luckily, Birr, as a garrison town,
then had a good supply of craftsmen
to make everything.
So all the coopers, blacksmiths and
carpenters were mobilised to make this.
The Earl's leviathan telescope
remained the world's largest
for over 70 years,
and put Bin on the map.
Scientists, stargazers and engineers
from all over the globe came to see it,
their journeys much facilitated
by the arrival of the railway in 1858.
Now, Michael, this is what we call
our muniments room,
where we keep all the archives.
And these go back to more or less
when we came here in the 1620s,
so about 18,000 historical documents
in all these boxes.
This must be a very considerable
archive by national standards.
I think it's the largest private archive
that is still useable in Ireland.
And out of the archives
I've got this old book,
which is the visitors' book of
the observatory at Birr Castle.
And maybe I'll just open the first page
to show you the significance
of the initial signature,
which is that of Charles Babbage,
who the third Earl invited to inaugurate
this book on September 91850.
(Michael) And Babbage, what would
you say was his place in history?
He is the grandfather, or now maybe even
the great grandfather of the whole...
of every computer in the world today.
Extraordinary.
The story of science at Birr
is far from over,
as even now astrophysicists are using
the grounds to measure solar flares
using a radio telescope.
The third Ear! would be proud.
In 19th-century Ireland,
poverty-stricken peasants were caught
between starvation and the workhouse.
The British Army was here
to keep them in order,
but also bequeathed to the Irish
a love of horse racing.
Meanwhile, aristocrats expanded
our knowledge of science,
the son of progress
so admired by George Bradshaw.
On the final leg of this journey,
I'll discover historic Irish jewellery
with royal connections, ..
I'm ready for my patient.
meet an ancient people's king...
Happy and glorious,
long to reign over us.
Oh, thank you. Thank you.
And get to grips with
some oral history.
♪ My own native land far away
- Well done, Michael.
- (applause)
in Britain and Ireland.
His name was George Bradshaw,
and his railway guides inspired
the Victorians to take to the tracks.
Stop by Stop
he told them where to travel,
what to see and where to stay.
Now, 170 years later,
I'm making a series of journeys across
the length and breadth of these islands
to see what of Bradshaw's world remains.
For this leg of my train journey
across the Irish Republic,
I'm using an 1880s edition
of my Bradshaw's Guide
to travel across tracks
that were laid in the 19th century
when Great Britain and Ireland were
a single state under Queen Victoria.
On this stretch, I'll visit the Irish
National Stud, a bucking experience...
Oh, the horse is going very fast!
It's absolutely exhausting!
I'll discover that life was harsh
for Ireland's poor...
When you came in here,
you gave up everything
and you signed up to
a life within the workhouse.
and I'll uncover an astronomical feat
of Victorian engineering.
- (Michael) What a construction.
- It was known locally as the monster.
Having sampled the rural charms
of the south of the country,
I'm continuing my journey
through the Irish Midlands
before veering out west to end up on
the impressive Atlantic coast in Galway.
Starting out in County Kildare,
I'm travelling on what was,
in Bradshaw's day,
the Great Southern and Western Railway,
through County Laois
and finishing in County Ofialy.
During Queen Victoria's reign, the
British Army made use of the railways
to maintain order in an
increasingly rebellious Ireland.
At my next stop, Newbridge,
my Bradshaw's tells me,
"There was an encampment
on a large scale,
which was the temporary sojourn
of the Prince of Wales in 1861."
I shall be interested to find out more
about that royal visit.
The encampment referred to
is the Curragh Camp.
The vast open flats of the Curragh Plain
had, for hundreds of years,
provided the perfect terrain
for military manoeuvres
and cavalry training.
At the outbreak of
the Crimean War tn the 1850s,
the British Army made it
a permanent training base.
- Charlie.
- Hello, Michael.
Sergeant Charlie Walsh is the
curator of the Military Museum.
Ah, I see here you've got a display
about the Prince of Wales, 1861.
This is referred to in my
Bradshaw's Guide, his sojourn here.
Why was the Prince of Wales
sojourned on the Curragh?
(Charlie) The prince was to be
based here for ten weeks,
where he was inducted
and trained in military manoeuvres.
He was also to be trained in how to
conduct himself in a social situation.
The prince,
eldest son of Victoria and Albert,
was considered by his parents
something of a wild child.
And at 19, he was sent to the Curragh
for his military training.
His parents expected him to rise
from ensign to Brigade Commander
in just ten weeks.
Even so, this sociable prince
found time for fun.
Now, this actually says
"The Prince and the Showgirl".
What's this story?
The Prince and the Showgirl.
Well, what happened one night
was that, whilst the prince was, erm,
in the company of some senior officers
that were having a function,
and when the senior officers went to
bed, the junior officers and the prince
were still up drinking.
And what happened is, apparently, that
the junior officers then smuggled in
an actress into the prince's quarters.
By the time news of
the prince's amorous adventures
with the actress Nettie Clifden
had broken,
he was back in England
and studying at Cambridge University.
Prince Albert was furious
at his sows indiscretion.
Already unwell, on 25 November 1861,
the Prince Consort travelled to
Cambridge to confront his son.
Although they reached a reconciliation,
just one month later,
Prince Albert died.
Now, Queen Victoria, it has been said,
that she blamed
the early death of her husband
on what happened here in the Curragh
due to the prince's activities.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
So, this showgirl was a lady who was no
better than she should be, as they say.
- Er, I'll leave that uncommented.
- (laughs)
From the Crimean War
through to the First World War,
the Curragh was one of the British
Army's most important training bases,
stationing up to 30,000 troops
at any onetime.
That was all to change, however.
In 1921, after years of
conflict and bloodshed,
the Angie-Irish Treaty was signed,
which ended British rule
in much of Ireland.
And on 16 May 1922,
the British handed over the camp
to the Irish Free State Army.
Do you get the impression the British
Army left in a kind of careless hurry?
No, we've actually found documents
where the British Army were quite
meticulous in the cleanliness
of the camp before they handed it over
to the new National Army.
They went right down
into the small detail.
They actually blackened the fire grates,
they ironed the billiard table cloths
and, also, even went as far as
sharpening the billiard table cues
for the new National Army.
A sign of respect
after all that bitterness.
It is, indeed. it's a sign of
the way things are moving on now.
On that momentous day,
the Irish Tricolour
was hoisted up the flagpole
and has flown over the camp ever since.
The Curragh is still an active training
base for the Irish Defence Forces,
now deployed in UN, EU and NATO
peace enforcing missions.
I'm on my own Irish manoeuvres, however,
so it's back to Newbridge Station.
As I continue my journey,
my Bradshaw's says,
"A little to the side of the line
is the Curragh race course,
the Newmarket of Ireland on a fine down
six miles long."
So it seems then that the Curragh tun'
has not just been the home to armies,
it also has a horsey pedigree.
I'm not stopping
to have a flutter, though;
I'm bypassing the race course,
and crossing the plain to
the next stop along, Kildare,
because just a few furlongs from here
is the Irish National Stud,
the seed of Irish horse racing.
I'm hoping that Chief Executive
John Osborne can tell me how geology,
the military and the railways
all combined
to help the sport of kings
to reign supreme here.
Well, now, how did Irish racing
start here at the Curragh?
Well, racing is associated with the army
officers quite a bit wherever you go.
The army officers, for fun,
would entertain themselves by
taking each other on at horse racing.
And then they formed a tun' club,
and from the tun' club,
they would challenge each other
to match races,
and racing evolved in the same way
it has done in other pans of the world.
And the Curragh was a perfect place
to locate horse racing,
as an open plain with plenty of
areas to gallop your horse.
(horse whinnies loudly)
There's a commentary
on our conversation.
Erm, the origins of the
National Stud, where we are now
(John) It was bought in 1900 by, erm,
a brewer of Scots descent
called William Hall Walker.
And he was a sportsman
who won the 1896 Grand National.
And, I think with the proceeds
of that particular escapade,
he bought this farm and convened it
into an elite stud farm.
And he had some very eccentric ideas
about how it should be done.
And from the very start,
he used to mate his mares by horoscope.
- And he was fascinated by astrology.
- (laughs)
And everybody laughed then, too.
Until he became the champion breeder
for ten years between 1905 and 1915.
(Michael) How important have
the trains been in your history?
Well, the train would have been
the artery for horse racing as well
and a lot of the Irish racecourses,
not coincidently,
evolved close to the mainline railways.
We take for granted how easy it is
to ship horses twice
around the globe nowadays,
but back then, the race horses
travelled by train as well.
In Bradshaws day,
so close was the relationship
between the railway and racing,
that the course had its own sidings
and the Great Southern
and Western Railway Company
sponsored an annual race,
which is still run today:
The Railway Stakes.
I'm just wondering about
any famous equine names
that would have been rail passengers
over the years.
Ambush was a famous red.
He was the winner of
the 1900 Grand National
for the Prince of Wales at the time.
And also, great champions
like Pretty Polly,
who was a great race mare,
would have travelled by train,
and Bahram, the Aga Khan's
Triple Crown winner in the '30s,
would also have travelled by train.
In 1917, William Hall Walker
gifted his farm, lock stock and saddle,
to the Crown, with the intention that
it would become the first National Stud,
and Ireland has been rewarded
with wand-class winners ever since.
Sinead Hyland, marketing coordinator,
has agreed to fill me in
on the more intricate workings
of the Stud.
Sinead,
I think I understand the word "stud",
but how does the business really work?
Well, we're one of the only
stud farms open to the public.
Stud, I suppose, it encompasses
all of the stallions here.
They're our main source of income.
We've six stallions this year,
and we're pretty much wrapping up
our breeding season now.
The horses have "ladies" who will
visit them up to four times a day.
- Four times a day?
- Four times a day, yes.
We also have a teaser. He has
probably the worst job on the farm.
Who's a teaser?
Teaser is, erm, for ladies, it's their
first time visiting one of our stallions
and, erm, he gets them...
he gets them ready, basically.
- But he's a horse?
- He's a horse, a little pony stallion.
(Michael) Right.
(Sinead) This is actually our
top stallion, invincible Spirit.
- (Michael) What a fantastic horse.
- He's beautiful,
even to somebody who doesn't know
what to look for in a thoroughbred.
I mean, he's a beautiful specimen.
He stands at 60,000 euros,
and he covered 136 mares this year,
so he is, erm, he's our top dog.
Just take that a bit more slowly.
You're saying that every time
he covers a mare, 60,000 euros?
- Just like that.
- And he covered 134 in a year?
Yep, up to. He would have about...
Up to four ladies a day would visit him.
Impressive.
That's over 8,000,000 euros a year.
However, the Stud aims to produce
not just thoroughbred horses,
but also first-class jockeys,
as for the last 40 years, ifs been
home to Ireland's Racing Academy.
That is one of the most bizarre sights
I ever saw.
I had no idea that this went on.
This is how you train jockeys?
It is. This is Barry Walsh here.
(Barry) OK, guys, let's turn them off
there for a sec. Turn them off.
He's raring to go.
- Barry.
- How are you? Pleased to meet you.
I'm Michael. It's lovely to see you.
So... (laughs)
- Would you like to have a go yourself?
- (laughs) How could I refuse?
(Barry) If you just sort of
swing your leg over, then.
(Michael) Good deal easier
than getting on a real horse.
- (Barry) You say that now.
- (Michael laughs)
(Barry) OK? One, two, three, up you get.
Keeping your hands down.
Bring your knee back a small bit.
Head up. And always looking
where you're going. OK?
So you can just sit back down there,
and we'll start her off.
OK? One, two, three, up you go.
Hands down. Ease back a small bit.
Don't crouch down too much now.
Don't over-exaggerate.
A little bit quicker.
(laughs)
Oh, my goodness.
Now, I've got to relax, haven't I?
Nice and relaxed.
Backwards and forwards.
So easy to relax in this position!
- Keep that left hand quiet.
- Enjoying the ride.
- (they laugh)
- Hands down. Knees in.
- Think you can stride quicker?
- Stride quicker.
Whoa. Whoa. Look ahead.
Oh, the horse is going very fast now.
It's absolutely exhausting!
I'm running out of breath.
I'm exhausted.
(Sighs)
Ah, a politician jockeying for position.
Unseated again.
I'm returning to the iron horse
to resume my journey west.
I'll be crossing the border
from County Kildare into County Laois.
- Ls this free?
- It is.
Thank you.
My next stop will be in Portarlington,
which my Bradshaw's tells me
was formerly called Cooletoodera.
"William III gave it to
General Rouvigny,
who settled it with
French and Flemish Protestants
and built the two churches."
And I believe that the railway station
also shows sign
of this little town's heritage.
- My Stop. Bye-bye.
- Bye-bye.
Opened In 1847, Portarlington was
and still is a focal point
on the Irish Rail Network.
On the Dublin to Cork mainline,
today it's a busy junction
where passengers can branch off to
Galway, Ballina and Westport.
Back in Bradshaws day,
the lines weren't as numerous.
But this picturesque station provided
a vital rest stop for early travellers.
Portarlington really is
the finest looking station
I've seen in the Irish Republic,
with its gables and its Tudor chimneys
and its bell tower.
Apparently, there used to be
a bell in the tower
because trains would make
a special long stop here
to allow passengers to get off
and eat and drink in the dining room,
and then the bell would ring to
tell them it was time to get aboard
and the train was about to go.
Which makes Portarlington
a pretty hospitable place
and somewhere that I'm happy to
break my journey and end my day.
We a new day, and I'm continuing
through the Irish Midlands
deeper into county Laois
before ending in County Offaly.
In Victorian Ireland,
third-class tickets made it possible
for millions to take the train.
Even so, rail travel would have been
beyond the wildest dreams
of the poorest.
I'm going to alight at Ballybrophy
to find out how life was lived
by those who had nothing.
(announcement)
Shortly arriving at Ballybrophy.
Thank you for travelling with
larnród Éireann.
(Michael) Between 1720 and 1820,
the population of Ireland exploded,
doubling in size from three million
to over six.
Unlike England, which was undergoing
an industrial Revolution,
in rural Ireland,
employment was virtually non-existent
and land,
upon which the Irish labourer relied,
was both costly to rent
and overly sub-let.
By the end of the 18th century,
about a third of the country
was near starvation level.
Poverty was endemic.
State intervention became unavoidable.
The government's solution
was the workhouse.
We come to Donaghmore Workhouse,
now a museum,
to meet its chairman, Trevor Stanley.
- Trevor.
- Michael.
(exhales) An extraordinary
complex of buildings here.
What were they originally?
Er, buildings were structured
in such a way
that we had the girls' and boys'
dormitories to the front,
the men and the women's dormitories
in the middle
and the infirmary at the back.
First of all, you've told me
something I hadn't realised,
the men and women and boys and girls
were split up on arrival.
Very much so.
One of the strict rules that they had
within the workhouse in Ireland
was to divide the families.
And that was ultimately not to
encourage people into the workhouse.
When you came in here,
you gave up everything
and you signed up to a life
within the workhouse.
The 1838 Irish Poor Law Act
decreed that poor relief was available
in the workhouse only.
It was this or nothing.
The country was divided
into 130 administrative unions,
each containing a workhouse.
They were set up and run
by an elected Board of Guardians
financed by a levy
on the local landowners,
their principle being that
property was to pay for poverty.
I know the law in Ireland,
although it's slightly later
than the law in England,
was based on the same thing.
And the idea was that you were
going to have poor people,
but you had to absolutely discourage
them from entering the workhouse.
It had to be the worst possible thing.
And I think the expression was
that the conditions in a workhouse
had to be "less eligible"
than life outside.
(Trevor) They had to be harsher.
They had to give up
whatever holdings that they had outside,
and those holdings were
divided up to other people
within the landlord estates.
When they came in here,
they literally lost their dignity.
The ethos of the workhouse was that
inmates should be worse clothed,
worse lodged and worse fed
than people outside.
However, even the Poor Law
Commissioners recognised
that the standard of living
for most Irish poor was so low
that it would be difficult
to establish one even lower.
The workhouse system was so despised
that, despite widespread poverty,
in 1846, the number of inmates
across the country's workhouses
stood at just 43, 000,
less than half their capacity.
- Unchanged since Victorian times.
- I'm afraid so, Michael.
(Michael) This was the boys' dorm?
You can see the whitewashed walls.
Whitewash was used to keep disease down
because the lime would kill
the bacterias and the bugs.
This room, I always say, is built
for ventilation and not for comfort
because you have air vents
between each window
and you have air vents
under the plinth as well, too.
It's terrible, but it's interesting that
the Victorians understood the connection
between disease and lack of cleanliness
and they understood
the need for ventilation.
I mean, this is quite advanced
in some ways.
It is, and I suppose
they learnt very quickly
because when you put a group of
50, 60, 70 boys into any room
and if they have a sniffle or a cold,
it spreads through like wildfire.
I imagine the death rate
was pretty ghastly.
Death rates would have been pretty high
in workhouses in general
because people were at
such a low ebb in coming in.
The food, the accommodation
was not designed to fatten them up,
or to improve them,
it was just basic maintenance.
And that obviously led to
a lot of disease.
Typhus, dysentery, cholera
would have been the three main diseases.
Death inside the workhouse was common,
but by 1847,
those outside became victims of famine
as successive potato crops failed.
The workhouses were deluged.
By 1851, their population stood
at 217,000,
more than double
their intended capacity.
Workhouses designed for hundreds
were forced to house thousands.
So, tell me how the system began to
creak and crumble under the famine.
Well, I suppose the ultimate breakdown
of the system was
that the people that came in here
had no way of getting back out.
And emigration was a method of getting
people out and to reduce numbers,
but, ultimately, that was only for
families that were healthy.
So for other people,
they had to stay here.
And, obviously, the whole system
began to crumble after that.
By the early 20th century,
it was clear that the workhouse system
needed radical reform.
A royal commission in 1906
recommended the system be abolished.
The workhouses were designed to use
public money to relieve poverty,
but to make it shameful, so as
not to discourage people from working
if they could remain independent.
The scale of misery unleashed by
the famine overwhelmed the system,
adding to resentment against landowners
and the British establishment.
My Bradshaw's enticingly tells me of
the Roscrae and Parsonstown line
22.5 miles long.
"On arriving at the town of Roscrae,
it divides into two branches."
"The one to the northwest
to Parsonstown or Birr,
near Parsonstown Castle,
seat of the Earl of Rosse
with a famous telescope here."
Unfortunately, the line
no longer stretches so far.
And so my quest for that
renowned astronomical instrument
means that I must alight at Roscrea.
Victorians were as passionate about
scientific exploration
as they were about rail travel.
Whether professional or amateur, their
thirst for knowledge was insatiable.
And Birr Castle, an ancestral seat
deep in the Irish bogs,
became an unexpected centre of
scientific discovery.
The current Earl of Rosse
is going to enlighten me.
- Hello. You're welcome, Michael.
- Thank you very much indeed.
- Ta' failte romhat, as we say.
- That's a very nice welcome.
The Parsons, the family name of
the Earls of Rosse,
have been at Birr Castle since 1620.
We one of the oldest
inhabited homes in the county,
and one particular ancestor
interests me.
My Bradshaw's says there's a famous
telescope here. Which ancestor was that?
That was my great, great grandfather,
the third Earl. I'm number seven.
And he was my great, great grandfather
who built this telescope,
that we're just going to see here,
in the 1840s.
It was completed
just before the famine really struck.
(Michael) I read about this telescope
in the book,
but it gave me no hint of
how enormous it was going to be.
What a construction.
(Earl) It was known locally as
the monster, His Lordship's monster.
And it certainly was the biggest in the
world for three quarters of a century.
It enabled him to see further into space
than anyone had ever
been able to see before.
William Parsons, the third Earl,
graduated from Oxford University
with a first class honours degree
in mathematics.
But he was simply an extraordinary
and enthusiastic amateur.
That makes this 16-ton telescope,
with its 72" mirror,
an even more outstanding feat of
engineering and architecture.
With a new telescope of this power,
what new discoveries were enabled?
I think the Whirlpool Galaxy
was the most significant
of the discoveries that he made here,
and literally during the first few
months of the operation of the telescope
in 1845.
The discovery, what, that galaxies
had a kind of spiral shape, is this?
Were spiral in shape, like the
one that is called the Whirlpool,
of which we have one of
the most beautiful drawings
in the galleries here.
Because everything he saw, he drew.
But it all had to be made here,
entirely by the people of Birr,
mobilising the coopers to make
the curved beams of the tube,
the carpenters to make
things like the galleries,
and, of course, the blacksmiths
to make all the ironwork.
And luckily, Birr, as a garrison town,
then had a good supply of craftsmen
to make everything.
So all the coopers, blacksmiths and
carpenters were mobilised to make this.
The Earl's leviathan telescope
remained the world's largest
for over 70 years,
and put Bin on the map.
Scientists, stargazers and engineers
from all over the globe came to see it,
their journeys much facilitated
by the arrival of the railway in 1858.
Now, Michael, this is what we call
our muniments room,
where we keep all the archives.
And these go back to more or less
when we came here in the 1620s,
so about 18,000 historical documents
in all these boxes.
This must be a very considerable
archive by national standards.
I think it's the largest private archive
that is still useable in Ireland.
And out of the archives
I've got this old book,
which is the visitors' book of
the observatory at Birr Castle.
And maybe I'll just open the first page
to show you the significance
of the initial signature,
which is that of Charles Babbage,
who the third Earl invited to inaugurate
this book on September 91850.
(Michael) And Babbage, what would
you say was his place in history?
He is the grandfather, or now maybe even
the great grandfather of the whole...
of every computer in the world today.
Extraordinary.
The story of science at Birr
is far from over,
as even now astrophysicists are using
the grounds to measure solar flares
using a radio telescope.
The third Ear! would be proud.
In 19th-century Ireland,
poverty-stricken peasants were caught
between starvation and the workhouse.
The British Army was here
to keep them in order,
but also bequeathed to the Irish
a love of horse racing.
Meanwhile, aristocrats expanded
our knowledge of science,
the son of progress
so admired by George Bradshaw.
On the final leg of this journey,
I'll discover historic Irish jewellery
with royal connections, ..
I'm ready for my patient.
meet an ancient people's king...
Happy and glorious,
long to reign over us.
Oh, thank you. Thank you.
And get to grips with
some oral history.
♪ My own native land far away
- Well done, Michael.
- (applause)