Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 8, Episode 13 - Navan to Mullingar - full transcript

[OPENING THEME MUSIC]

For Victorian Britons, George
Bradshaw was a household name.

At a time when railways were new,

Bradshaw's guidebook inspired
them to take to the tracks.

I'm using a Bradshaw's Guide to
understand how trains transformed

Britain and Ireland -

their landscape, industry,
society and leisure time.

As I follow its routes
130 years later,

it helps me to discover
these islands today.

I'm approaching the halfway mark of
my journey from southeastern

to Northwestern Ireland.



On this leg, I hope to find earthy
evidence of early civilisations,

investigate a fishy history,

discover induction
at a Catholic seminary

and beat the drum for Ireland.

I began my journey
on the coast at Wexford

and then travelled to Dublin,

where I beheld the soul
of the nation.

Now I turn west,

hoping to discover more of
Ireland's rich cultural identity

as I cross this country and end my
peregrination on the Atlantic coast.

Today's route begins at Navan,
I then travel to Leixlip,

make a stop in the university town
of Maynooth and end in Mullingar.

'Along the way I get up to speed
with modern archaeology...

That was excellent.
[HE SIGHS]



That was perfect.
- Do you really go at that pace?

'...discover a glorious
hidden wonder...

This is the best chapel
in Ireland by along shot.

You can't come to Ireland and
not see this, can you?

No.

'and get my marching orders.

If you're going to join them, beat.

I'll be leaving this train
at MS Parkway,

which was evidently added
to the rail network

after my Bradshaw's Guide

was published. The book directs my
attention to the Hill of Tara

on which several mounds
mark the site where kings

were crowned on a coronation stone.

Rock and royal.

I'm now in Navan, County Meath,

which is rich in both beautiful
landscapes and mythology.

The Hill of Tara is considered one
of the most important

archaeological sites in Ireland.

According to tradition, it was the
seat of the High King of Ireland

in the pre-Norman era, when five
clans held sway over the country.

Tara was a sacred site associated
with kingship rituals.

Guiding me through the site is
cultural historian

and archaeologist Mairead Carew.

Mairead, immediately this open and
very tranquil space,

with its mounds, seems very special.

Very ancient, very spiritual.

Yeah, well, it has been a sacred
site for over 5,000 years.

The earliest tomb
was built about 3500 BC.

What is this, Mairead?
This is the Mound of the Hostages.

Why hostages?
Because King Cormac Mac Am

was said to have
exchanged hostages there.

There's a passage tomb in there,

which means there's chambers where
the dead were buried.

The mound has been used
for high status burials

since around 3000 BC.

The highlight awaits me.

Is this the Coronation Stone?

Well, this stone is known as the
Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny,

and it was believed to play a role
in the inauguration of kings.

The tradition was that the god Lugh,

you would hear his voice coming
through the stone

if you were the rightful king.

And those origins, whether
mythological or not,

can they be described as Gaelic

and how important are they
to Irish people?

During the cultural revival
in the 19th century,

scholars and writers and artists
took a huge interest in the history

and mythology of places like Tara.

Sounds like it was getting quite
political at that time.

Yeah, certainly it was because you
have the cultural nationalists

beginning to become really
interested in their history

and their language
and their culture

and using that in terms
of their identity.

The Irish Nationalists were
not alone in sensing

the spiritual importance
of the site.

'In the late 19th century,
an organisation from Britain staked

'its claim on the land.'

This has a different feel to it,
the contours are not as clear.

Yeah, well, you see, it was
destroyed by a group in 1899.

Between 1899 and 1902,

a group known as British Israelites
came to the site,

they were convinced the Ark of the
Covenant was buried here

and they dug two big trenches across
the enclosure

and they had no
archaeological supervision,

they were just intending on finding
the Ark of the Covenant.

The Ark of the Covenant is a chest
said to contain the Ten Commandments

inscribed on stone tablets.

The British Israelites believed that
it was buried at the Hill of Tara.

The end of the 19th century,
a terribly delicate time

in Anglo-Irish relations,

the British come here and dig up
the most sacred site in

Ireland. What was the reaction?

Well, there was a very
strong reaction.

The poet WB Yeats,

the nationalist Arthur Griffith,
founder of Sinn Fein,

and Maud Gonne all came
here to protest

and there was a media campaign.

They wrote to The Times of London,

and they said that the site has been
desecrated and it was probably

the most consecrated
spot in Ireland.

'Those highly
controversial excavations

'offended cultural sensitivities and

'would have affronted today's
principles of archaeology,

'which emphasise getting information
before digging begins.'

Rosanne Scott is part of a research
project that's been surveying

the site since the 19903.

Roseanne.
- Hello.

Hello, I'm Michael.

How are you? Nice to meet you.

What on earth are you doing?

So we're doing an archaeological
survey of the Hill of Tara

and we are using geophysical
prospection methods to find out more

about what lies beneath
the surface of the ground.

What sort of things are
you looking for?

Well, this type of instrument is very
good at picking up the remains of

features like ditches,
pits, gulleys,

things that have been out
into the surface of the ground

and we can find, for example,
enclosures and burial monuments, graves.

You've obviously marked out
the ground here with your strings.

So, what, you've established
a kind of grid, have you?

Yeah, so we work on
a 20 by 20 meter grid system,

it's very important, of course, when
we're collecting this kind of data

to know exactly the
position on the ground

that we collect each measurement.
- What you're doing looks...

A, rather bizarre
but, B, rather fun.

Could I have a go?
- You can, of course.

Yeah, you're more than welcome.

The magnetic gradiometer collects
geophysical data to create digital

images of what lies
beneath the surface.

The instrument must be
walked at a fair speed.

[INSTRUMENT BEEF'S]

That was excellent.
[HE SIGHS]

That was perfect.

Do you really go at that pace?
- Well done.

Yeah.
- Wow, you must be exhausted.

Yeah, it's good.
It's the only exercise we get.

The findings of the project are
displayed in the deconsecrated

19th-century church next to
the Hill of Tara.

This is one of a number of
different types of imagery

we have of the Hill of Tara.

The aerial photo's very useful for
getting a better understanding

of the topography of the hill.

We also have some
more detailed imagery,

like this, taken from a helicopter.

What that does is allows us to
create a very detailed 3-D modelling

of the hill. So, for example,

some of the archaeological features
that weren't known to exist before

can now be seen.
And what has it led you to discover

that you might not have known
without this technology?

OK, well, I think the most
significant discovery is that of

a very large enclosure,
which came as a complete surprise,

and we can see the image of it here
and what it is is an oval ditch

and on either side of that
is a ring of posts,

which would originally have
held large timber uprights.

It probably dates from around
2500 BC or so.

It's a henge-type monument
and it can be compared

to similar monuments,
the landscape of Stonehenge,

and also elsewhere in Ireland,
such as a Newgrange.

Have you found
the Ark of the Covenant?

No, we haven't yet
and I expect we never will.

Because this station is
on a branch line

I need to make a short
double-back towards Dublin.

At Clonsilla, I change trains to get
onto the mainline heading west.

My next stop will be Leixlip.

Bradshaw's tells me
it's situated on the Liffey,

close to the famous salmon leap.

In the 20th century a barrage was
built across the river

and a reservoir created. I wonder
what happened to the dammed salmon.

The name Leixlip comes from
the Old Norse lax hlaup,

which means salmon leap.

It's located just ten miles outside
Dublin and when the railways opened

in 1848, Victorian day-trippers came
here to take in the waterfalls

and the spectacle
of the athletic fish.

Today it's home to the Leixlip
Hydroelectric Power Station.

And it's Where I'm meeting fisheries
biologist Dennis Doherty.

Well, Dennis, I find the dam a kind
of classic piece of industrial

architecture, but my first question
is why do salmon leap?

Salmon leap to gain access over
obstacles and in most cases that'd

be a natural obstacle like a
waterfalls or a tree across a river.

Where are they headed and why?

They spawn in freshwater and spend
their adult life at sea,

so they're going upstream to spawn
in the month of December.

Then those eggs will hatch
in around Saint Patrick's Day,

or slightly after,
and about two years later

those young fish would go to sea.

They would spend one year at sea and
they would then come back here to

Liffey and go upstream
to spawn again.

The fish know to go back
to where they were born?

Yes. A Liffey salmon will not only
come back to the Liffey,

he or she would actually come back
to the particular stretch of river

that they actually spawned in
above the station here.

Extraordinary.

The Leixlip hydroelectric dam
was completed in 1952,

designed to generate electricity
and to provide flood protection

and drinking water for Dublin.

Now, the day that this was built
was not good news for the salmon,

at least in principle.
What thought was given to them?

Yeah, quite a lot of thought.

In fairness to the powers
that be at that time,

they built a fish lift for adult
salmon moving upstream.

Also one of the spillway gates is
adapted for downstream lowering.

And they come over the top?
They come over the top,

that middle gate there, which is

lowered, and we spill water
over that and the fish 90 down

on the plume of water
and out to sea.

That must be a ride
to remember for the salmon.

Yes, certainly, yeah, must be
exciting for them, I suppose.

Salmon can leap up waterfalls to
a height of around 12 feet but the

Leixlip dam poses an insurmountable
barrier, nearly 80-foot high.

In order to allow the Liffey salmon
to return to their breeding grounds

further upstream,
a fish lift has been built,

which works in a similar way
to a canal lock.

So, here we are
at the top of the dam.

Where would a salmon that
was headed upstream be how?

So, a salmon is located in the
downstream chamber here below us.

The bottom gate is closed.

The middle gate is open,
filling the chamber.

The water levels come up until it
meets the reservoir level,

at which point the salmon
merely swim out

through that chamber and out.

It takes around 20 minutes for the
lock to fill up and the salmon

to reach the top.

It's not peak season for fish
migration but any activity through

the lift is monitored by Nigel Bond
of the Marine Institute.

Hello, Nigel, I'm Michael.
Now, you're counting salmon.

What's the importance of doing that?

The importance of counting salmon is
so that we know what the state

of the river is at the current time
and we have data that goes back

for many years so we can see if
there's any fluctuations

in the numbers of fish
that are appearing in the river.

Could you show me a fish that
you've seen move through?

Sure, sure. There's a fish
going through in June.

That's a salmon and he passes all
three electrodes,

he generates a count and we record
that on our equipment.

Water quality is essential
for salmon to thrive,

so keeping accurate track of
population numbers

can tell marine scientists a lot
about the waterway.

With the data, and frankly speaking,

what is the state of the Liffey
at the moment?

Well, at the moment the Liffey
is operating below

its conservation limit,

so, like a lot of other
rivers in the country,

care has to be taken not to take
fish from a river that's operating

below its conservation limit.

So, at the moment,

no-one is allowed to put their rod
into the Liffey for a salmon?

At the moment, that's correct, yeah.

Well, let's hope that one day
it all changes.

Please, yeah. Hopefully, yeah.

This stop by the river Liffey marks
the end of today's travels.

Time to take a rest
and to begin again tomorrow.

This morning I'm taking the train
from Leixlip station as I continue

to journey west.

My next stop will be Maynooth.

Bradshaw's recommends Saint
Patrick's Roman Catholic College,

a quadrangular edifice containing
"a noble library of 18,000 volumes.

"Founded in 1795,
it has a parliamentary grant

"of £30,000 per year."

Interesting, given that England had
an established Protestant church.

But now that Catholics had
the vote, they had to be won over.

Maynooth is a university town
16 miles from central Dublin.

It grew around its
13th-century castle,

which in the late medieval period

was the centre of Irish
political power and culture.

I'm making my way to Saint Patrick's
College, mentioned in my Bradshaw's.

The seminary, where students train
for the priesthood,

today shares the campus with
Maynooth University,

where I'm meeting Dr Niall McKeith,
curator of the college's museum.

Niall, when were
Catholic educational establishments

first permitted?

They were first permitted in 1795
and this is because it was only

in 1791 that the penal laws were
actually removed from the statute

books in the Palace of Westminster.

Westminster gave a small donation to
the bishops in order to purchase

a building for the commencement
of the seminary.

Given that England and Scotland
were Protestant,

why did the government agreed to
give a grant to a Catholic college?

Well, because up until that time there
was no Catholic seminary within Ireland,

so if anybody who wanted to
become educated to become a priest,

then they had to either 90 to France
or Salamanca or to Rome.

At that time we're talking
about revolution in France and those

priests who were being educated in
Paris were then coming back to

Ireland with
the revolutionary ideas,

so it was in the interests of the
British government for there

to be a seminary built in Ireland
for the education of priests.

There was a fear of radicalisation?

There was, of course.

Concerned about links between
Catholics in Ireland and France,

and seeking to improve
its own popularity,

in 1845 the British government
tripled the money granted

to St Patrick's.

The college expanded rapidly,
employing Augustus Pugin,

famed architect of
the Palace of Westminster,

to design new buildings,
including a large refectory...

and a new library,

which now houses the college's
collection of pre-1850 books.

At the heart of the seminary
is its chapel.

Well, this is truly spectacular
- and huge.

Victorian Gothic at its very best
and it reminds me

of the Palace of Westminster.
Was it Pugin?

No, it was a pupil of Pugin's

or an apprentice of Pugin's
who designed it

and that was one JJ McCarthy, and
it is the largest choral-type chapel

in the world where all of the stalls
are all facing each other

and you have the absolute
magnificent rose window

there at the end.

Fabulous organ.

And then down the sides of the
church facing each other in carving

and relief, all of the coats of arms
of the various bishops.

This is the best chapel in
Ireland by a long shot.

Well, I mean, really,
you can't come to Ireland and

not see this, can you?
- No, no.

The chapel is one of the most
impressive I've seen.

And there's another unexpected
treasure here at St Patrick's.

The National Science Museum of
Ireland is on the campus.

Niall, I'm astonished to find a
physics museum in what I thought was

a seminary. Now, what is the
explanation for that?

The explanation is that when the
college was originally set up

in 1795,

that they brought over seven
professors from the Sorbonne

to start it off. One of those
professors was a professor

of natural philosophy, or physics,

so physics has been taught in the
seminary here since the foundation

of the estate.
- And in your early days,

who would have been your most
outstanding scientist?

The most outstanding would have been
Reverend Nicholas Callan.

He was a seminary student here,
he was ordained,

he then went to Rome to do his
divinity and while he was there

the initial interest that he had in
physics was reinforced when he met

Alessandro Volta and Galvani.

It was an important moment in our
understanding of electricity.

The Italian scientists had invented
the battery and discovered animal

electricity, transforming theories
into practical applications.

Nicholas Callan returned to
St Patrick's as Professor of natural

philosophy and made an important
breakthrough of his own.

Now, I assume this is
a very important object.

What was it that Callan did?

Callan invented the induction coil.

The induction coil is a device to
take a low voltage and step it up

to an extremely high voltage

of the order of hundreds of
thousands of volts.

So, they already knew how to
generate some electricity

from a battery but this was about
getting more voltage.

Exactly. In 1840,

he was able to generate voltages of
the order of 600,000 volts.

He didn't have the nice digital
voltmeters that we have today,

but what he did have
was clerical students

and he used to make 15 clerical
students hold hands

and then the last two would
have to put their hands on

the output of the secondary coil

and he determined the voltage by
how high the students jumped.

What a story!

The induction coil was the first
type of transformer.

The X-ray, radio transmission and
the ignition coil in cars are all

inventions which owe their origins
to Father Callan's work.

Your own personal assessment of
Callan, what would that be?

I have been known to say that

Faraday was the father
of electricity

and the Reverend Nicholas Callan

would be the Reverend
Godfather of electricity.

I'm leaving Maynooth to take
the train onwards west.

It gives me a chance to question
my fellow travellers about Britain

and Ireland's difficult history.

Hello, ladies, may I join you
for a moment?

I'm using
a 19th-century guidebook here

and it's all about conflict, really,

between the Irish and British,

the Hunger and rebellions
and executions.

Just wondered, you know, does that
still stick in the Irish mind?

Yeah, when we were in secondary
school we learned an awful lot about

the Famine. You know, it's only
three or four generations ago,

so it's not that long ago,

so it is definitely still,
kind of, in our minds.

There was a lot of talk
about "Oh, you know,

"the English aristocracy
and the English landlords

"were living perfectly normal lives

"while people were starving
all around them."

I mean, it was very raw when we
were... well, when I was a child.

And now?

Trying to think,
you know, it's more holistic,

that they're shown both sides, but

I still think there
wasn't really another side.

And would you say this harrowing
19th-century history

still affects Irish views
of the British today?

Probably as recently as the last
decade or so I think the views

of the British in Ireland
has changed.

Time has been a great healer.

My next stop will be Mullingar.

The guidebook tells me that the
population is employed in the wool

and butter trades.

But I'll find there the ruins
of two castles and a large

infantry barracks for 1,000 men.

It seems I won't be the first
Briton to march into Mullingar.

Today, the wool and butter
trades are long gone,

but the barracks still stands.

The British built the huge military
compound in the early 19th century.

Irish military forces took it over,

and used it until 2012
when it was closed.

[BRASS BAND PLAYS]

Not far from the barracks,

I can hear what sounds like
a regimental band.

Bravo. Kim, I'm Michael.
- Hi, Michael.

So, is there a connection between
the Mullingar Town Band and

the military barracks that
used to be in the town?

There is, yeah. While we were
officially formed in 1879,

we actually can trace our roots
as far back as the 18003.

A lot of the British soldiers that were
involved in the British barracks

settled here in Mullingar
and they had just civilian bands.

We're a marching band,
we're a concert band

and we provide music education
in our junior bands as well.

I suppose it's kind of like
a mini music school.

Today, there are over 200 members,
starting from the age of eight,

and this community band
has won some top awards

in Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Are you in fine form today?

Yeah.
- I see you've got the trombone there,

when did you learn to play
the trombone?

About 11 years ago.
- Really?

I started in the band.
- You must've been tiny!

Yeah, quite little!
[HE CHUCKLES]

And do you get much pleasure out
of playing for the band?

I love playing for the band.

You love it.
- I've been playing here most my life.

The band is open to experienced
players and beginners.

I've been invited
to arm myself with a bass drum.

If you're going to join them, beat.

[HE LAUGHS]
Thank you.

You look like me,
so it must be here.

Is it the left foot first?

And then the right hand first.

Left foot, right hand.

OK, rolls.

That was terrible!

The salmon knows where it comes from

and returns to the place
of its birth.

At the end of the 19th century,

nationalists felt the need to
explain the origins of the Irish

people and drew inspiration from the
Gaelic legends of the Kings of Tara.

That left only the question of
in which direction to march

and who would call the beat?

'Next time, I have a go at
traditional Irish cuisine...

How's that looking, Timmy?

You wouldn't be selling it now.

Very lumpy, you know what I mean?

'see the landscape that
inspired one of the 20th-century's

'greatest poets, WB Yeats...

It gave him a sense of where Celtic
man had come out of the landscape

and that drove him to believe that
Ireland should have an independence.

Heel, toe...

'and step in time, Sligo style.'

One, two, three.

Michael Flatley better watch out!

[END THEME MUSIC]