Original subtitles

- [Voiceover] Emerging from a dawn mist

is a natural way to come upon this island.

Seamus Heaney wrote, "We have no prairies

"to slice a sky at evening.

"Everywhere the eye concedes~to encroaching horizon."

Here, history stands up in the monuments

of saints and scholars who,

from Celtic times made~it a hub of learning.

In Ireland's mix of people and influences,

the written word is still a magic coin,

an international currency.

The pens of W.B. Yeats,~George Bernard Shaw,

James Joyce, and others,~strike universal music

from the tempo and temper of their people.

This land has left its~mark on Ireland's people,

and they in turn,

have made their mark~on the world's esteem.

(calm Irish folk music)

(calm Irish music)

(calm piano music)

In Ireland, the past is ever present.

Monasteries punctuate the~priorities and patterns of living

of a nearly 2,000 year old Christianity.

These were the dynamos~of prayer and learning,

driving a commerce of~God, a trade in thoughts.

The works of man have only~lightly marked the land.

The fields are a startling fresh green,

unlined by many fences, or~hemmed in regular portions.

Nor do the Irish have~neat and tidy thoughts,

not too much going by the book,

nor bounded within~straight and ruly lines.

Almost grudgingly, they've consented

to live and work in towns,

themselves not greatly regular.

(calm Irish music)

From the Rock of Cashel,

the spiritual and temple~power of kings and bishops,

spread their rule over~the broad lands of Munster

in the early middle ages.

(calm Irish music)

Other times, other priorities.

The Dukes of Devonshire~once lived in Lismore Castle

in the Blackwater Valley.

They, and their early English neighbors,

Sir Walter Raleigh and~poet Edmund Spenser,

attempted to impose their~own order on the land,

a fleeting gesture.

(calm music)

(upbeat Irish drum music)

The poet Yeats once described~the streets of London as,

"Lonely London pavement grey."

But the words apply here just as well.

Yeats took refuge not far from

this flat expanse of limestone rock

of the Burren in County Clare.

The Burren is like a moonscape,

but not without its hidden beauties,

for in the spring and~summer the old green roads

of the drovers and the pathways~that the sheep tread out

leave the drifts of alpine blooms,

secret orchids, and the blue gentian.

(upbeat Irish drum music)

(lively Irish folk music)

The Cliffs of Moher, thrust~up from prehistoric seas,

produce fossil stone for the hearths

of homes and stately halls.

Only the brave press close to the edge,

peering down to the dawn of time

where the sea scribbles white waves

on the ancient layered rock face.

The wild sounds of sea birds counterpoint

the piping music of Willie~Clancy's music school nearby.

(lively Irish folk music)

(upbeat Irish music)

The sand dunes of the Kerry Coast

show a gentler front~to the Atlantic Ocean.

Famous golf links border the strand

and pose the ultimate~test of any Irishman.

(upbeat Irish music)

Nearby, Ballybunion is famous for

its annual bachelor's festival,

a contest to find Ireland's~most eligible man.

The event is not taken too seriously.

But just a few miles down the coast

the annual Rose of~Tralee contest for women

is a more prestigious occasion.

(upbeat Irish music)

(cacophony of seagulls)

"Make of the stones a pillow for my head

"and thou shall see angels~ascending and descending"

an ancient poet once wrote.

18 miles out in the Atlantic,

during the dark ages of the~seventh and eighth centuries,

this was western~Christianity's last outpost

for well over 100 years.

700 feet above raging~seas sits Skellig Michael.

The monk's beehive huts

still cling like limpets to the rocks.

No one today can imagine

such harsh isolation and deprivation.

(calm Irish folk music)

Homeric themes of love, death, suffering

live in beautiful, simple prose

etched from the Irish language

in masterpieces of literature.

Toileanach, The Islandman,~Fiche Bliain ag Fas

20 Years a'Growing,

they were written by people who lived

at the end of the Dingle Peninsula.

These are treacherous waters,

the grave alike of ships~of the Spanish Armada,

who's names ring down the~centuries like a litany,

and of those people in this century

who lost their lives following

the shoveling of mackerel for a living.

As they said themselves,

their light will not be seen again.

Their descendants who live along

the eastern seaboard of America

often celebrate the old days

in the next parish across the seas,

for Dingle is the next town to America.

(calm Irish music)

Ancient texts say Saint~Brendan the Navigator

and his monks set out from these parts

before Columbus or Leif Erikson.

Just as Patrick and other missionaries

brought the faith to Ireland,

Ireland's people in turn~have shared their values

with the old and the new world ever since.

It's entirely right that places

like Waterville and Valentia

were the bases from~which the first telephone

cable was laid for the~modern communications era.

The towns today are popular destinations

along Ireland's famous Ring of Kerry.

(calm Irish music)

(calm piano music)

May morning, once every seven years,

the magical day of the ancient God Val,

the chief of the O'Donoghues,

rises from the waters of~Lough Leane on a white steed.

Such stories about particular families

are still told in their~particular areas of origin.

In Ireland there's always~been a fierce determination

to keep the name on the land,

and still the McCarthys, the O'Neills,

the O'Byrnes, and the Clancys

can be found where they've always been,

as rooted as the 10,000~year old yew forests

in the mountains around Killarney.

(calm piano music)

(calm Irish music)

In the south coast's many fingered inlets,

the sea's delivery has~brought a thousand ships,

and seen as many go.

From Wexford and Waterford, to Bantry Bay,

the sea has been a trade route,

a playground, and a grave.

British fleets have~sheltered and been supplied,

where legendary Milesians~made their first landfall

in leather covered boats.

Vikings, Normans, booty~hunters from far and near

have sought the river~mouths of Nore and Suir,

Blackwater, and Lee,

safe havens from which to~seek further fame and fortune.

(calm Irish music)

Like soldiers in every age,

the garrison of the great star-shaped

17th century Charles Fort,

gave fanciful names of birds~of prey to their cannon,

names like falcon and striker.

The fort is now restored~as part of Ireland's

mixed heritage of invaders and invaded.

One of them, a McCarthy chief,

is supposed to have used~his silver tongued eloquence

to persuade the first Elizabeth

to let him keep his~stronghold at Blarney Castle.

(calm Irish music)

The gift of the gab persists

and is claimed by the~lilting tones of Cork men,

poets, sculptors, and~masters of the short story,

like Frank O'Connor.

(calm Irish music)

After enduring centuries of invasion,

tens of thousands of Irish families

were forced to give up their homeland

in the mid-1800's.

Famine and destitution drove them

onto the trackless sea.

It became a road where~those have gone before,

were a small far off light

beckoning to those languishing at home.

The Irish word for immigrant, jorie,

holds within its teardrop~meaning a tide of sorrow

which has carried away a million hearts.

As they set sail across the Atlantic,

the last visible bit of~Ireland fading into the grey

was Fastnet Rock.

For those who were able to return,

it emerged as the first~tangible sign of home.

As one saying goes, "The~times they are a changing."

The wild geese return~along the beckoning beacon

of better times, or never~have to go away at all.

(Irish music)

(tranquil music)

For centuries, the most~settled part of Ireland

was England's very limited~bridge head, The Pale,

part of the province of Leinster,

and the only place the~crown's ranked ran freely.

Here, the organizing flair~of the Norman invaders

introduced religious orders

from the continent,~Cistercians, Augustinians.

(tranquil music)

Man's interaction with his fate

and his attempts to divine powers

beyond his daily existence here

go back beyond the great pyramid of Egypt

to neolithic Newgrange.

Here the sun's rays still strike directly

into this mounded burial chamber

at each dawn of the winter solstice.

The cycle of birth and death,

and the rhythm of the years work

was settled and celebrated in rituals

that still retain their mystery.

These are sacred lands,

recognized as such by successive cultures.

The high kings at Tara~held annual festivals

and claimed a wary allegiance

from minor kings and chiefdoms.

(calm Irish music)

(lively Irish folk music)

The old Irish ballad,~"The Rocky Road to Dublin"

is now a tuneful counterpoint

to the city's high speed connections.

Dublin's tempo is ever quickening.

Europe's chattering classes~and culture vultures

have made it an essential~stage on their grand tour.

(lively Irish folk music)

From the gardens of Stephens Green

to the Temple Bar District,

Dublin's new bohemian left bank,

you may still meet a~friend, an enemy, or a boor

round every bend.

But Dublin's wit and repartee

leaves as little bitterness

as you'll find at the bottom~of a glass of Guinness.

(lively Irish folk music)

(calm Irish music)

The ascendancy, founders of~the great houses in Ireland,

have a mixed reputation.

Their contributions to the~public and commonwealth

seldom match the grandeur~of their lifestyle.

In general, the Anglo-Irish however,

were, in Yeat's words, "No mean people."

Recurring great names are the Almanbutlers

and the FitzGeralds, who~were the Earls of Kildare,

and Dukes of Leinster.

Their townhouse, now the~seat of the Irish Parliament,

the FitzGerald's were once considered

the uncrowned kings of Ireland.

(calm Irish music)

The one place where the two ends

of the social scale met on common ground

was at the races.

The horse could win a penny or a pound

for lord or commoner.

(intense Irish drum music)

(calm Irish music)

The state has inherited and maintains

some of the best of the old great houses,

where all Ireland's citizens can now visit

their treasures and take~refreshment on the terraces.

(lively Irish folk music)

The Kilkenny Cats, in their~black and amber stripe,

are notable modern exponents of hurling.

The game began with a small leather ball

being struck by teams~from neighboring perishes.

The winners, being those~who at the end of the day

had penetrated furthest into~their opponent's territory.

Like diplomacy, it was a more peaceful way

to let off steam than the~older murderous faction fights.

It was war by other means.

(lively Irish folk music)

The smell of a hearth fire is,~for Irish people everywhere,

a touch stone of memory.

The past and the present come together.

Where invading Elizabethan armies saw a

soggy, savage wilderness where no sensible

person would willingly set foot,

peat is now milled for the domestic hearth

and environment friendly power stations.

Stripping the blanket bog

turns back the pages of history,

revealing ancient fields and pathways.

(lively Irish folk music)

(Irish music)

(peaceful Irish folk music)

Bare Benbulben's head~is where jealous Fionn

of the warrior Fianna, finally~cornered young Diarmuid

with whom his queen,~Garinne, had run away.

These are heroes of a~half mythical Ireland,

which W.B. Yeats invoked to underpin

the republican dreams~of his own fickle love,

Maud Gonne MacBride, the subject~of so much of his poetry.

The Irish state which made Yeats a senator

was uneasy with the liberal beliefs

of this romantic Protestant.

But they finally brought him home to rest

in Drumcliff church yard.

Cast a cold eye on life, on death,

horsemen pass by.

(peaceful Irish folk music)

The wind has bundled up~the clouds over Knock Narea

and thrown the thunder on the stones

for all that Maeve can say.

The grave cairn of the~powerful queen of Connacht

who led the men of the west into Ulster

to steal the brown bull of Cooley.

The epic saga has been~recited and embellished

from ancient times, one~of the great treasures

of the Irish language.

(peaceful Irish folk music)

(upbeat music)

Like ancient ruins, towering stacks

loom off the mainland at Downpatrick Head.

Slabs of cliff like dun~briste, the Broken Fort,

testify to the dangerous~coast and treacherous waters.

For centuries, smugglers~brought contraband goods,

brandy and tobacco,

ashore in the ports of~Ballina and Westport

through these ungovernable seas.

(upbeat music)

Clew Bay's hundred islands lay

like green stepping~stones in a peaceful sea,

but once they were the domain~of traders and raiders,

the seafaring O'Malleys.

The O'Malleys traded with La Coruna

and the ports of Northern Spain,

and exacted tribute on the high seas.

Their warrior chief was a woman,

a she king, Grainne O'Malley, Granuaile.

Her exploits were so cunning, so daring,

that she captured the attention~of Queen Elizabeth herself,

who extended a royal~invitation to visit in London.

(calm music)

There was a real Patrick~who came to Ireland

about the middle of the fifth century.

Writings like Patrick's grass plate,

and other records testify to his mission,

but other lesser figures~have been subsumed

into the mixture of fact~and legend surrounding him.

Very real is the pain~for barefoot pilgrims

wending their way through~early morning mist

along the rocks and~ridges of Croagh Patrick.

On the last Sunday of every July

hundreds of penitents~climb this lonely mountain

in an act of expiation and communion

with powers acknowledged~long before Christianity.

(upbeat Irish folk music)

Galway City, the town square is overrun

with Saturday shoppers on a summer's day.

It was once called the City of the Tribes,

home to chief Irish families,

but maybe better titled City of Youth.

College students and musicians~vie to make their mark here.

And come night fall, the local atmosphere

is elbow to elbow, pint to pint fun.

(upbeat Irish folk music)

The strange quality of light coming in

from the far distances of the Atlantic

plays among the clouds.

It glints on the glacial pools,

gathered in the rocky folds.

It plays hide and seek,

in and out of the steep~sides of the Twelve Bens,

the range of mountains~stretching across Connemara.

This is seriously lost country.

It will not stoop to~suit any human purpose.

The mountains brood in lofty silence

over the landscapes below,

inspiring the palettes of Paul Henry,

and a generation of~Irish landscape painters.

(darkly dramatic music)

Hy-Brasil, the isles of the blessed,

as legend has it, a mirage in the sea.

The mysterious Aran~Islands may have inspired

the legend of Oisin,

the blue eyed boy of~the fianna warrior band,

riding on a white horse with~weave of the golden tresses

to the land of eternal youth.

But it's hardly the~same place where seaweed

from the shore was once~brought in baskets to create

small fields among the barren rocks.

(calm Irish folk music)

Dun Aengus, the ultimate~in unassailable fortresses.

Were the people who~barricaded themselves here

driven to the edge of doom

or survivors of a lost Atlantis?

Some would have it they~and their descendants

share in a common strand of a culture

stretching along 1,000 miles~of the Atlantic seaboard,

south to Spanish Galicia and North Africa.

Certainly, the rhythms~and cadences of speech,

and above all, the music of these parts

have echos from far off places.

(calm Irish folk music)

(Irish music)

(soft music)

The Shannon, the longest river in Ireland,

sweeping onward, broad and clear,

stringing along its bright course,

beads of lakes and rushy shallows

where the moorhen clucks and~calls to the pleasure boats,

cruising uncluttered waters.

(soft music)

Guarding the western approaches,

from Limerick to Coonagh,

Bunratty Castle stands four square

by the mouth of the Shannon.

The O'Briens, lords of Thomond,

like other great Irish families,

took different sides in the~political fortunes of the day.

Maire Rua, widowed in the~wars of the 17th century,

married an enemy soldier

to hold their patrimony for her sons.

(soft music)

(Irish music)

(peaceful music)

The hills of Donegal,~Errigal, and the Bluestacks

look out at the north Atlantic.

The mountainy people looked~north and east around Inishowen,

following the track of Iona's~Columbkille to Scotland.

In yesteryear, when the~seasonal potato pickers,

the tattie-hokers, were away

there weren't enough~men for a football team.

The harvest now is different.

Treasure from the sea spills around

the harbors and small towns,~from Killybegs to Burtonport.

(peaceful music)

(peaceful Irish folk music)

Eerie of the golden eagle,

Slieve League's sheer rock face,

one of the highest in all of Europe,

did not save the bird from~extinction in Ireland,

but the vertical landscape~here may be the inspiration

of a notable Donegal profession,

expertise in digging underground.

Wherever earth is moved the world over,

there the spirit moves~and brings the famed

tunnelers of Donegal.

(peaceful Irish folk music)

Images of the mortal boat bearing souls

to the other world.

In Seamus Heaney's work "Station Island",

the phrase, "Hurry of bells"

summons him to find himself again.

Saint Patrick's purgatory~has been the mecca

of the Gayle for a thousand years.

Princes came here from~Capistrello to go through

the inferno within, and~wrestle with Dante's demons.

People who come to Station Island today

face a similar ritual,

three days of fasting, bare~feet shuffling about the rounds,

the penance patterns of flinty stone.

The only way out is to look within.

(melancholy Irish folk music)

Rats cannot survive on Tory.

Its soil wards off misfortune.

A solitary place, its islanders nick named

their winter enemy, the deadly sea passage

to the mainland, the Crucifier.

Having made that first small journey,

former Tory Islanders the world over

travel with a pinch of island earth,

a universal talisman, a corner~near the heart, forever Tory.

(melancholy Irish folk music)

(calm piano music)

A prime pastoral expanse,

the north has been a place of settlement

long before the vikings~sailed up Strangford Lough.

Ancient shore dwellers have~left their heaps of shells,

a precarious hold on a new shore.

The traffic here has been back and forth,

both east and west.

The Scottish kings extending their rule

across the narrow seas,~a mixing of peoples,

sometimes easy, not always so.

The men and women from~the Scottish borders

came into Carrickfergus and other ports,

and often took their tough resourcefulness

onwards to the new world.

A long line of American presidents

is a roll call of honor of the

qualities of the Ulster Scot.

(peaceful piano music)

(calm Irish folk music)

The bleaching greens of the Lagan Valley

supply the mills,

and Belfast linen and Belfast ships

spread a byword for~excellence around the world,

records of the industry of~the 17th century settlers.

(calm Irish folk music)

Derry, Londonderry, Derry of Columbkille,

and the London Gills~have looked both ways.

Taking northern poet John~Hewitt's advice in style,

be your own man.

Very much his own man was~the eccentric Earl Bishop

who built this palace, and a lady's bower

above the crashing seas.

(calm Irish folk music)

The bones of Dunluce Castle

are a proper setting~for the daring exploits

of famous chiefton Sorley Boy MacDonnell,

whose history straddles the~narrow seas to Scotland,

and all of Ulster's history.

(calm Irish folk music)

♫ (lyrics) Should you wander far away

♫ Should you set your heart a sail ♫

- [Voiceover] When you look upon Ireland

what do you see?

One writer saw people made~out of the wet, limey soil,

others saw dreamers and~mystics, warriors and chiefs,

where a cure Celtic streak~shaped and fashioned

by the place they came from.

Heaney sees its writers and~artists, who in his words,

"Capture the impulse of pleasure

"in the presence of natural phenomena."

The land continues to leave its mark

on Ireland's people,

and they carry that gift wherever they go.

Perhaps the sentiment is better~stated in this Irish poem,

"And dearer the wind and its crying

"are the secrets the wet hills hold.

"And the goldenest place~they could find you

"in the heart of a country of gold."

♫ (lyrics) Dreams grow cold

♫ But our love is strong as death

♫ I will give my dying breath

♫ You know I will

♫ Should you wander with the tide

♫ You will find me by your side

♫ We are two swans taking flight

♫ Will I follow you

♫ You know I will

♫ Your heart is at home

♫ When you're with the one you know

♫ And our love will brave the storm

♫ You know it will

♫ And dreams grow cold

♫ But our love is strong as death

♫ I will give my dying breath

♫ You know I will

♫ Will I follow you

♫ You know I will ♫

(lively Irish folk music)