Original subtitles

(MYSTERIOUS MUSIC)

(FIRE CRACKLING)

In a small corner of the Atlantic,

on Europe's farthest fringe,

are some of the most spectacular islands on Earth.

Battered by storms, and shrouded in mist,

are hidden worlds many believe spawned the legends

of Hy-Brasil and Atlantis.

Magical kingdoms on the very edge of the abyss...

.. where nature still runs free!

(ANIMALS ROARING)

My name is Eoin Warner and I've spent my life

travelling the length of Ireland

in search of its precious wild places

and the elusive animals that make them their home.

(LIVELY TRADITIONAL IRISH MUSIC PLAYING)

I'm almost half way down Ireland's west coast

and with winter on the horizon,

I'm heading into one of the most challenging stages

of this island adventure.

(MUSIC BUILDING)

(SEA ROARING)

(WAVES CRASHING)

My journey around Ireland's north and west coast

has encountered a hitch.

It's mid-October and massive seas

are not uncommon in this part of the world.

But this is something else:

the tail end of a hurricane.

(WATER SPRAYING AND HISSING)

It's so humbling standing at the very edge of this.

Feeling the energy of the sea in your face.

(WATER SPRAYING)

It's a very unique experience.

Born in the Caribbean,

this storm has crossed six and a half thousand kilometres

of open water.

And the first obstacles it meets

are the islands off Ireland's west coast.

Just offshore, they're tantalisingly close -

but in these conditions, impossible to reach.

And yet when you see these seabirds

almost static in the air

and I'm been blown asunder.

(GENTLE MELODY PLAYING ON HARP)

They're completely at home in it,

calmly just taking it all in.

(GULLS CRYING)

It really feels like the pulse of the Atlantic.

Every part of you, every inch of you feels alive.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

I began my journey on Rathlin Island,

off the far northeast corner of Ireland,

and worked my way west

and then south down Ireland's Atlantic seaboard.

Lying off a remote corner of County Mayo,

the Inishkea islands are famed

for their wildlife and isolation.

(BOAT ROCKING GENTLY)

It's hard to believe that only a few days ago

that there was the tail end of a hurricane

beating this coastline. It just goes to show

how quickly the sea can change here.

With the closing evening, I'm looking forward

to getting ashore and spending some time with these islands.

(BIRDS CALLING)

Inishkea means 'Goose Island'.

The name goes back more than 800 years,

and though the humans are long gone,

the geese still come calling.

(GEESE CALLING)

We've thousands of barnacle geese

who are flying south from Iceland,

escaping the cold.

Wintertime has arrived on Inishkea Islands.

At their height there were 350 people

living on these islands, monoglot Irish speakers.

They were separated away from the mainland.

They had their own belief system,

their own dialect.

And on a day about 100 years ago in 1927

on the 28th of October,

a huge hurricane hit this island.

10 of the islanders perished while fishing for herring

and that's what really broke the heart of the islanders.

And as a result of that, they ended up

evacuating the island and leaving the island

in the early thirties.

One of the striking things that really happened

in these western islands

when they were evacuated by people,

is that the islands fell silent

in terms of the human voice, but they became completely alive.

Nature, slowly but surely, just creeps its way back.

(GEESE SQUAWKING)

(BIRD CRYING)

Every November, the islands host an invasion from the sea -

of the very first mammal on the planet

to receive official legal protection.

(SEALS GRUNTING, CALLING)

From far and wide,

Grey Seals descend on the Inishkeas

to moult, mate and give birth.

(BABY SEALS CRYING)

It's just so cute the way she just

reaches out and touches him.

Gives him a little scratch,

almost trying to help them find an itch

that they can't reach themselves.

Small moments of intimacy.

These are really special days for these two seals.

I suppose the sobering and quite sad thing

is that over half of these pups

won't make it past their first year.

(SEAL CRYING)

Every day his Mum comes up and feeds him really rich milk.

He'll put on nearly two and a half kilos every day.

And these first few weeks with mom

are so, so important to build up his fat reserves,

to build up his blubber,

because he needs the best start in life

to get out and survive in the cold Atlantic.

The pup doesn't wanna see mommy going back to sea.

She gave him one last scratch to say, 'Don't worry.'

'I'll be back in a few hours.'

(GROANING, CRYING)

(LOUD WAILING)

It's really striking to see how awkward they are on dry land,

but once they're in their own element, once they're in water,

it is absolute poetry to watch them move.

(SLOW, MAJESTIC MUSIC)

(SUDDEN SPLASHING)

(GRUNTING)

These weeks of short days in the middle of winter time

are all about the passing on of genetics.

As soon as these pups are born,

the bulls are looking to mate again with the females.

(PLAYFUL MUSIC)

(GRUNTING)

It doesn't look pretty

but this is true love in the Grey Seal world.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(WAILING)

After a while, there's a tenderness to it,

but at times you don't know if they're fighting

or if they're actually mating.

Normally these guys are brought into this world

on beaches or on stony coves.

But because there's no humans on this island,

the cows don't feel in any way in danger.

Then they're happy to come right up on the shore to give birth.

And he's probably never seen -

well he has never seen a human before.

I'm the first one and he gives you those strange looks.

Those 360s.

Looking at you upside down, from the side.

But these few weeks are really formative weeks

for these pups.

(LOUD WAILING)

It's really important that you give them their space.

But these young seals can't seem to help themselves.

Their curiosity is just so strong -

they wanna check you out.

(GRUNTING)

It's really tiring being a young seal.

Sometimes you just need to take a nap.

♪

(LOW WHINING)

These seals are probably over three weeks old at this stage

and they're having great fun

discovering this new...

.. this new found activity of swimming.

And I suppose for the first time in their lives,

it all makes sense.

Watching these guys, it really reminds me

of my own two boys splashing and playing.

They seem to be having so much fun.

(LOUD GRUNTING)

Youth is certainly wasted on the young.

You only get that when you're older.

As a species ourselves, we're so lucky that we have this long,

protracted childhood, to learn life skills

while our parents do all the hard work for us.

Whereas these guys only have a few short weeks

before they have to face the open Atlantic

and hunt for themselves.

Grey Seals were once hunted to the edge of extinction.

Today they're protected

and now Ireland and Britain

account for almost half of a healthy global population.

So places like the Inishkeas

are critical sanctuaries for animals caught up

in a rapidly changing world.

(LIVELY TUNE ON BODHRAN)

(GUITAR AND KEYBOARD JOIN)

Looming over the Inishkeas,

Achill Island is like a fortress

on Ireland's Atlantic coast -

its huge bulk dominating the route south.

(SAIL CREAKING)

Just rounding the back of Achill Island,

with its stunning cliffs,

it really feels for the first time

that I'm starting to face south on my journey.

And already the topography looks different.

It's almost like coming into another world,

like entering Mordor or someplace like that.

Everything is so sharp and edged,

cut by the wind and cut by the sea over millennia.

And then you come around the corner

and there in all its glory is Croagh Patrick,

Ireland's holiest mountain.

Towering over Clew Bay,

Croagh Patrick is steeped in legend.

As are the seas and islands all around me.

On this journey,

one ancient story resonates above all others -

about one of our most revered wild animals.

(SQUAWKING)

The Children of Lir.

Lir was a sea God who had four children he adored,

much to his second wife's displeasure.

And so she cast a spell of enchantment on the children,

turning them into beautiful swans

and she banished them for 900 years to roam Ireland.

For the last 300 years of their banishment,

Lir's children roamed these islands and waters

off County Mayo.

And that story has echoed along this coastline for millennia.

And the beautiful thing is, that the swans still come.

As soon as there's a chill in the autumn air,

chevrons of swans are seen high in the sky,

coming from the Arctic, escaping from the cold.

(SQUAWKING)

It's a story that connects the past and the present

in a way that always moves me.

That over thousands of years, the swans still come.

And hopefully they always will.

(SWANS CALLING)

♪

Like a giant beached whale,

Clare Island sits at the entrance to Clew Bay,

shielding the inshore waters

from the worst of the Atlantic storms.

1,600 people scraped a living here

just before the Great Famine of the mid 19th century.

(WAVES CRASHING)

Today just 160 people live on Clare Island,

and most of it is boglands and bare, bare mountain.

But Ireland's islands once looked very different.

Many used to be extraordinary wild worlds -

bristling with life and covered in native forest.

Clues to this lost world can still be found...

..if you know where to look!

♪

When these trees were alive,

wolves and bears roamed a very different Ireland.

It's incredible really to run your fingers

along these gnarled skeletal remains

of these Scots Pine trees.

And these have been carbon dated back to 7,500 years old,

exhumed by the islanders here as they dug for turf

to heat their homes.

All of these trees were almost in a tomb of peat,

almost like a black grave with no oxygen, no light

that completely preserved them.

Every single part of this island

was covered in pine forest right up to the very tip top

of Knockmore.

And that's exactly the scene that the first farmers,

the first settlers arriving on this island would've come across

- a thick forested place.

(SHEEP BLEATING)

The natural history of Ireland

is a history of deforestation by us.

Our islands are becoming wastelands -

shorn of anything wild.

In the last 50 years,

countless island farmers could only survive by rearing sheep.

And too many sheep eat mountains to the bone.

But in one secluded valley,

Clare Island hides something truly remarkable.

Its existence feels miraculous,

perhaps the last echo of original native woodland

on Ireland's western islands.

(BIRDS SINGING)

Down in this little valley,

the soundscape changes

the sound of the wind through the leaves, the bird song,

it feels healthy, it feels happier I suppose,

it feels the way it should be.

That lovely smell of fresh new growth,

everything from the mainland, from celandine,

bluebells...

.. and wood sorrel.

And you wouldn't expect

to have such a diversity of flora on an island.

And all these are indicators of an ancient woodland.

(BIRD SQUAWKING)

No one knows the full story of this mysterious little forest.

♪

Most of these places, nearly all of them are gone.

And yes, we need to farm. Yes, we need to produce food.

We can do it in a better way. We don't need to use

all the land. We need to leave places like this for nature.

This is a really, really special place

and it's a place that has to be preserved,

because these woodland habitats

bring a whole range of different species and richness

to the biodiversity of these islands

that so many of the islands are now missing.

♪

(BIRDS COOING, CHIRPING)

Very few land predators make it to Ireland's islands.

But Clare Island is home to one

of the most mysterious and ferocious...

(RUSTLING)

.. Ireland's smallest mammal - the Pygmy Shrew.

Barely six centimetres long

and five grams in weight,

these tiny hunters stalk the forest floor

and never rest.

They'll take on any little prey that they can manage,

but sometimes the prey is too big and they can't take it,

so for example, even a large earwig

can fend off their attack. They're that small.

And it's constantly against the clock.

They have such a high metabolic rate, they have to feed

every two hours or they'll starve to death.

They really do live their life on a knife's edge.

But how on earth did they get to Clare Island?

The closest cousins of Ireland's Pygmy Shrews

seem to be from northern Spain and the Pyrenees.

Some of the first humans to sail these waters may provide clues.

As the last Ice Age retreated -

it's thought that Stone Age Spaniards migrated north,

eventually reaching Ireland.

With the glaciers gone, they settled an untamed wilderness.

Like most Irish men today,

I carry Iberian genes from those pioneering sailors.

A powerful thought on my own voyage

through time and tide.

(STIRRING MUSIC)

For thousands of years,

Ireland's Atlantic waters were famous

for mysterious islands that would appear

out of the evening mists...

.. but no mortal soul could reach them.

Legendary Hy Brasil - an Irish Atlantis

which supposedly appeared only once every 7 years.

And Tir na nOg - the isle of eternal youth.

All were found out here on the edge of the great ocean.

It's hard to resist an enchanted island.

And 20 kilometres south is just such a place - Inishbofin

- the island of the white cow.

Because of their isolation,

our islands were the last great bastions

of some of our traditions, like storytelling.

And one particular story that I love about Inishbofin

is its originator story - of how two fishermen

were lost in the fog and they came across

this magical island that was suspended.

And they came ashore and they lit a fire.

And as soon as they lit the fire,

it froze the island in position. And with that,

they saw an old woman hunting a white cow out of the lake,

out of this lake, Lough Bó Finne.

And that's how Inis Bó Finne,

the island of the white cow got its name.

Many animals are born and live and die in one place,

but some have this uncontrollable urge

to seek out far distant places.

And one of those animals

call the dark murky waters of this lake their home...

.. the European Eel.

(LIVELY TRADITIONAL MUSIC)

They are so beautiful and mysterious in their own way.

They have this amazing, just amazingly complex life cycle

with so many stages - from 4,000 miles away

in the Sargasso sea all the way to the shores

of Inis Bó Finne.

The adult eels spawn way off the coast of Florida

in deep, deep water.

Over the next few years,

the baby eels travel across the entire Atlantic.

These eels literally float on ocean currents.

Whether they end up on the River Rhine

or whether they end up in a little lake on Inishbofin,

it is just random, a game of chance.

Once they hit freshwater, they're called elvers

and are still just a few centimetres long.

As a child, we used to kick about

the rivers around West Cork all summer long.

And every July,

when the temperature reached a certain point,

the streams would literally turn black with elvers -

this wriggling mass, as they slowly slivered upriver.

(WATER GUSHING)

Their journey is one

of the greatest animal migrations on earth.

What extraordinary instincts in their tiny brains

drive these animals to cross an ocean

and fight rocks and rapids to get to a place

they have never been?

Those that do survive then disappear

for 10, 20 even 30 years,

melting into the lakes and rivers across the island.

And they spend years slowly growing,

preparing themselves to go for another migration.

(ROPE THUDDING)

The silver eels, when they leave these shores to spawn,

they wait for the darkest and wettest nights of winter

to make their secret escape back

4,000 miles to the Sargasso sea.

When they get there, if they get there,

then they can breed.

It's just amazing to me,

that with all of our technology and all of our science,

we still don't know for certain what part of the Sargasso sea

these animals breed in.

And that, I suppose, is part of the charm and the mystery

of these animals.

♪

(BIRD SQUAWKING)

'A savage beauty, in every way magnificent',

wrote Oscar Wilde of the land on my horizon...

..the ancient Gaelic territory of Connemara.

And the homeland of my boat - a Galway Hooker.

Halfway down Ireland's west coast,

Connemara is a barren kingdom

of bog, rock and water.

And mountains.

Like a dark wall on the horizon,

the 12 Bens are always there,

always watching.

♪

Its turquoise waters, powdery white sand beaches.

It is paradise.

Absolutely beautiful.

♪

You could be anywhere in the world,

but we are in South Connemara at Feenish Island.

(GENTLE, RELAXING MUSIC)

(WATER SPRAYING)

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

There's one sound that, to my ear,

beats all others at this time of year.

The skylark -

the sound of summer on Ireland's west coast.

Though their song is all around you,

they're almost impossible to see.

For they are tiny birds and rise high in the sky

before they pour their hearts out.

But like so many in this day and age,

skylarks are having a terrible time.

The long grass and dunes on these western shores

are in retreat because of overgrazing and climate change.

And skylarks need that long grass to hide their nests.

(RUSTLING)

Ground nests are extremely vulnerable

and there's no shortage of predators about.

Black Backed Gulls are always looking for an easy meal.

(ROLLING CALL)

(CALLING CONTINUES)

Skylarks take all kinds of precautions

to avoid giving their nest locations away.

They fly all round to check that the coast is clear.

And then land away from the nests

before carefully creeping the final stage.

♪

Most of the time the chicks know that keeping quiet

is crucial for survival.

But when food arrives, they throw caution to the wind.

(TRILLING)

♪

I know when I'm here in Connemara

that I'm the best part of halfway along my journey

on the coast, heading home to West Cork.

But for this boat, Naomh Sinach,

this is her home, Mweenish Island.

This is where she was built in the 1880s.

It's 140 years of different hands on this tiller.

It's lovely to have the privilege

of sailing a boat like this in an area like this,

because you feel a connection down through the ages.

(IN IRISH) ♪ Nil falach I gcabhail ar Shadhbh Ní Bhruinnealla ♪

♪ Ach seanchóitín donn gan cabhail gan muinchille ♪

♪ Ora a Shadhbh, a Shadhbh Ní Bhruinnealla ♪

♪ A chuisle is a stóirín, éalaigh is imigh liom. ♪

♪ Máistir báid mhóir go deo ní ghlacfaidh me ♪

♪ Nuair a fhaigheann siad an chóir ♪

♪ 'Sé is doichi nach bhfanann siad. ♪

♪ Ora a Shadhbh, a Shadhbh Ní Bhruinnealla ♪

♪ A chuisle is a stóirín, éalaigh is imigh liom. ♪

This song is about a hooker captain

trying to entice a woman, Sadhbh Ní Bhruinnealla,

to marry him.

We'll never know if it worked or not.

This is Golam Head with the Napoleonic watchtower.

You know you're leaving Connemara

when you're leaving Golam Head behind.

♪

Getting up in the morning time

to experience the sunrise is always that bit of a challenge

when you're fond of the bed like myself,

but it always pays off in huge dividends.

There are times out here you can feel...

..like you're the only one around,

that you're the only one left in the world. And then...

(SPLASHING)

.. a pod of dolphins comes along and just wakes you up

and brings that huge amount of energy.

♪

(ECHOEY THUDDING)

But in recent years, a number of lone dolphins

have put Ireland in the headlines.

Solitary individuals who have set up home

along the west coast,

choosing to live entirely on their own.

This is a lone female, Dusty,

named after the singer, Dusty Springfield,

who had her ashes scattered off the Clare coast

and this dolphin appeared soon after.

For over two decades,

Dusty has haunted the underwater world

off the Clare coast and Aran Islands.

Highly sociable creatures,

it's very unusual for dolphins to live solitary lives.

Maybe some personality quirk

means she doesn't need the company of friends and family?

Whatever the reason,

Dusty brings a unique presence to these clear Atlantic waters.

(ECHOING UNDERWATER NOISES)

(GULL SQUAWKING)

Ahead of me is probably the most iconic

and world-famous of the archipelagos

off the west coast of Ireland, the Aran Islands.

These three islands are known the world over,

not only for their cultural heritage

but for their amazing barren beauty.

There's something really poignant

about coming to the Aran Islands in a Galway Hooker,

because the Aran Islands were part of the main trading route

for these Galway hookers

plying their trade between Connemara

out to the Aran Islands, bringing out turf,

because on these islands there's nothing to burn.

There's no... there's no turf, there's no bogs.

And so the Connemara people would bring across turf

and the Aran Islanders would sell wool,

poitín and fish to the mainlanders.

(MID-TEMPO MUSIC WITH SALSA FEEL)

The largest of the three Aran Islands is Inis Mór -

home to one of the most spectacular ancient monuments

in Europe.

Dún Aengus, Aengus's Fort,

a clifftop fort built over 3,000 years ago.

Facing the vast Atlantic and the setting sun,

Dún Aengus really feels like the fort

at the edge of the world.

The story of Aran is very much the story of rock.

One of the most impressive features of the islands

are these stone walls.

It's estimated to be over 1,000 miles of stone walls

between the three islands.

And every single wall tells a story.

Each one of these stones was placed by hand.

And I often think about the people who built them,

the hours it took, the conversations they had,

the thoughts, the musings, the songs that were sung.

(LAMBS BLEATING)

When the first settlers came here 6,000 years ago,

these islands were completely wooded.

We slowly brought agriculture with us

and we started to cut down the trees.

And when the trees were gone,

you had these huge prevailing winds from the Atlantic,

which swept and eroded a lot of the soil.

And so all you were left with is these sheets of limestone.

The island farmers were left with two choices,

give up farming or work wonders.

And work wonders they did.

Over many centuries, they set about creating

new fields of earth with brand new soil.

Years and years and years of hard labour of families,

of generations working together to bring up seaweed after storms

and sand from the beach

to slowly but surely build up an organic soil here.

And look at it now. It's just the most amazing rich habitat.

♪

(BUZZING)

For such small islands,

the Aran Islands have a huge diversity of plant life,

over 500 species. That's over half the amount

of species that are found on the mainland in Ireland,

which is really impressive when there are no rivers here,

there's no woodlands, there's no bogs.

And one of the things that's really unique

about the diverse range of plant life here,

is the Alpine and Arctic plants often growing

hundreds of feet up in the Alps.

Here they grow at sea level, side by side

with plants from the Mediterranean,

often in the same crevice or grike.

Because the farmers are letting cattle in here,

at the end of the growing season, they cut the grass down,

they munch it back, allowing these little flowers

to get the sunlight.

So what we're seeing around us

is the most amazing balancing act

between human agriculture and nature.

The Aran Islands' fractured moonscape

creates wonderful hideaways

for one of Ireland's most unusual creatures.

A pioneer that somehow made the crossing

from mainland Europe to Ireland

and then made the last jump to the Aran Islands.

The Viviparous lizard.

The Viviparous lizard is Ireland's only native reptile

and this female is carrying a precious cargo.

Almost all other reptiles on the planet lay eggs.

But that would be a dangerous strategy

for a cold blooded creature in this cold Atlantic kingdom.

These lizard mothers give birth to live young -

and she looks completely deflated after delivery.

(PERCUSSIVE MELODY)

The baby lizards are now on their own -

their mother will have nothing more to do with them.

Fully-formed mini-dinosaurs ready to take on the world.

(WATER CRASHING)

From the Aran Islands, it's a short hop

to one of the most iconic sites on the west coast of Ireland.

♪

The Cliffs of Moher,

standing almost 700 feet tall.

They tower over the Atlantic seaboard.

♪

One of the biggest things that strikes you about these cliffs

is the layers of rock, how it lays bare

the strata of history.

Exposing what it once was, a huge river delta

in an ancient sea over 300 million years ago.

And that river delta wasn't here,

it was 6,000 miles south near the equator.

And over the interim of those 300 million years,

through tectonic plate movement - slowly moved, northwards,

pushing and rising out of the sea.

The power of time.

(WATER GLUGGING)

Any of the free-diving I've done before,

has always been off the shore

and the sea bed has a very gradual decline.

You always feel close to terra firma.

But when you get in the water out here, it feels different -

like you're on the edge of a whole new world.

And with 3,000 kilometres of open Atlantic

starting right here,

you just never know what might come in from deep water.

♪

(MUSIC BUILDS)

Basking sharks cruise the west coast of Ireland

in spring and summer.

They usually appear in ones and twos -

with their mouths wide open, feeding on plankton.

But in the last seven years,

something extraordinary has been discovered...

..this.

(MUSIC SOARING)

A huge gathering of basking sharks,

only ever seen a handful of times before.

Dozens and dozens of these gentle giants

gathering for a few days in late summer

off the coast of Clare.

This is the only place on Earth where this is being seen -

the sharks appearing in such large numbers,

forming beautiful concentric circles.

♪

It's such a spectacular feeling

being that close to a wild animal -

but not just any wild animal, but an animal that size.

They are just gargantuan. And when you're in the water

with them, they fill your whole vision.

♪

Scientists studying this remarkable gathering

have found what seems

like an equal number of males and females.

They've likened it to a kind of speed-dating event

for the basking shark world.

All indications are that this is a critical breeding behaviour,

especially important,

when there are so few of these giants left on the planet.

One estimate puts their number in the Atlantic

as low as 10,000.

So the hundreds of sharks at these gatherings

are a very significant chunk of the global population.

(SOOTHING MUSIC)

There's a beautiful saying in Irish -

'chomh sámh le liamhán gréine' -

as gentle as a basking shark.

And there's no doubt

that they are the gentle giants of our waters.

To be in such close proximity to them,

and that number displaying that amazing behaviour

was just, it's just mind blowing.

Absolutely mind blowing.

It's days like this that you realise

what a rich and amazing place the west coast of Ireland is.

♪