BBC Coast goes to Ireland
The BBC travelled to the West Coast of Ireland to film their latest episode of Coast. They explored the shoreline from Galway all the way up to Arranmore Island in Co Donegal.
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The Wild West of Ireland
On the way they encounter pirate queens, radio enthusiasts, JFK’s heritage, and surf stars. As the final frontier over the Atlantic to America, this coastline has been the site of epic achievements and historical moments. Neil Oliver, Dick Strawbridge and Alice Roberts make their way along Ireland's stunning coastline, with a little help from the locals along the way. Archaelogists, lifeboat men, historians, and even the army lend a hand to the Coast team as they discover unusual characters and quirky tales.
JFK's homecoming
JFK visited Galway on his trip to Ireland to discover his Irish roots. His family were from Limerick and Wexford, but the rapturous welcome he received in Galway prompted him to talk about the strong links between Boston and Galway. He visited just 5 months before his assassination, and in the TV programme Neil Oliver meets a photographer who managed to get in the presidential car to get a better picture of the trusting young president.
Flying High
The first transatlantic flight landed in Galway. John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown took off in Newfoundland and after 16 hours in the air, finally identified a suitable green field just off the Connemara coast. Unfortunately, it was actually bog land, and the intrepid pair technically crash-landed in the peaty soil, but were un-injured. There’s a memorial to the pair’s amazing efforts near Clifden, with a solid path through the bog!
Amazing Marconi
Dick Strawbridge is part of a crack team of radio enthusiasts attempting to recreate Marconi’s first commercial transmission. Using technology from 1907, the team shy away from building the full ½ mile long antenna required to transmit the 900 miles across the Atlantic, but their efforts highlight Marconi’s remarkable achievement. Soon after 1907, messages were flying back and forth over the Atlantic and the world seemed a little bit smaller.
Croagh Patrick
This is Ireland’s ‘holy mountain’, nestled in a very scenic spot in Mayo. In 441 AD, Saint Patrick spent 40 days and nights fasting on the mountain, apparently just before banishing snakes from the island. Every year pilgrims climb to the summit barefoot in pilgrimage, but if you’re not doing penance, then sturdy footwear is recommended. Well worth it for the view as well!
Clew Bay & the Ceide Fields
Clew Bay has 365 islands – one for each day of the year! Nick Crane investigates the natural glacial movements which created this stunningly dramatic number of islands. Meanwhile, Alice Roberts unearths the startling artefacts of the oldest farm dwellings in the British Isles in the Ceide Fields in Co Mayo. Before Stonehenge had been built, these farmers had developed a community able to tend the land off the Mayo coast.
The Pirate Queen
The ‘Sea Queen of Connacht’ was an intimidating and inspirational character in the 1500s. A merchant and pirate, she captured any ships she saw from the vantage point of her castles. In Coast, Neil Oliver visits Rockfleet Castle, her fortified home stuffed with all sorts of tricks and decoys to keep the enemies at bay. She has many different names – Granuaile, or Gráinne ní Mhaille, and a legend covering multiple husbands, babies born on board pirate ships, and, most famously, a meeting of minds when she went to negotiate terms with Queen Elizabeth I.
Surfing the wave
The North West of Ireland is a world-renowned surf spot. Coast focuses on the beach at Strandhill, which a young pro called Easkey Britton describes as a ‘swell magnet’. This whole stretch of coastline is a mecca for surfers, and Easkey was named after one of the most famous breaks, a lovely village in Co Sligo.
Lifeboats Ahoy
Surprisingly for an organisation in the Republic of Ireland, the lifeboat men all belong to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. When Ireland gained its independence in 1922, the men voted to remain part of the UK operation, and remain so to this day.
