Coast (2005) s04e04 Episode Script
Cork to Dublin
Welcome to the Old Head of Kinsale, here on the south coast of lreland, and a relaxing start to a great journey and some remarkable stories.
Heading eastward, this coast is famous for its great ports, harbours and estuaries.
On our Irish odyssey, AIice discovers the secrets of gIass-making.
And it's starting to bubble now.
Yeah, l've got them.
Okay.
OLlVER: Miranda seeks out a rare and speciaI visitor to this coast.
And you can even hear the hum of the wings.
This is just magical.
OLlVER: Dick Strawbridge reveaIs how BruneI wrestIed with one of IreIand's toughest chaIIenges to buiId a raiIway.
lt is a cracking ride.
OLlVER: Hermione starts her own earthquake.
(EXPLOSlON) -Oh, fantastic! -Excellent.
lt's a snug fit.
OLlVER: And I get to join the Irish Navy on manoeuvres.
Action stations, action stations.
This, from the southeast corner of lreland, is Coast.
OLlVER: From the coast of South WaIes we've traveIIed to Southern IreIand.
Our journey takes us to the great maritime city of Cork, to Waterford, RossIare, Wexford and aII the way up to DubIin.
But we're teeing off here at the OId Head of KinsaIe, an exposed headIand and a goIf course with an infamous 12th hoIe that eats goIf baIIs for breakfast.
They come from aII over to pIay here.
Tiger Woods, me, of course, and someone eIse who's had a unique and spectacuIar view of this course.
Have you ever imagined what it would be like to see the world as something small, like a golf ball, so you could almost reach out and touch it? Well, American NASA astronaut Dan Tani has done, and he comes here to play golf.
I couId do with Dan's heIp pIaying the 12th hoIe, because not onIy did he marry one of the staff, he's photographed the entire course from space.
And he's on the Iine now from NASA HQ in Houston, Texas.
The Old Head is so easy to see because the Old Head is such a distinctive shape on the coast of lreland.
Of course, you're moving at 17,000 miIes an hour.
I have a piece of video to show you what it Iooks Iike.
Then once you find the Old Head, you put the big telephoto lens on the camera and snap as many pictures as possible.
I can onIy imagine what it's Iike standing there on the 12th tee.
What a beautiful place, and l really envy you that you get a chance to be there.
Well, l mean, l envy you.
To change the subject just slightly, what advice would you give to a complete novice confronted by the apocalyptic horror that is the 1 2th tee? DAN: The advice on the tee is to stay right, more right than you think.
There's an aiming stone there, and you're so tempted to bite off a IittIe bit of the dog leg and go left, but there's two or three hundred feet of cliffs.
-l'm painfully aware of that.
-l'm sure there are, yeah, a couple of million golf balls down there of people that thought they could bite off more than they can chew.
l love that hole.
lf l could play a hole over and over, that would certainly be one of them in the world.
Well look, Dan, thanks very much for talking to me.
lt's been a real treat.
-Enjoy your stay there.
Bye-bye, now.
-OLlVER.
; Thank you.
Bye-bye.
OLlVER: With the guidance of astronaut Dan Tani, NeiI OIiver steadies himseIf as he faces the dreaded 12th hoIe.
Nerves of steeI, this man.
From the OId Head of KinsaIe we traveI past KinsaIe itseIf and on to the great port of Cork.
As Cork Harbour comes into view, one thing strikes you immediateIy - it's huge.
It's aIso one of the finest naturaI harbours in the worId.
For centuries it's been a haven for shipping.
Even today, with its deep-water channeIs and proximity to the main shipping Ianes, ships come here from aII over the worId.
At the harbour's heart Iies Cobh.
Over the years, Cobh has pIayed host to many fine ships.
Just recentIy the QE2 was moored here on her Iast voyage before being converted into a hoteI in Dubai.
HardIy surprising, the pubIic were out in force with their cameras to capture this historic moment for themseIves.
There's barely a news programme these days without so-called amateur footage of something or other, but it's not an invention of the modern media age.
There's nothing new about amateur coverage of historical events.
Many years ago on the quayside at Cobh, a unique set of photographs was taken.
The date, 1 1th ApriI, 1912.
Outside the White Star Line's ticket office, an excited crowd was gathered, waiting to board the White Star's Iatest and greatest Iiner on her maiden voyage.
That Iiner was about to become the most famous ship in history, bar none.
The Titanic.
She'd aIready set saiI from Southampton, crossed the ChanneI to Cherbourg, and now her very Iast port of caII before crossing the AtIantic to New York was Cork.
On board the Titanic, waiting to disembark as she moored out in Cork Harbour, was a young IocaI man, a keen photographer and theoIogy student, Frank Browne.
His uncIe and guardian had forked out for Frank to traveI on the Titanic, first cIass, from Southampton to Cork, but no further.
1 23 people joined the Titanic at Cobh.
From that now neglected and decaying wooden jetty right over there, they got aboard two tenders that ferried them out to the liner herself further out in the harbour.
Only seven people disembarked and a bitterly disappointed Frank Browne was one of them.
On the way to Cork he'd been befriended by a wealthy American couple who'd offered to pay the remainder of his passage to New York.
He'd sent a telegraph to his Jesuit superior at the college asking for permission.
The reply he got was terse and unequivocal: ''Get off that ship,'' signed, ''Principal''.
Of course, with hindsight, Frank Browne was one of the Iuckiest peopIe aIive, ordered off a ship that was about to saiI from Cork to an icy AtIantic grave.
The images Frank Browne recorded on his camera as he watched the Titanic Ieave, instantIy made the front page of newspapers worIdwide.
Today, they remain a priceIess record not just of the most famous ship in history, but aIso an evocation of the joy, the sadness and excitement of Titanic's passengers as they embarked on their tragic journey.
Cork Harbour may have seen tragedy, but it's aIso witnessed a Iot of Irish fun.
For starters, it's home to the RoyaI Cork Yacht CIub, founded in 1720.
That makes it the oIdest yacht cIub on the pIanet.
It's moved HQ severaI times over the centuries before anchoring in Cross Haven, on the western side of the harbour.
Now, oId it might be, stuffy it isn't, and peopIe fIock here to be part of the bienniaI regatta known the worId over as Cork Week.
My name is Eddie English.
l run a sailing school in Cobh on the other side of the harbour, and I've been invoIved with Cork Week since its inception.
I'm fortunate enough to have done regattas aII over the worId, and to me, this is the best one.
My famiIy are from Cobh and my grandfather and father grew up with the water IiteraIIy Iapping onto the front door, and since l was very small, l went sailing.
Since the earIy '90s I've saiIed with Oyster Catcher, and it's very much a sociaI thing as much as a saiIing thing with our crew.
There's four brothers in the famiIy and there are three of us fuII-time invoIved in saiIing as a career, and our chiIdren have continued on that tradition.
My own kids are very smaII, but they're invoIved in saiIing, so they'II be watching today.
You can go to a footbaII match and there couId be 20,000 peopIe watching that game, but there's Iess than 30 peopIe out on the pitch.
With Cork Week, you might have 20,000 peopIe invoIved, but there's going to be 8,000 people out there participating and racing, and everyone stays invoIved right the way through the week.
OLlVER: As the great yachts cross the finishing Iine, they aIso pass the very first home of the RoyaI Cork Yacht CIub, on HauIbowIine IsIand.
For centuries, HauIbowIine was a strategicaIIy vitaI base for the British RoyaI Navy.
Then, in 1938, it became, and remains to this day, the command centre for the Irish NavaI Service, and I've been invited to join them on an exercise, on the fIagship patroI vesseI, the LE Eithne.
(WHlSTLlNG) First off, I have a bit of a confession to make to Captain Hugh TuIIy.
l must admit l didn't realise that lreland had a navy.
Well, you wouldn't be the first person to say that.
We're a relatively young navy, and l suppose we're sort of out of sight, out of mind.
A lot of our time is spent way offshore, so it's difficult to have sort of a profile.
OLlVER: What is the remit of the Irish NavaI Service? TULLY: Our main job is maritime surveiIIance, so that can be fishing protection, search and rescue, drug interdiction.
OLlVER: With eight patroI vesseIs and one of the Iargest maritime zones in Europe to patroI, the Irish Navy is a serious proposition.
-Find out what's happening -Sir, if l can interrupt you there one moment.
We've just received an intelligence report.
A maritime surveillance aircraft has come across a commercial tug, with the description of an lrish vessel, the Oyster Bank.
OLlVER: And as second-in-command Lieutenant OIan O'Keefe outIines the position of a suspect vesseI, something cIicks.
When the NavaI Service invited me on an exercise, they didn't mean twice round the harbour and back to the officers' mess for a swift haIf.
Their training Iooks deadIy serious.
-Sir, if you'd like to join me there? -Excellent.
Okay.
OLlVER: As we go down to the Operations Room, OIan expIains we're about to conduct what they caII a ''compIiant boarding'' of the suspect tug, and I'm to be part of that boarding team.
-l've a target bearing 040 degrees.
-Target bearing is 040 degrees.
O'KEEFE: From here, we have to positively track the Oyster Bank.
Once we have him tracked on our radar, we have our weapons sensors directed on the vessel also, from there the gunnery officer will make a recommendation to the captain that we have the vessel in our sensors.
So what capability have you got sat here? Well, l'm Gunnery Officer on board, so l'm in charge of all the weapons.
This screen is giving me what the digital camera is actually seeing.
FANNlNG: l've daylight TV and infrared systems.
And at this point you're capable of doing really anything you want to that vessel, should the situation arise? Yes, should it arise and once we have everything confirmed, the captain can give the order once and we can controI the main weapons from here.
Command WD, target confirmed.
Target: merchant vessel, Oyster Bank.
Neil, we'll join the captain and bridge team, as we close this vessel.
That's our next stage.
So if we make our way straight to the bridge now.
OLlVER: Right -OFFlCER: Starboard 20.
-Starboard 20.
FANNlNG: Request close for visual confirmation.
Over.
OFFlCER: Roger.
We're cIosing that position now.
-O'KEEFE: Action stations? -Yeah, action stations.
O'KEEFE: Roger.
Action stations.
(WHlSTLlNG) Action stations, action stations.
Neil, we've just gone to our highest state of readiness there now, so the naval boarding team now are going to muster in the hangar, put on their kit and their weapons.
The Boarding Officer is going to contact the Oyster Bank and ask it a series of questions.
lf you'd like to join me now, we'll go to the hangar.
OLlVER: Okay.
O'KEEFE: Okay, Neil, we have your kit here.
What is the lMO number of your vessel? MAN: Roger.
My IMO is 172.
-O'KEEFE: That's it.
Okay, just -lt's a snug fit.
What is your next port of call? MAN: My next port of caII is Cork.
OFFlCER: Sir, I intend to board your vesseI with a navaI boarding team and my team wiII be armed.
We're gonna board on the port side, just far of this pier here.
Weapons, the H&K 9mm pistol.
Code words for today.
Situation turning hostile is Catfish, and team withdrawing is Rebound.
-And what should l do? -Just stick with me.
When they see the men in balaclavas coming, they must know it's not going to be a good day, though.
(LAUGHlNG) Did you tell the crew to be visible for your approach? O'KEEFE: Yeah, yeah, l tell them on the radio.
OLlVER: Right.
You want to be able to see them when you arrive.
-O'KEEFE: Exactly, yeah.
-SAlLOR: Okay, go.
Keep your hands in the air.
SAlLOR: What l would like you to do is to get down on both knees.
OLlVER: l'm with you.
l'm with you.
SAlLOR: All right, put your hands in the air, put your hands in the air! Bridge clear! -Just get your log book, please, sir.
-My log book? lt's amazing to me that this kind of work is going on day and night, year round, to try and make sure that the coast is as safe as possible.
Now, this was just an exercise, there were no bullets in their guns, but there's something about seeing armed men, there's something about seeing guns being pointed at people.
lt's intimidating and it's frightening - but l suppose it should be.
OLlVER: Just days after I joined the boarding crew, a news report confirms the importance of the exercise.
REPORTER: The hauI of cocaine discovered on board a yacht off the Cork coast was put on dispIay today.
Much of it was almost certainly destined for the UK and mainland Europe.
OLlVER: In a hazardous night-time operation, the Irish NavaI Service seized over 600 miIIion pounds worth of cocaine in a raid on a yacht - the biggest drugs hauI in Irish history.
Heading east from Cork, we're brought to a sudden haIt by a massive 100-foot excIamation mark on the coast at Ardmore.
One of IreIand's famous and mysterious round towers.
That is just incredible.
And it's just as much an icon of lreland as any shamrock or harp.
There's about 60 of these round towers scattered through the lrish landscape, and over the years they've bred all manner of weird and wonderful theories as to exactly what they're for.
The most popuIar expIanation is that the round towers were boIt-hoIes for priests in times of invasion.
But there have been other Iess pIausibIe theories, everything from druidic observatories to, more recentIy, the idea that they concentrate para-magnetic energy from the stars to heIp the crops.
The truth is probably a little more prosaic than that, and there's a big clue in that the little church just down the hill doesn't have a tower of its own.
That's its bell tower, just like an ltalian campaniIe.
And they were built from the 9th to the 1 2th centuries to call the faithful to prayer.
But there's supposed to be something even more mysterious than the round tower here at Ardmore that's reaIIy sparked my curiosity, something that apparentIy dates back centuries before either the tower or the church were buiIt.
What I want to see is a stone, and on it an ancient Irish way of writing caIIed Ogham.
OrIa Murphy from Cork University is an expert in this ancient script.
-This is the Ogham stone, then.
-So that's writing? MURPHY: This is the earliest lrish writing.
-ROBERTS: ls it runes? -MURPHY: No, it's like the runic in that it's incised in lines, but it's completely different in that the different shapes obviously mean different things.
So here on this section, you have the name - L, and the three scores, U G-U-D-E- C-C-A-S.
So it's Lugudeccas all the way up, right, then unfortunately it got chopped at some point when it was being used for building.
So what's the date of this? When did people actually start writing Ogham? lt dates from about the 5th century, maybe the 4th, but probably the 5th century, so it's very early.
ROBERTS: And why do you think people started writing on stone at this time? MURPHY: l think probably that they met with Christianity, and with Christianity came writing, and perhaps they'd used stones as memoria before, but now they were able to translate that, using this new technology of writing, of matching sounds to visual symbols, and they've come up with something unique, and something that's lrish, and this is it, it's Ogham.
Orla, l find it pretty remarkable that you can read this.
Can you write it as well? Yes, we can, we can write it as well.
-ROBERTS: Shall we go and try? -Yes.
-Shall we just have a go in the sand, then? -Yes.
So what's happening is we're going to write it either side of a stave, just like as if we were going to write on the edge of a stone.
-On an upright stone? -On an upright stone.
Or it's sometimes on the flat, but just on an edge is important.
MURPHY: Okay, so, here we go.
So reading from the bottom up, we're going to have a notch for your A -Two lines for your L.
-ROBERTS: Yup.
MURPHY: One, two, three, four for your l Five, actually, for your l, and one, two, three, four for your C, and one, two, three, four for your E.
E.
l wouldn't want to write a particularly long word with that, l have to say.
No, you could be there for a long time.
(LAUGHS) -You could.
-l'm going to have a go myself.
ROBERTS: So first of all the line which is the edge of the stone, then.
-MURPHY: Yes.
-A.
MURPHY: Yup.
ROBERTS: So voweIs are notches on the edge of the stone or stave l.
and consonants are Iines on the sides.
I get it.
C.
-E.
-MURPHY: Perfect.
ROBERTS: My name in Ogham.
MonumentaI masonry, graffiti, the idea of Iogging on to the Iandscape and Ieaving your name for posterity seems ageIess, but it aII started here in IreIand more than 1600 years ago with Ogham.
OLlVER: The sea cIiffs here aren't massive, but they can be IethaI.
On the headIand at Tramore, the MetaI Man was raised as a warning to shipping after the Sea Horse ran aground here in 1816, with the Ioss of aImost 400 Iives.
Tramore.
Most of the pIaces we've visited so far have had Irish names.
Tramore is simpIy Irish for ''big beach''.
Good name.
But as we approach Waterford, the second of the great ports on our journey, things change drasticaIIy.
Because Waterford isn't an Irish name, nor is it EngIish.
It's Viking.
It comes from the OId Norse ''Vradrafjordr'', meaning ''the haven from the windy sea''.
SignaIIing the first in a chain of major trading ports estabIished by the Vikings in virtuaIIy every estuary from here to DubIin.
Today, Waterford is virtuaIIy synonymous the worId over with Iead crystaI.
GIass.
And that's given AIice an idea.
l'm just walking along the beach here picking up these really beautiful little water-worn pebbles of glass.
But what is this stuff? l think most of us know it's got something to do with silica and that it could possibly be made by heating up sand, but is that all there is to it? In the interests of science and for the sheer fun of it, I've decided to see if we can make gIass from sand - oh, and try to do it on a beach.
lf anybody's going to succeed, it's going to be Waterford Crystal's chief scientist, Richard Lloyd.
-This bit? -That'd be perfect.
So, Richard, would any old sand do? lt's got to have a component of quartz in it, which is a form of silica.
Silica doesn't need any other ingredient to make glass other than heat energy.
-But you think this looks all right? -This looks fine.
-ROBERTS: Let's go and make some glass.
-LLOYD: Hmm.
This is Tony.
He's the man that's going to provide the heat for us today.
-ROBERTS: Hello, Tony.
-TONY: Hi.
So, exactly how much heat are we going to need? LLOYD: Well, in its present form we'll need 1800 Celsius to melt this, but what we're going to do is mix it with some potash, and this helps the sand to melt.
So how much does the potash bring down the melting point of the quartz? LLOYD: By about 600 Celsius, so we can then achieve melting temperatures with Tony's burner.
So we can pop it on there ROBERTS: Wow! The crucible is already glowing bright red.
Red heat is only 600 Celsius.
-Red heat is 600? -LLOYD: Approximately.
And it's starting to bubble now.
LLOYD: Yeah, that's the potash releasing its carbon dioxide, and then it starts to react with the sand grains to form the glass.
ROBERTS: So, Richard, how does this on the beach reIate to actuaIIy what goes on in the factory? LLOYD: EssentiaIIy, the technoIogy underIying aII the things we've done on the beach is exactIy the same as the factory.
ROBERTS: And often this gIass is taIked about as being Iead crystaI - do you actuaIIy add Iead to it? LLOYD: We do, yeah, in the form of Iead oxide.
This makes it sparkIe.
It aIso aIIows the gIass to be worked over a Ionger temperature range, which Iets the bIowers do their magic.
ROBERTS: It takes years to achieve this IeveI of skiII.
BeIieve me, it isn't easy.
I've just had a go myseIf.
One way or another, gIass has been made here for hundreds of years.
These skiIIs are ancient.
This is Waterford Museum's famous Kite Brooch, of Irish-Viking design, exquisite goId fiIigree and the tiniest beads of gIass.
It functioned as a cIoak fastener, and was very much Iike the Irish ring pins that became an essentiaI part of Viking haute couture.
When this brooch was made 1,000 years ago, the gIass beads were treated Iike diamonds.
GIass was a precious, hard-won materiaI.
LLOYD: GIass is a very speciaI substance.
It's not Iike other soIids.
It's got no definite meIting point.
It just gets softer and softer as it gets hotter and hotter.
It has no crystaIs - that's why you can see through it.
Once the quartz has formed the gIass, the moIecuIes can't rotate and orientate themseIves into reguIar patterns, which a crystaI is, you see, so they're trapped in irreguIar shapes, and that's what keeps the gIass cIear.
l'll get it and you clear off that way, yeah? ROBERTS: Ooh Oh, wow! LLOYD: There we have glass from the beach.
There is just something really wonderful about being able to make glass from sand.
-LLOYD: Yup.
-ROBERTS: lt looks really green.
That's because the sand we've used has got a lot of iron in it, which makes it brown.
When it forms a glass, the iron changes chemically to form the green compound.
Most sand on the beaches around the world will have iron in it.
-So our beaches are rusty.
-LLOYD: Our beaches are rusty.
ROBERTS: What a great day.
Not onIy have we succeeded in making gIass from sand, but the craftsmen of Waterford CrystaI have made something that harkens back to the very foundation of Waterford itseIf, a Viking ring pin.
ROBERTS: That is beautiful.
Oh, Richard, that really is lovely.
And it's got designs all the way along it.
And it's like a symbol of Waterford, isn't it? The Vikings and the glass.
OLlVER: Leaving County Waterford, our journey continues to County Wexford, via the Passage East Ferry.
On the far shore Iies BaIIyhack, base camp for the 140-miIe SIi Charman or Wexford CoastaI Path.
TraveIIing up the peninsuIa towards Hook Head there's a IittIe inIet known as HerryIock, where beach and cIiff face are made up of Iayers of oId red sandstone.
And aII over the beach, there are these strange reguIar bowIs in the rock.
You could walk past this and think it was natural - you could just overlook it, think it was maybe cut by the sea or the wind.
And if you look really closely you start to pick out strange marks, cut marks.
These are the marks left by tools that were used to cut something out.
Once you get your eye in, you realise they're all over the place around here.
Now, l'm not going to pretend that l don't know why these holes are here.
These are the remains left behind by quarrying for millstones which are used to grind flour, and right up until the end of the 19th century Herrylock was famous for the quality for its millstones.
The incredibIy hard, gritty HerryIock sandstone was ideaI for miIIstones - so much so, they were soId aII over IreIand.
But how did they manage to extract the stones intact from the rock? To find out, I'm meeting up with IocaI stonemason PauI O'Hara.
-OLlVER: Hello, Paul.
-O'HARA: Hello, Neil.
OLlVER: PauI has a fascination with the oId stonemasons' techniques.
l'm just working on a bit of the stone here.
What is the process, then? How do you start with a piece of bedrock and end up with a millstone that's free? Well, initially you'd mark it out.
Roughly a four-foot diameter is the stone that's been quarried here, then you score around your shape, skirting down along it and furrow the channel all the way around the circle.
They would have gone down maybe 16 inches.
And how long is that going to take with a hammer and chisel? l'd say roughly three weeks they would have taken -OLlVER: Three weeks.
-O'HARA: to take out.
And once you've cut this gutter around the millstone, how do you get it off the bedrock? How do you get it free? O'HARA: You would bore a hole, again using your hammer and chisel, and then fit a timber wedge - and maybe a willow timber, 'cause willow has a great absorption.
The sea would have come on in, flooded the channel, the timber would then expand, and the stone would have lifted.
So as the wood expands with the moisture, that is enough force to crack this? O'HARA: That would have been enough force, yeah.
l dunno, l've got a lovely picture of the actualthe scene here.
Up beyond there was 10 houses about.
There must have been great comradeship between them, and then when the conversation went dead, the only thing you would actually hear would be maybe the clanging of the hammer and the stone.
(HAMMER CLANGlNG) OLlVER: By the Iate 1800s, the HerryIock chiseIs sang no more.
Cast iron repIaced oId red sandstone as the perfect materiaI for making miIIstones.
Is it just me, but I feeI a IittIe sad that this ancient industry came to an end.
Cutting a millstone like this one involved some of the hardest physical labour imaginable.
But what makes this such a satisfying story is that the secret ingredient was human genius - using the power of wood swollen by water to break these free from the bedrock, so the final tool that they had in their armoury was the power of the sea.
PIacid as it might appear, this peninsuIa has a terrifying reputation for mangIing ships.
No surprise to find a Iighthouse, then.
But it's perhaps the oIdest intact operationaI Iighthouse in the worId.
In fact, historian and author BiIIy CoIfer beIieves it dates back 800 years.
Now, this I've got to see.
Well, Billy, it does look like it's taken a pounding over the years, but how do you know it's as old as you say it is? -Let's go inside, Neil, and l'll show you.
-Okay.
Now, Neil, if you look up, you'll get your first impression of a medieval building.
OLlVER: Right, oh yeah, it's like a castle keep or a cathedral.
lt's so massive.
COLFER: Exactly.
They used castle technology to build the place, that's the reason for the roof vaulting.
-Castle technology.
l like that.
-Exactly.
-OLlVER: And why is it black? -COLFER: lt's black with Welsh coal because for 500 years the light was kept burning mostly with coal, and this was the coal store.
Okay? COLFER: The three chambers are similar, each vaulted.
Obviously the stone vault can be seen as a fireproofing feature.
lf you have a big fire burning on top of your building, you don't want wooden floors.
OLlVER: Over 500 years, that big fire to create the Iight meant importing thousands of tons of WeIsh coaI.
Whoever buiIt this pIace had a Iot of cIout.
COLFER: Our first historic record of the buiIding comes from the Pembroke Estate Papers in the 1240s, when the monks of the monastery of Rinn Dubhain are given money for the maintenance of the buiIding.
OLlVER: So was the tower built by a monastic order, is that whose idea it was? COLFER: No, they were financed by one of the most powerful knights in England, William Marshall, who controlled this area.
OLlVER: Hook weather.
Some view.
William Marshall, the builder of this lighthouse, was one of the new breed of adventurers really who came to lreland, one of the Anglo-Normans.
He had this lighthouse constructed at this extremity of the Hook Peninsula to guide his shipping up Waterford Harbour to his new port of Ross, which he was determined to make into a financial success.
So this was a very practical addition to the landscape by a businessman on the make.
Yes, it was highly practical and functional, but it was also a highly visible symbol of Marshall's power and status, which became an iconic feature in the lrish landscape.
OLlVER: The Iighthouse's buiIder, WiIIiam MarshaII, had powerfuI connections.
It was his father-in-Iaw, Strongbow, who first Ianded a Norman army on Irish soiI, just beyond the Iighthouse at Baginbun and Bannow Bay.
The irony is the Normans first came here as mercenaries, not invaders.
They were invited.
But they Iiked what they saw.
They settIed.
And they dominated Irish history for centuries.
This is Carnsore Point.
From now on we're heading north.
Next stop, RossIare.
RossIare has thrived since the need arose for a harbour with a deep enough passage for steam ships.
Yet it's so weII positioned facing the UK, you'd expect to find a far more ancient port here.
And there is one.
A coupIe of miIes up the coast, Wexford.
To the Vikings ''Waiesfjordr'', a wide, shaIIow harbour.
To another invader, OIiver CromweII, the town of Wexford was a CathoIic thorn in his side.
In 1649 his New ModeI Army wiped out aII CathoIic resistance and repIaced them with a new wave of settIers, the so-caIIed New EngIish.
The town is one thing, but he who wouId be master of Wexford's harbour must do battIe with a constant naturaI foe, sand.
As the tide ebbs, the entire estuary is fiIIed with continuousIy shifting ridges of sand.
Deep-drafted ocean-going vesseIs can't cope with the periIs of the sand banks.
But there's a very ancient type of boat that can.
FIat-bottomed and traditionaIIy with a pointed bow and stern, it's the Wexford cot.
DUGGAN: Larry Duggan is my name, and I have been making Wexford cots for 60 years, of aII types.
Our whoIe famiIy have been in it for hundreds of years.
My father and my grandfather, and my great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather were making these way back in the early part of the 18th century.
I suppose it's nice to be abIe to say that you're abIe to do something that comes naturaI to you.
That's quite good now, Richard.
Wexford's the onIy pIace that we get cots.
lt's the estuary that makes the cots suitable for what it is, or the cot is suitable for the estuary, whichever way you want to put it.
That boat wouId push out in six inches of water.
That's the reason why the fIat bottom is stiII here.
You wouIdn't get near the beach with a keeI boat because the keeI wouId be in the mud before you get near the shore.
That's clinker - clinker is one board lapped over another.
l think the Vikings brought that to this part of the country because all the Viking boats are all clinker-built.
Apart from the cots l've made, shooting punts.
l became an expert on building punts.
No matter who wanted a punt, they came to Larry's yard.
A traditionaI punt, that's onIy 10 inches high and she's 15, 16 or 17 feet Iong.
You push it along with a pole.
A good punter, he turns on his side this way and he's able to just glide along.
It's Ioaded from the muzzIe, usuaIIy six ounces of shot to every ounce of powder.
My big one takes four ounces of powder, 24 ounce of shot.
(GUNSHOT) When it comes to the good shots, there have been good shots got and hellish good shots.
l got 166 golden plover in one shot way back in 1952.
There was a great market for them.
I mean, aII during the war years you couIdn't get enough of them.
That's England, that's where they were all going to feed them all over there in the war.
(GUNSHOT) OLlVER: Shooting wiIdfowI using a punt can be IethaIIy effective, but it's aIso Iicensed and very strictIy controIIed.
Out of range of ancient gunshot, on the north side of Wexford Harbour Iie the Wexford SIobs.
Now, sIob is simpIy the Irish word for muddy Iand, which this entire area was untiI the 1840s, when it was drained and recIaimed.
For the past 30 years or more, around 500 acres of sIobIand have become a wiIdIife reserve and over-wintering site for a huge variety of wiId birds.
And as Wexford sIeeps, Miranda's going in search of one very speciaI species.
lt's about an hour before first light and Paddy and l are setting off to a place called Raven Point, which is at the north end of Wexford Harbour, and if we're very lucky we might just catch a glimpse of a rare and very beautiful visitor to this part of the lrish coast.
All set.
Lights off.
My guide out to Raven Point is wiIdIife warden Paddy O'SuIIivan.
ApparentIy our success is going to reIy on keeping chat and movement to a minimum.
I wish I'd bought a fIask of tea.
SuddenIy, out of the darkness an unforgettabIe caII, ''NedIeck, nedIeck.
'' (BlRDS CHlRPlNG) And against the earIy-morning sky, Iong strings of siIhouetted birds start to appear.
KRESTOVNlKOFF: Magical.
lt's brilliant.
Fantastic.
Just the sheer numbers of them and the beauty of the call.
(CHlRPlNG) You can even hear the hum of the wings.
This is just magical.
This is probably the best spot to be, because right here you get over a third of the world's population of Greenland White-fronted Geese.
KRESTOVNlKOFF: It's now 7.
;30 and it's a reaI November morning.
These birds have spent the night out on freezing coId, exposed sand banks.
Now, in the safety of dayIight, it's time for a hearty breakfast in the nearby stubbIe fieIds.
And for me, a day in the Iife of the GreenIand White-fronted Geese has just begun.
Getting cIoser to them, one of the more obvious questions is answered - why they're caIIed White-fronted Geese.
Their need to feed is paramount now.
Each and every one of these birds has fIown here aII the way from their breeding grounds on the west coast of GreenIand.
An incredibIe caIorie-busting journey of over 1800 miIes.
For some years the WiIdIife Trust's scientific officer, AIyn WaIsh, has observed a marked decIine in GreenIand White-fronted Geese over-wintering on the Wexford SIobs.
And there's onIy one way of recording the numbers.
2,4,6,8,10, 2,4,6,8,10.
20, 2,4,6,8,30 AIyn and the team are extremeIy anxious to monitor the decIine and they repeat this wiId-goose count time and time again during the winter months to coIIect accurate data.
(KRESTOVNlKOFF COUNTlNG) It's a vast area, so we need to drive, and the cars aIso act as a mobiIe hide.
The geese don't seem fazed by our vehicIe.
But if we got out, the entire fIock wouId be airborne in seconds and we'd have to start counting again.
l've noticed that several of the geese have got sort of neck collars - there was a K9Z and a K5U Do we know anything about those birds? Yes, K9Z and K5U have been together for a number of years now.
l don't think they've any goslings this year, but they probably will in a very short period of time.
KRESTOVNlKOFF: So they're a breeding pair, are they? WALSH: They are a breeding pair, and that's sort of typical because we know that pairs are not producing young until at least their sixth year now.
When you get to know the geese, you can see they're actually broken up into very discrete little family groups.
lf we look at this group out here in the field, you can see there's a group there, they're almost certainly related in one way or another.
KRESTOVNlKOFF: So both on the ground and in the air they tend to stay -WALSH: They stay together.
-ln the family group.
Yeah.
Normally if they fly from one area to another it's because they want water.
lf they're grazing, they would definitely have to have water every two to three hours.
They're shovelling in quite a lot of vegetative matter, and because their digestive system is extremely poor, they poop every three minutes.
Now, l only came here to see the geese, but it's clear you've got a huge number of bird species that are travelling here from all over the place.
WALSH: The White-fronted Geese don't have it all to themselves.
Wexford is a very, very special place.
lt's like an international airport, it's a hub for a huge range of species.
We've got in excess of 200 species that come to Wexford.
l think probably the most notable ones would be Brent.
We have maybe three and a half thousand Brent that come from the high arctic of Canada.
We have Hooper Swans coming in from lceland.
We've got snipe, which again come from lceland and from Europe.
We've got wigeon, which can come in from Siberia, Golden Plover from lceland and curlews, which come from Europe as well.
KRESTOVNlKOFF: By Iate afternoon there's a change of mood on the Wexford SIobs, a new sense of anticipation.
There's a stirring amongst the geese.
A quick shake of the head mirrored by other famiIy or group members is a cIear indication of an intention to fIy.
Soon famiIy after famiIy, squadron after squadron of geese from across the entire 2,000 acres of Wexford SIobs is airborne and heading back out to sea for the reIative safety of the Wexford sand banks.
What an incredible end to the day.
The sun's just setting and behind me the sky is absolutely black with geese coming in from every direction just to roost for the evening.
lt's a truly unforgettable experience.
OLlVER: From Wexford we head north aIong a huge Iong beach.
This is CurracIoe.
Because of its resembIance to the Normandy beaches, CurracIoe was chosen by Steven SpieIberg as the Iocation for the bIoody opening sequence of his fiIm Saving Private Ryan, which recreated the American assauIt on Omaha Beach.
The actors have Iong since gone, but a battIe stiII rages.
From here aImost aII the way to DubIin the coast is vuInerabIe, crumbIing, gIaciaI sediment that has been constantIy gnawed by the sea and weather.
No wonder that there's IittIe trace of settIement, ancient or modern, untiI we get to ArkIow, then WickIow.
Even here, for safe measure there have been three Iighthouses.
Just to be sure, to be sure, to be sure.
From WickIow we traveI north to Greystones, where the WickIow hiIIs dip a mountainous granite toe into the Irish Sea.
Here, engineer Dick Strawbridge is expIoring one of the most remarkabIe but IittIe-known achievements of one of his heroes.
Engineers don't get much greater than lsambard Kingdom Brunel, and one of Brunel's greatest challenges was right here on the lrish coast.
lmagine trying to build a railway through that.
STRAWBRlDGE: Bray Head.
Precipitous granite cIiffs to tunneI through, deep gorges to cross.
RaiIway engineer MichaeI Barry has no doubts as to the formidabIe obstacIes BruneI faced or to the briIIiance of his soIutions.
BARRY: l would call it heroic engineering.
We have ramparts out over the sea, which have to stand up to the heavy waves, the rock is extremely hard, it was extremely difficult to tunnel, but it also is unstable and you get rock falls from time to time.
Digging through that kind of rock, it would be a really very difficult engineering job to do it today.
STRAWBRlDGE: Since it opened in 1855, generations of engineers have re-routed, re-buiIt and aItered sections of the raiIway Iine through and around Bray Head, but you can stiII find evidence of the master's work.
Down there you can just see some old stone piers.
That's all that's left of Brunel's once-elegant bridge work.
This was just one of the aeriaI bridges he buiIt to cross a void, giving passengers an aII-too-reaI sensation that there was IittIe between them and the sea beIow.
This wasn't a raiIway, it was a roIIer coaster, and inevitabIy the thriIIs Ied to spiIIs.
On 23rd April, 1865, the first-class carriage of the Dublin train simply left the rails and teetered on the edge of the viaduct 100 feet above sea level.
The driver kept his nerve and pushed on, puIIing the carriages from the brink.
But two years Iater, two passengers did die and 20 more were injured when three carriages Ieft the raiIs and feII 30 feet from one of BruneI's bridges.
But the bridges weren't the onIy part of his Iine to take a battering.
Bray Head's unstabIe rock feII so often, the company began seIIing it to contractors Iaying DubIin's roads.
And the sea took its toII, too.
Storm damage was aII too frequent.
BruneI's raiIway through and around Bray Head proved so horrendousIy expensive to buiId, rebuiId and maintain, it's even been caIIed BruneI's FoIIy.
But, in defence of my engineering hero, I have this one thing to say.
lt is a cracking ride.
OLlVER: As we emerge from the tunneIs we get our first gIimpse of what's been nicknamed IreIand's Bay of NapIes.
Framing the scene is KiIIiney Beach, where Hermione is uncovering the story of a remarkabIe man and a revoIutionary experiment.
ln the autumn of 1849, a group of workmen came down to this beach on an extraordinary mission.
They'd been set the task of creating an earthquake.
Now, this earth-shattering plan was the brainchild of Victorian businessman and scientist Robert Mallet.
COCKBURN: Robert MaIIet was a DubIin-born scientist whose experiments on this tranquiI beach began to expIain the inner workings of the earth.
MaIIet founded a science and christened it seismoIogy, the study of earthquakes.
NearIy 160 years after MaIIet created an earthquake on this beach, we're going to try the same thing.
At a time when no one reaIIy knew what caused tremors in the ground, MaIIet wanted to test his revoIutionary new theory that potentiaIIy devastating amounts of energy traveI as waves through the earth.
In the experiment, he bIew up 25 pounds of gunpowder at one end of the beach.
His earthquake.
PreciseIy haIf a miIe away, he positioned himseIf with speciaIIy made equipment to see if shockwaves wouId register and how Iong they took to reach him from the expIosion.
MaIIet's ambition was to pinpoint and map the epicentre of aII the worId's earthquakes, and, if possibIe, save Iives.
Given there are severaI hundred smaII earthquakes every day and a major earthquake every 18 months or so, MaIIet's ambition is shared around the worId to this day.
But in paying homage to MaIIet's originaI experiment, I've hit a few snags.
Everyone's been IoveIy - the IocaI authority, the Garda, the Irish poIice.
But, weII, they don't want their beach bIown to bits, so I've had to scaIe things down to two kiIograms of pIastic expIosive and retire to a safe distance of 100 metres.
And there's another but, and it's a big one.
As if explosives weren't enough for us to cope with today, we've also got to deal with this.
Mercury.
Now, mercury is wonderful stuff, but extremely poisonous, so that's why we've got it sealed inside this dish.
Robert MaIIet's apparatus invoIved projecting cross-hairs onto a pooI of mercury, which he viewed through a microscope.
If his theory was right, he couId time and record how Iong it took for energy waves from his earthquake to register as rippIes in the mercury.
Rather like that.
Now today, we're going to be standing a safe distance away from the blast and away from the mercury, so we've set up this video camera here in the hope that it will record any reaction that we get from our explosion.
Whether or not it will work, well, that remains to be seen.
That's the other thing.
I'm reaIIy worried our expIosion won't be big enough to register the shockwaves in the mercury 100 metres away.
So I've caIIed in some heIp.
Scientists from the DubIin Institute, who wiII measure the expIosion using a sensitive 21st-century seismometer.
Cheating? I don't think so, because this experiment by Robert MaIIet 160 years ago was the mother of the idea that Ied to the invention of seismometers.
But does seismoIogist Tom BIake think our experiment using mercury wiII work? Yes, l am very confident that it will.
We have the ghost of Robert Mallet behind us, l'm sure.
MAN: Yes, we're ready to go, yes.
Okay.
Well, Dave, when you're ready, do the honours.
(EXPLOSlONS) Oh, yes, look.
lt's very good.
-COCKBURN: Oh, fantastic! -Excellent.
That's a very good shockwave.
You missed the blast, though.
lt was fantastic.
(EXPLOSlONS) -So this is the modern technology working.
-Exactly.
-Now, what do you think about the mercury? -BLAKE: Let's go and check it.
COCKBURN: Let's see what the camera shows us.
Just go back a bit.
BLAKE: Oh, yes.
Wow! -That's the one! -That's really impressive, yes.
l want to see it again.
(BOTH LAUGH) -BLAKE: That's very good.
-COCKBURN: The concentric rings.
BLAKE: Exactly, yes.
Very, very good.
And from that Mallet basically kick-started seismology.
Yes, he did his first measurements purely and simply with a simple mercury dish like this and a chronometer.
COCKBURN: After his first experiment here on KiIIiney Beach, Robert MaIIet attempted to map the distribution and intensity of the worId's known earthquakes.
He was within a whisker of a discovery which wouId take over a century to fuIIy reaIise - that the Earth's crust is made up of constantIy shifting pIates and that it's their movement that causes earthquakes.
The germ of that understanding was formed in IreIand, on KiIIiney Beach.
(EXPLOSlON) OLlVER: It's around 160 years since Robert MaIIet conducted his groundbreaking experiment.
It's over 260 years since the Hallelujah Chorus was first heard here in DubIin at the worId premiere of HandeI's Messiah.
From first footings by the Vikings, aImost 1,200 years ago, DubIin has grown into a vibrant capitaI city and a cuIturaI and commerciaI nerve centre.
But, Iike aII the major ports we've visited on this coast, from Cork to Waterford, and from Wexford to WickIow, DubIin was founded and has fIourished by being connected to its neighbours, and the rest of the worId, by the sea.
Next time, the coast as we've never seen it before.
-Faster -OLlVER: I'm definiteIy feeIing jiffy! Bigger MAN: Wow, that is incredible.
The scale of it.
And smaIIer KRESTOVNlKOFF: There's a whole hive of activity going on there.
OLlVER: On a journey from AngIesey to BIackpooI.
But for now, go n-eirigh an bothar Ieat - may your journey swift and easy.
Until we met again on the next stretch of coast, sIan! Farewell.
Heading eastward, this coast is famous for its great ports, harbours and estuaries.
On our Irish odyssey, AIice discovers the secrets of gIass-making.
And it's starting to bubble now.
Yeah, l've got them.
Okay.
OLlVER: Miranda seeks out a rare and speciaI visitor to this coast.
And you can even hear the hum of the wings.
This is just magical.
OLlVER: Dick Strawbridge reveaIs how BruneI wrestIed with one of IreIand's toughest chaIIenges to buiId a raiIway.
lt is a cracking ride.
OLlVER: Hermione starts her own earthquake.
(EXPLOSlON) -Oh, fantastic! -Excellent.
lt's a snug fit.
OLlVER: And I get to join the Irish Navy on manoeuvres.
Action stations, action stations.
This, from the southeast corner of lreland, is Coast.
OLlVER: From the coast of South WaIes we've traveIIed to Southern IreIand.
Our journey takes us to the great maritime city of Cork, to Waterford, RossIare, Wexford and aII the way up to DubIin.
But we're teeing off here at the OId Head of KinsaIe, an exposed headIand and a goIf course with an infamous 12th hoIe that eats goIf baIIs for breakfast.
They come from aII over to pIay here.
Tiger Woods, me, of course, and someone eIse who's had a unique and spectacuIar view of this course.
Have you ever imagined what it would be like to see the world as something small, like a golf ball, so you could almost reach out and touch it? Well, American NASA astronaut Dan Tani has done, and he comes here to play golf.
I couId do with Dan's heIp pIaying the 12th hoIe, because not onIy did he marry one of the staff, he's photographed the entire course from space.
And he's on the Iine now from NASA HQ in Houston, Texas.
The Old Head is so easy to see because the Old Head is such a distinctive shape on the coast of lreland.
Of course, you're moving at 17,000 miIes an hour.
I have a piece of video to show you what it Iooks Iike.
Then once you find the Old Head, you put the big telephoto lens on the camera and snap as many pictures as possible.
I can onIy imagine what it's Iike standing there on the 12th tee.
What a beautiful place, and l really envy you that you get a chance to be there.
Well, l mean, l envy you.
To change the subject just slightly, what advice would you give to a complete novice confronted by the apocalyptic horror that is the 1 2th tee? DAN: The advice on the tee is to stay right, more right than you think.
There's an aiming stone there, and you're so tempted to bite off a IittIe bit of the dog leg and go left, but there's two or three hundred feet of cliffs.
-l'm painfully aware of that.
-l'm sure there are, yeah, a couple of million golf balls down there of people that thought they could bite off more than they can chew.
l love that hole.
lf l could play a hole over and over, that would certainly be one of them in the world.
Well look, Dan, thanks very much for talking to me.
lt's been a real treat.
-Enjoy your stay there.
Bye-bye, now.
-OLlVER.
; Thank you.
Bye-bye.
OLlVER: With the guidance of astronaut Dan Tani, NeiI OIiver steadies himseIf as he faces the dreaded 12th hoIe.
Nerves of steeI, this man.
From the OId Head of KinsaIe we traveI past KinsaIe itseIf and on to the great port of Cork.
As Cork Harbour comes into view, one thing strikes you immediateIy - it's huge.
It's aIso one of the finest naturaI harbours in the worId.
For centuries it's been a haven for shipping.
Even today, with its deep-water channeIs and proximity to the main shipping Ianes, ships come here from aII over the worId.
At the harbour's heart Iies Cobh.
Over the years, Cobh has pIayed host to many fine ships.
Just recentIy the QE2 was moored here on her Iast voyage before being converted into a hoteI in Dubai.
HardIy surprising, the pubIic were out in force with their cameras to capture this historic moment for themseIves.
There's barely a news programme these days without so-called amateur footage of something or other, but it's not an invention of the modern media age.
There's nothing new about amateur coverage of historical events.
Many years ago on the quayside at Cobh, a unique set of photographs was taken.
The date, 1 1th ApriI, 1912.
Outside the White Star Line's ticket office, an excited crowd was gathered, waiting to board the White Star's Iatest and greatest Iiner on her maiden voyage.
That Iiner was about to become the most famous ship in history, bar none.
The Titanic.
She'd aIready set saiI from Southampton, crossed the ChanneI to Cherbourg, and now her very Iast port of caII before crossing the AtIantic to New York was Cork.
On board the Titanic, waiting to disembark as she moored out in Cork Harbour, was a young IocaI man, a keen photographer and theoIogy student, Frank Browne.
His uncIe and guardian had forked out for Frank to traveI on the Titanic, first cIass, from Southampton to Cork, but no further.
1 23 people joined the Titanic at Cobh.
From that now neglected and decaying wooden jetty right over there, they got aboard two tenders that ferried them out to the liner herself further out in the harbour.
Only seven people disembarked and a bitterly disappointed Frank Browne was one of them.
On the way to Cork he'd been befriended by a wealthy American couple who'd offered to pay the remainder of his passage to New York.
He'd sent a telegraph to his Jesuit superior at the college asking for permission.
The reply he got was terse and unequivocal: ''Get off that ship,'' signed, ''Principal''.
Of course, with hindsight, Frank Browne was one of the Iuckiest peopIe aIive, ordered off a ship that was about to saiI from Cork to an icy AtIantic grave.
The images Frank Browne recorded on his camera as he watched the Titanic Ieave, instantIy made the front page of newspapers worIdwide.
Today, they remain a priceIess record not just of the most famous ship in history, but aIso an evocation of the joy, the sadness and excitement of Titanic's passengers as they embarked on their tragic journey.
Cork Harbour may have seen tragedy, but it's aIso witnessed a Iot of Irish fun.
For starters, it's home to the RoyaI Cork Yacht CIub, founded in 1720.
That makes it the oIdest yacht cIub on the pIanet.
It's moved HQ severaI times over the centuries before anchoring in Cross Haven, on the western side of the harbour.
Now, oId it might be, stuffy it isn't, and peopIe fIock here to be part of the bienniaI regatta known the worId over as Cork Week.
My name is Eddie English.
l run a sailing school in Cobh on the other side of the harbour, and I've been invoIved with Cork Week since its inception.
I'm fortunate enough to have done regattas aII over the worId, and to me, this is the best one.
My famiIy are from Cobh and my grandfather and father grew up with the water IiteraIIy Iapping onto the front door, and since l was very small, l went sailing.
Since the earIy '90s I've saiIed with Oyster Catcher, and it's very much a sociaI thing as much as a saiIing thing with our crew.
There's four brothers in the famiIy and there are three of us fuII-time invoIved in saiIing as a career, and our chiIdren have continued on that tradition.
My own kids are very smaII, but they're invoIved in saiIing, so they'II be watching today.
You can go to a footbaII match and there couId be 20,000 peopIe watching that game, but there's Iess than 30 peopIe out on the pitch.
With Cork Week, you might have 20,000 peopIe invoIved, but there's going to be 8,000 people out there participating and racing, and everyone stays invoIved right the way through the week.
OLlVER: As the great yachts cross the finishing Iine, they aIso pass the very first home of the RoyaI Cork Yacht CIub, on HauIbowIine IsIand.
For centuries, HauIbowIine was a strategicaIIy vitaI base for the British RoyaI Navy.
Then, in 1938, it became, and remains to this day, the command centre for the Irish NavaI Service, and I've been invited to join them on an exercise, on the fIagship patroI vesseI, the LE Eithne.
(WHlSTLlNG) First off, I have a bit of a confession to make to Captain Hugh TuIIy.
l must admit l didn't realise that lreland had a navy.
Well, you wouldn't be the first person to say that.
We're a relatively young navy, and l suppose we're sort of out of sight, out of mind.
A lot of our time is spent way offshore, so it's difficult to have sort of a profile.
OLlVER: What is the remit of the Irish NavaI Service? TULLY: Our main job is maritime surveiIIance, so that can be fishing protection, search and rescue, drug interdiction.
OLlVER: With eight patroI vesseIs and one of the Iargest maritime zones in Europe to patroI, the Irish Navy is a serious proposition.
-Find out what's happening -Sir, if l can interrupt you there one moment.
We've just received an intelligence report.
A maritime surveillance aircraft has come across a commercial tug, with the description of an lrish vessel, the Oyster Bank.
OLlVER: And as second-in-command Lieutenant OIan O'Keefe outIines the position of a suspect vesseI, something cIicks.
When the NavaI Service invited me on an exercise, they didn't mean twice round the harbour and back to the officers' mess for a swift haIf.
Their training Iooks deadIy serious.
-Sir, if you'd like to join me there? -Excellent.
Okay.
OLlVER: As we go down to the Operations Room, OIan expIains we're about to conduct what they caII a ''compIiant boarding'' of the suspect tug, and I'm to be part of that boarding team.
-l've a target bearing 040 degrees.
-Target bearing is 040 degrees.
O'KEEFE: From here, we have to positively track the Oyster Bank.
Once we have him tracked on our radar, we have our weapons sensors directed on the vessel also, from there the gunnery officer will make a recommendation to the captain that we have the vessel in our sensors.
So what capability have you got sat here? Well, l'm Gunnery Officer on board, so l'm in charge of all the weapons.
This screen is giving me what the digital camera is actually seeing.
FANNlNG: l've daylight TV and infrared systems.
And at this point you're capable of doing really anything you want to that vessel, should the situation arise? Yes, should it arise and once we have everything confirmed, the captain can give the order once and we can controI the main weapons from here.
Command WD, target confirmed.
Target: merchant vessel, Oyster Bank.
Neil, we'll join the captain and bridge team, as we close this vessel.
That's our next stage.
So if we make our way straight to the bridge now.
OLlVER: Right -OFFlCER: Starboard 20.
-Starboard 20.
FANNlNG: Request close for visual confirmation.
Over.
OFFlCER: Roger.
We're cIosing that position now.
-O'KEEFE: Action stations? -Yeah, action stations.
O'KEEFE: Roger.
Action stations.
(WHlSTLlNG) Action stations, action stations.
Neil, we've just gone to our highest state of readiness there now, so the naval boarding team now are going to muster in the hangar, put on their kit and their weapons.
The Boarding Officer is going to contact the Oyster Bank and ask it a series of questions.
lf you'd like to join me now, we'll go to the hangar.
OLlVER: Okay.
O'KEEFE: Okay, Neil, we have your kit here.
What is the lMO number of your vessel? MAN: Roger.
My IMO is 172.
-O'KEEFE: That's it.
Okay, just -lt's a snug fit.
What is your next port of call? MAN: My next port of caII is Cork.
OFFlCER: Sir, I intend to board your vesseI with a navaI boarding team and my team wiII be armed.
We're gonna board on the port side, just far of this pier here.
Weapons, the H&K 9mm pistol.
Code words for today.
Situation turning hostile is Catfish, and team withdrawing is Rebound.
-And what should l do? -Just stick with me.
When they see the men in balaclavas coming, they must know it's not going to be a good day, though.
(LAUGHlNG) Did you tell the crew to be visible for your approach? O'KEEFE: Yeah, yeah, l tell them on the radio.
OLlVER: Right.
You want to be able to see them when you arrive.
-O'KEEFE: Exactly, yeah.
-SAlLOR: Okay, go.
Keep your hands in the air.
SAlLOR: What l would like you to do is to get down on both knees.
OLlVER: l'm with you.
l'm with you.
SAlLOR: All right, put your hands in the air, put your hands in the air! Bridge clear! -Just get your log book, please, sir.
-My log book? lt's amazing to me that this kind of work is going on day and night, year round, to try and make sure that the coast is as safe as possible.
Now, this was just an exercise, there were no bullets in their guns, but there's something about seeing armed men, there's something about seeing guns being pointed at people.
lt's intimidating and it's frightening - but l suppose it should be.
OLlVER: Just days after I joined the boarding crew, a news report confirms the importance of the exercise.
REPORTER: The hauI of cocaine discovered on board a yacht off the Cork coast was put on dispIay today.
Much of it was almost certainly destined for the UK and mainland Europe.
OLlVER: In a hazardous night-time operation, the Irish NavaI Service seized over 600 miIIion pounds worth of cocaine in a raid on a yacht - the biggest drugs hauI in Irish history.
Heading east from Cork, we're brought to a sudden haIt by a massive 100-foot excIamation mark on the coast at Ardmore.
One of IreIand's famous and mysterious round towers.
That is just incredible.
And it's just as much an icon of lreland as any shamrock or harp.
There's about 60 of these round towers scattered through the lrish landscape, and over the years they've bred all manner of weird and wonderful theories as to exactly what they're for.
The most popuIar expIanation is that the round towers were boIt-hoIes for priests in times of invasion.
But there have been other Iess pIausibIe theories, everything from druidic observatories to, more recentIy, the idea that they concentrate para-magnetic energy from the stars to heIp the crops.
The truth is probably a little more prosaic than that, and there's a big clue in that the little church just down the hill doesn't have a tower of its own.
That's its bell tower, just like an ltalian campaniIe.
And they were built from the 9th to the 1 2th centuries to call the faithful to prayer.
But there's supposed to be something even more mysterious than the round tower here at Ardmore that's reaIIy sparked my curiosity, something that apparentIy dates back centuries before either the tower or the church were buiIt.
What I want to see is a stone, and on it an ancient Irish way of writing caIIed Ogham.
OrIa Murphy from Cork University is an expert in this ancient script.
-This is the Ogham stone, then.
-So that's writing? MURPHY: This is the earliest lrish writing.
-ROBERTS: ls it runes? -MURPHY: No, it's like the runic in that it's incised in lines, but it's completely different in that the different shapes obviously mean different things.
So here on this section, you have the name - L, and the three scores, U G-U-D-E- C-C-A-S.
So it's Lugudeccas all the way up, right, then unfortunately it got chopped at some point when it was being used for building.
So what's the date of this? When did people actually start writing Ogham? lt dates from about the 5th century, maybe the 4th, but probably the 5th century, so it's very early.
ROBERTS: And why do you think people started writing on stone at this time? MURPHY: l think probably that they met with Christianity, and with Christianity came writing, and perhaps they'd used stones as memoria before, but now they were able to translate that, using this new technology of writing, of matching sounds to visual symbols, and they've come up with something unique, and something that's lrish, and this is it, it's Ogham.
Orla, l find it pretty remarkable that you can read this.
Can you write it as well? Yes, we can, we can write it as well.
-ROBERTS: Shall we go and try? -Yes.
-Shall we just have a go in the sand, then? -Yes.
So what's happening is we're going to write it either side of a stave, just like as if we were going to write on the edge of a stone.
-On an upright stone? -On an upright stone.
Or it's sometimes on the flat, but just on an edge is important.
MURPHY: Okay, so, here we go.
So reading from the bottom up, we're going to have a notch for your A -Two lines for your L.
-ROBERTS: Yup.
MURPHY: One, two, three, four for your l Five, actually, for your l, and one, two, three, four for your C, and one, two, three, four for your E.
E.
l wouldn't want to write a particularly long word with that, l have to say.
No, you could be there for a long time.
(LAUGHS) -You could.
-l'm going to have a go myself.
ROBERTS: So first of all the line which is the edge of the stone, then.
-MURPHY: Yes.
-A.
MURPHY: Yup.
ROBERTS: So voweIs are notches on the edge of the stone or stave l.
and consonants are Iines on the sides.
I get it.
C.
-E.
-MURPHY: Perfect.
ROBERTS: My name in Ogham.
MonumentaI masonry, graffiti, the idea of Iogging on to the Iandscape and Ieaving your name for posterity seems ageIess, but it aII started here in IreIand more than 1600 years ago with Ogham.
OLlVER: The sea cIiffs here aren't massive, but they can be IethaI.
On the headIand at Tramore, the MetaI Man was raised as a warning to shipping after the Sea Horse ran aground here in 1816, with the Ioss of aImost 400 Iives.
Tramore.
Most of the pIaces we've visited so far have had Irish names.
Tramore is simpIy Irish for ''big beach''.
Good name.
But as we approach Waterford, the second of the great ports on our journey, things change drasticaIIy.
Because Waterford isn't an Irish name, nor is it EngIish.
It's Viking.
It comes from the OId Norse ''Vradrafjordr'', meaning ''the haven from the windy sea''.
SignaIIing the first in a chain of major trading ports estabIished by the Vikings in virtuaIIy every estuary from here to DubIin.
Today, Waterford is virtuaIIy synonymous the worId over with Iead crystaI.
GIass.
And that's given AIice an idea.
l'm just walking along the beach here picking up these really beautiful little water-worn pebbles of glass.
But what is this stuff? l think most of us know it's got something to do with silica and that it could possibly be made by heating up sand, but is that all there is to it? In the interests of science and for the sheer fun of it, I've decided to see if we can make gIass from sand - oh, and try to do it on a beach.
lf anybody's going to succeed, it's going to be Waterford Crystal's chief scientist, Richard Lloyd.
-This bit? -That'd be perfect.
So, Richard, would any old sand do? lt's got to have a component of quartz in it, which is a form of silica.
Silica doesn't need any other ingredient to make glass other than heat energy.
-But you think this looks all right? -This looks fine.
-ROBERTS: Let's go and make some glass.
-LLOYD: Hmm.
This is Tony.
He's the man that's going to provide the heat for us today.
-ROBERTS: Hello, Tony.
-TONY: Hi.
So, exactly how much heat are we going to need? LLOYD: Well, in its present form we'll need 1800 Celsius to melt this, but what we're going to do is mix it with some potash, and this helps the sand to melt.
So how much does the potash bring down the melting point of the quartz? LLOYD: By about 600 Celsius, so we can then achieve melting temperatures with Tony's burner.
So we can pop it on there ROBERTS: Wow! The crucible is already glowing bright red.
Red heat is only 600 Celsius.
-Red heat is 600? -LLOYD: Approximately.
And it's starting to bubble now.
LLOYD: Yeah, that's the potash releasing its carbon dioxide, and then it starts to react with the sand grains to form the glass.
ROBERTS: So, Richard, how does this on the beach reIate to actuaIIy what goes on in the factory? LLOYD: EssentiaIIy, the technoIogy underIying aII the things we've done on the beach is exactIy the same as the factory.
ROBERTS: And often this gIass is taIked about as being Iead crystaI - do you actuaIIy add Iead to it? LLOYD: We do, yeah, in the form of Iead oxide.
This makes it sparkIe.
It aIso aIIows the gIass to be worked over a Ionger temperature range, which Iets the bIowers do their magic.
ROBERTS: It takes years to achieve this IeveI of skiII.
BeIieve me, it isn't easy.
I've just had a go myseIf.
One way or another, gIass has been made here for hundreds of years.
These skiIIs are ancient.
This is Waterford Museum's famous Kite Brooch, of Irish-Viking design, exquisite goId fiIigree and the tiniest beads of gIass.
It functioned as a cIoak fastener, and was very much Iike the Irish ring pins that became an essentiaI part of Viking haute couture.
When this brooch was made 1,000 years ago, the gIass beads were treated Iike diamonds.
GIass was a precious, hard-won materiaI.
LLOYD: GIass is a very speciaI substance.
It's not Iike other soIids.
It's got no definite meIting point.
It just gets softer and softer as it gets hotter and hotter.
It has no crystaIs - that's why you can see through it.
Once the quartz has formed the gIass, the moIecuIes can't rotate and orientate themseIves into reguIar patterns, which a crystaI is, you see, so they're trapped in irreguIar shapes, and that's what keeps the gIass cIear.
l'll get it and you clear off that way, yeah? ROBERTS: Ooh Oh, wow! LLOYD: There we have glass from the beach.
There is just something really wonderful about being able to make glass from sand.
-LLOYD: Yup.
-ROBERTS: lt looks really green.
That's because the sand we've used has got a lot of iron in it, which makes it brown.
When it forms a glass, the iron changes chemically to form the green compound.
Most sand on the beaches around the world will have iron in it.
-So our beaches are rusty.
-LLOYD: Our beaches are rusty.
ROBERTS: What a great day.
Not onIy have we succeeded in making gIass from sand, but the craftsmen of Waterford CrystaI have made something that harkens back to the very foundation of Waterford itseIf, a Viking ring pin.
ROBERTS: That is beautiful.
Oh, Richard, that really is lovely.
And it's got designs all the way along it.
And it's like a symbol of Waterford, isn't it? The Vikings and the glass.
OLlVER: Leaving County Waterford, our journey continues to County Wexford, via the Passage East Ferry.
On the far shore Iies BaIIyhack, base camp for the 140-miIe SIi Charman or Wexford CoastaI Path.
TraveIIing up the peninsuIa towards Hook Head there's a IittIe inIet known as HerryIock, where beach and cIiff face are made up of Iayers of oId red sandstone.
And aII over the beach, there are these strange reguIar bowIs in the rock.
You could walk past this and think it was natural - you could just overlook it, think it was maybe cut by the sea or the wind.
And if you look really closely you start to pick out strange marks, cut marks.
These are the marks left by tools that were used to cut something out.
Once you get your eye in, you realise they're all over the place around here.
Now, l'm not going to pretend that l don't know why these holes are here.
These are the remains left behind by quarrying for millstones which are used to grind flour, and right up until the end of the 19th century Herrylock was famous for the quality for its millstones.
The incredibIy hard, gritty HerryIock sandstone was ideaI for miIIstones - so much so, they were soId aII over IreIand.
But how did they manage to extract the stones intact from the rock? To find out, I'm meeting up with IocaI stonemason PauI O'Hara.
-OLlVER: Hello, Paul.
-O'HARA: Hello, Neil.
OLlVER: PauI has a fascination with the oId stonemasons' techniques.
l'm just working on a bit of the stone here.
What is the process, then? How do you start with a piece of bedrock and end up with a millstone that's free? Well, initially you'd mark it out.
Roughly a four-foot diameter is the stone that's been quarried here, then you score around your shape, skirting down along it and furrow the channel all the way around the circle.
They would have gone down maybe 16 inches.
And how long is that going to take with a hammer and chisel? l'd say roughly three weeks they would have taken -OLlVER: Three weeks.
-O'HARA: to take out.
And once you've cut this gutter around the millstone, how do you get it off the bedrock? How do you get it free? O'HARA: You would bore a hole, again using your hammer and chisel, and then fit a timber wedge - and maybe a willow timber, 'cause willow has a great absorption.
The sea would have come on in, flooded the channel, the timber would then expand, and the stone would have lifted.
So as the wood expands with the moisture, that is enough force to crack this? O'HARA: That would have been enough force, yeah.
l dunno, l've got a lovely picture of the actualthe scene here.
Up beyond there was 10 houses about.
There must have been great comradeship between them, and then when the conversation went dead, the only thing you would actually hear would be maybe the clanging of the hammer and the stone.
(HAMMER CLANGlNG) OLlVER: By the Iate 1800s, the HerryIock chiseIs sang no more.
Cast iron repIaced oId red sandstone as the perfect materiaI for making miIIstones.
Is it just me, but I feeI a IittIe sad that this ancient industry came to an end.
Cutting a millstone like this one involved some of the hardest physical labour imaginable.
But what makes this such a satisfying story is that the secret ingredient was human genius - using the power of wood swollen by water to break these free from the bedrock, so the final tool that they had in their armoury was the power of the sea.
PIacid as it might appear, this peninsuIa has a terrifying reputation for mangIing ships.
No surprise to find a Iighthouse, then.
But it's perhaps the oIdest intact operationaI Iighthouse in the worId.
In fact, historian and author BiIIy CoIfer beIieves it dates back 800 years.
Now, this I've got to see.
Well, Billy, it does look like it's taken a pounding over the years, but how do you know it's as old as you say it is? -Let's go inside, Neil, and l'll show you.
-Okay.
Now, Neil, if you look up, you'll get your first impression of a medieval building.
OLlVER: Right, oh yeah, it's like a castle keep or a cathedral.
lt's so massive.
COLFER: Exactly.
They used castle technology to build the place, that's the reason for the roof vaulting.
-Castle technology.
l like that.
-Exactly.
-OLlVER: And why is it black? -COLFER: lt's black with Welsh coal because for 500 years the light was kept burning mostly with coal, and this was the coal store.
Okay? COLFER: The three chambers are similar, each vaulted.
Obviously the stone vault can be seen as a fireproofing feature.
lf you have a big fire burning on top of your building, you don't want wooden floors.
OLlVER: Over 500 years, that big fire to create the Iight meant importing thousands of tons of WeIsh coaI.
Whoever buiIt this pIace had a Iot of cIout.
COLFER: Our first historic record of the buiIding comes from the Pembroke Estate Papers in the 1240s, when the monks of the monastery of Rinn Dubhain are given money for the maintenance of the buiIding.
OLlVER: So was the tower built by a monastic order, is that whose idea it was? COLFER: No, they were financed by one of the most powerful knights in England, William Marshall, who controlled this area.
OLlVER: Hook weather.
Some view.
William Marshall, the builder of this lighthouse, was one of the new breed of adventurers really who came to lreland, one of the Anglo-Normans.
He had this lighthouse constructed at this extremity of the Hook Peninsula to guide his shipping up Waterford Harbour to his new port of Ross, which he was determined to make into a financial success.
So this was a very practical addition to the landscape by a businessman on the make.
Yes, it was highly practical and functional, but it was also a highly visible symbol of Marshall's power and status, which became an iconic feature in the lrish landscape.
OLlVER: The Iighthouse's buiIder, WiIIiam MarshaII, had powerfuI connections.
It was his father-in-Iaw, Strongbow, who first Ianded a Norman army on Irish soiI, just beyond the Iighthouse at Baginbun and Bannow Bay.
The irony is the Normans first came here as mercenaries, not invaders.
They were invited.
But they Iiked what they saw.
They settIed.
And they dominated Irish history for centuries.
This is Carnsore Point.
From now on we're heading north.
Next stop, RossIare.
RossIare has thrived since the need arose for a harbour with a deep enough passage for steam ships.
Yet it's so weII positioned facing the UK, you'd expect to find a far more ancient port here.
And there is one.
A coupIe of miIes up the coast, Wexford.
To the Vikings ''Waiesfjordr'', a wide, shaIIow harbour.
To another invader, OIiver CromweII, the town of Wexford was a CathoIic thorn in his side.
In 1649 his New ModeI Army wiped out aII CathoIic resistance and repIaced them with a new wave of settIers, the so-caIIed New EngIish.
The town is one thing, but he who wouId be master of Wexford's harbour must do battIe with a constant naturaI foe, sand.
As the tide ebbs, the entire estuary is fiIIed with continuousIy shifting ridges of sand.
Deep-drafted ocean-going vesseIs can't cope with the periIs of the sand banks.
But there's a very ancient type of boat that can.
FIat-bottomed and traditionaIIy with a pointed bow and stern, it's the Wexford cot.
DUGGAN: Larry Duggan is my name, and I have been making Wexford cots for 60 years, of aII types.
Our whoIe famiIy have been in it for hundreds of years.
My father and my grandfather, and my great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather were making these way back in the early part of the 18th century.
I suppose it's nice to be abIe to say that you're abIe to do something that comes naturaI to you.
That's quite good now, Richard.
Wexford's the onIy pIace that we get cots.
lt's the estuary that makes the cots suitable for what it is, or the cot is suitable for the estuary, whichever way you want to put it.
That boat wouId push out in six inches of water.
That's the reason why the fIat bottom is stiII here.
You wouIdn't get near the beach with a keeI boat because the keeI wouId be in the mud before you get near the shore.
That's clinker - clinker is one board lapped over another.
l think the Vikings brought that to this part of the country because all the Viking boats are all clinker-built.
Apart from the cots l've made, shooting punts.
l became an expert on building punts.
No matter who wanted a punt, they came to Larry's yard.
A traditionaI punt, that's onIy 10 inches high and she's 15, 16 or 17 feet Iong.
You push it along with a pole.
A good punter, he turns on his side this way and he's able to just glide along.
It's Ioaded from the muzzIe, usuaIIy six ounces of shot to every ounce of powder.
My big one takes four ounces of powder, 24 ounce of shot.
(GUNSHOT) When it comes to the good shots, there have been good shots got and hellish good shots.
l got 166 golden plover in one shot way back in 1952.
There was a great market for them.
I mean, aII during the war years you couIdn't get enough of them.
That's England, that's where they were all going to feed them all over there in the war.
(GUNSHOT) OLlVER: Shooting wiIdfowI using a punt can be IethaIIy effective, but it's aIso Iicensed and very strictIy controIIed.
Out of range of ancient gunshot, on the north side of Wexford Harbour Iie the Wexford SIobs.
Now, sIob is simpIy the Irish word for muddy Iand, which this entire area was untiI the 1840s, when it was drained and recIaimed.
For the past 30 years or more, around 500 acres of sIobIand have become a wiIdIife reserve and over-wintering site for a huge variety of wiId birds.
And as Wexford sIeeps, Miranda's going in search of one very speciaI species.
lt's about an hour before first light and Paddy and l are setting off to a place called Raven Point, which is at the north end of Wexford Harbour, and if we're very lucky we might just catch a glimpse of a rare and very beautiful visitor to this part of the lrish coast.
All set.
Lights off.
My guide out to Raven Point is wiIdIife warden Paddy O'SuIIivan.
ApparentIy our success is going to reIy on keeping chat and movement to a minimum.
I wish I'd bought a fIask of tea.
SuddenIy, out of the darkness an unforgettabIe caII, ''NedIeck, nedIeck.
'' (BlRDS CHlRPlNG) And against the earIy-morning sky, Iong strings of siIhouetted birds start to appear.
KRESTOVNlKOFF: Magical.
lt's brilliant.
Fantastic.
Just the sheer numbers of them and the beauty of the call.
(CHlRPlNG) You can even hear the hum of the wings.
This is just magical.
This is probably the best spot to be, because right here you get over a third of the world's population of Greenland White-fronted Geese.
KRESTOVNlKOFF: It's now 7.
;30 and it's a reaI November morning.
These birds have spent the night out on freezing coId, exposed sand banks.
Now, in the safety of dayIight, it's time for a hearty breakfast in the nearby stubbIe fieIds.
And for me, a day in the Iife of the GreenIand White-fronted Geese has just begun.
Getting cIoser to them, one of the more obvious questions is answered - why they're caIIed White-fronted Geese.
Their need to feed is paramount now.
Each and every one of these birds has fIown here aII the way from their breeding grounds on the west coast of GreenIand.
An incredibIe caIorie-busting journey of over 1800 miIes.
For some years the WiIdIife Trust's scientific officer, AIyn WaIsh, has observed a marked decIine in GreenIand White-fronted Geese over-wintering on the Wexford SIobs.
And there's onIy one way of recording the numbers.
2,4,6,8,10, 2,4,6,8,10.
20, 2,4,6,8,30 AIyn and the team are extremeIy anxious to monitor the decIine and they repeat this wiId-goose count time and time again during the winter months to coIIect accurate data.
(KRESTOVNlKOFF COUNTlNG) It's a vast area, so we need to drive, and the cars aIso act as a mobiIe hide.
The geese don't seem fazed by our vehicIe.
But if we got out, the entire fIock wouId be airborne in seconds and we'd have to start counting again.
l've noticed that several of the geese have got sort of neck collars - there was a K9Z and a K5U Do we know anything about those birds? Yes, K9Z and K5U have been together for a number of years now.
l don't think they've any goslings this year, but they probably will in a very short period of time.
KRESTOVNlKOFF: So they're a breeding pair, are they? WALSH: They are a breeding pair, and that's sort of typical because we know that pairs are not producing young until at least their sixth year now.
When you get to know the geese, you can see they're actually broken up into very discrete little family groups.
lf we look at this group out here in the field, you can see there's a group there, they're almost certainly related in one way or another.
KRESTOVNlKOFF: So both on the ground and in the air they tend to stay -WALSH: They stay together.
-ln the family group.
Yeah.
Normally if they fly from one area to another it's because they want water.
lf they're grazing, they would definitely have to have water every two to three hours.
They're shovelling in quite a lot of vegetative matter, and because their digestive system is extremely poor, they poop every three minutes.
Now, l only came here to see the geese, but it's clear you've got a huge number of bird species that are travelling here from all over the place.
WALSH: The White-fronted Geese don't have it all to themselves.
Wexford is a very, very special place.
lt's like an international airport, it's a hub for a huge range of species.
We've got in excess of 200 species that come to Wexford.
l think probably the most notable ones would be Brent.
We have maybe three and a half thousand Brent that come from the high arctic of Canada.
We have Hooper Swans coming in from lceland.
We've got snipe, which again come from lceland and from Europe.
We've got wigeon, which can come in from Siberia, Golden Plover from lceland and curlews, which come from Europe as well.
KRESTOVNlKOFF: By Iate afternoon there's a change of mood on the Wexford SIobs, a new sense of anticipation.
There's a stirring amongst the geese.
A quick shake of the head mirrored by other famiIy or group members is a cIear indication of an intention to fIy.
Soon famiIy after famiIy, squadron after squadron of geese from across the entire 2,000 acres of Wexford SIobs is airborne and heading back out to sea for the reIative safety of the Wexford sand banks.
What an incredible end to the day.
The sun's just setting and behind me the sky is absolutely black with geese coming in from every direction just to roost for the evening.
lt's a truly unforgettable experience.
OLlVER: From Wexford we head north aIong a huge Iong beach.
This is CurracIoe.
Because of its resembIance to the Normandy beaches, CurracIoe was chosen by Steven SpieIberg as the Iocation for the bIoody opening sequence of his fiIm Saving Private Ryan, which recreated the American assauIt on Omaha Beach.
The actors have Iong since gone, but a battIe stiII rages.
From here aImost aII the way to DubIin the coast is vuInerabIe, crumbIing, gIaciaI sediment that has been constantIy gnawed by the sea and weather.
No wonder that there's IittIe trace of settIement, ancient or modern, untiI we get to ArkIow, then WickIow.
Even here, for safe measure there have been three Iighthouses.
Just to be sure, to be sure, to be sure.
From WickIow we traveI north to Greystones, where the WickIow hiIIs dip a mountainous granite toe into the Irish Sea.
Here, engineer Dick Strawbridge is expIoring one of the most remarkabIe but IittIe-known achievements of one of his heroes.
Engineers don't get much greater than lsambard Kingdom Brunel, and one of Brunel's greatest challenges was right here on the lrish coast.
lmagine trying to build a railway through that.
STRAWBRlDGE: Bray Head.
Precipitous granite cIiffs to tunneI through, deep gorges to cross.
RaiIway engineer MichaeI Barry has no doubts as to the formidabIe obstacIes BruneI faced or to the briIIiance of his soIutions.
BARRY: l would call it heroic engineering.
We have ramparts out over the sea, which have to stand up to the heavy waves, the rock is extremely hard, it was extremely difficult to tunnel, but it also is unstable and you get rock falls from time to time.
Digging through that kind of rock, it would be a really very difficult engineering job to do it today.
STRAWBRlDGE: Since it opened in 1855, generations of engineers have re-routed, re-buiIt and aItered sections of the raiIway Iine through and around Bray Head, but you can stiII find evidence of the master's work.
Down there you can just see some old stone piers.
That's all that's left of Brunel's once-elegant bridge work.
This was just one of the aeriaI bridges he buiIt to cross a void, giving passengers an aII-too-reaI sensation that there was IittIe between them and the sea beIow.
This wasn't a raiIway, it was a roIIer coaster, and inevitabIy the thriIIs Ied to spiIIs.
On 23rd April, 1865, the first-class carriage of the Dublin train simply left the rails and teetered on the edge of the viaduct 100 feet above sea level.
The driver kept his nerve and pushed on, puIIing the carriages from the brink.
But two years Iater, two passengers did die and 20 more were injured when three carriages Ieft the raiIs and feII 30 feet from one of BruneI's bridges.
But the bridges weren't the onIy part of his Iine to take a battering.
Bray Head's unstabIe rock feII so often, the company began seIIing it to contractors Iaying DubIin's roads.
And the sea took its toII, too.
Storm damage was aII too frequent.
BruneI's raiIway through and around Bray Head proved so horrendousIy expensive to buiId, rebuiId and maintain, it's even been caIIed BruneI's FoIIy.
But, in defence of my engineering hero, I have this one thing to say.
lt is a cracking ride.
OLlVER: As we emerge from the tunneIs we get our first gIimpse of what's been nicknamed IreIand's Bay of NapIes.
Framing the scene is KiIIiney Beach, where Hermione is uncovering the story of a remarkabIe man and a revoIutionary experiment.
ln the autumn of 1849, a group of workmen came down to this beach on an extraordinary mission.
They'd been set the task of creating an earthquake.
Now, this earth-shattering plan was the brainchild of Victorian businessman and scientist Robert Mallet.
COCKBURN: Robert MaIIet was a DubIin-born scientist whose experiments on this tranquiI beach began to expIain the inner workings of the earth.
MaIIet founded a science and christened it seismoIogy, the study of earthquakes.
NearIy 160 years after MaIIet created an earthquake on this beach, we're going to try the same thing.
At a time when no one reaIIy knew what caused tremors in the ground, MaIIet wanted to test his revoIutionary new theory that potentiaIIy devastating amounts of energy traveI as waves through the earth.
In the experiment, he bIew up 25 pounds of gunpowder at one end of the beach.
His earthquake.
PreciseIy haIf a miIe away, he positioned himseIf with speciaIIy made equipment to see if shockwaves wouId register and how Iong they took to reach him from the expIosion.
MaIIet's ambition was to pinpoint and map the epicentre of aII the worId's earthquakes, and, if possibIe, save Iives.
Given there are severaI hundred smaII earthquakes every day and a major earthquake every 18 months or so, MaIIet's ambition is shared around the worId to this day.
But in paying homage to MaIIet's originaI experiment, I've hit a few snags.
Everyone's been IoveIy - the IocaI authority, the Garda, the Irish poIice.
But, weII, they don't want their beach bIown to bits, so I've had to scaIe things down to two kiIograms of pIastic expIosive and retire to a safe distance of 100 metres.
And there's another but, and it's a big one.
As if explosives weren't enough for us to cope with today, we've also got to deal with this.
Mercury.
Now, mercury is wonderful stuff, but extremely poisonous, so that's why we've got it sealed inside this dish.
Robert MaIIet's apparatus invoIved projecting cross-hairs onto a pooI of mercury, which he viewed through a microscope.
If his theory was right, he couId time and record how Iong it took for energy waves from his earthquake to register as rippIes in the mercury.
Rather like that.
Now today, we're going to be standing a safe distance away from the blast and away from the mercury, so we've set up this video camera here in the hope that it will record any reaction that we get from our explosion.
Whether or not it will work, well, that remains to be seen.
That's the other thing.
I'm reaIIy worried our expIosion won't be big enough to register the shockwaves in the mercury 100 metres away.
So I've caIIed in some heIp.
Scientists from the DubIin Institute, who wiII measure the expIosion using a sensitive 21st-century seismometer.
Cheating? I don't think so, because this experiment by Robert MaIIet 160 years ago was the mother of the idea that Ied to the invention of seismometers.
But does seismoIogist Tom BIake think our experiment using mercury wiII work? Yes, l am very confident that it will.
We have the ghost of Robert Mallet behind us, l'm sure.
MAN: Yes, we're ready to go, yes.
Okay.
Well, Dave, when you're ready, do the honours.
(EXPLOSlONS) Oh, yes, look.
lt's very good.
-COCKBURN: Oh, fantastic! -Excellent.
That's a very good shockwave.
You missed the blast, though.
lt was fantastic.
(EXPLOSlONS) -So this is the modern technology working.
-Exactly.
-Now, what do you think about the mercury? -BLAKE: Let's go and check it.
COCKBURN: Let's see what the camera shows us.
Just go back a bit.
BLAKE: Oh, yes.
Wow! -That's the one! -That's really impressive, yes.
l want to see it again.
(BOTH LAUGH) -BLAKE: That's very good.
-COCKBURN: The concentric rings.
BLAKE: Exactly, yes.
Very, very good.
And from that Mallet basically kick-started seismology.
Yes, he did his first measurements purely and simply with a simple mercury dish like this and a chronometer.
COCKBURN: After his first experiment here on KiIIiney Beach, Robert MaIIet attempted to map the distribution and intensity of the worId's known earthquakes.
He was within a whisker of a discovery which wouId take over a century to fuIIy reaIise - that the Earth's crust is made up of constantIy shifting pIates and that it's their movement that causes earthquakes.
The germ of that understanding was formed in IreIand, on KiIIiney Beach.
(EXPLOSlON) OLlVER: It's around 160 years since Robert MaIIet conducted his groundbreaking experiment.
It's over 260 years since the Hallelujah Chorus was first heard here in DubIin at the worId premiere of HandeI's Messiah.
From first footings by the Vikings, aImost 1,200 years ago, DubIin has grown into a vibrant capitaI city and a cuIturaI and commerciaI nerve centre.
But, Iike aII the major ports we've visited on this coast, from Cork to Waterford, and from Wexford to WickIow, DubIin was founded and has fIourished by being connected to its neighbours, and the rest of the worId, by the sea.
Next time, the coast as we've never seen it before.
-Faster -OLlVER: I'm definiteIy feeIing jiffy! Bigger MAN: Wow, that is incredible.
The scale of it.
And smaIIer KRESTOVNlKOFF: There's a whole hive of activity going on there.
OLlVER: On a journey from AngIesey to BIackpooI.
But for now, go n-eirigh an bothar Ieat - may your journey swift and easy.
Until we met again on the next stretch of coast, sIan! Farewell.