Who Do You Think You Are? (2004) s15e04 Episode Script
Boy George
1 Boy George is a pop star, DJ and fashion designer who hit the headlines in the 1980s with his band, Culture Club.
I would describe myself as the kind of pink sheep of the family.
I definitely, growing up, had a real sense of being different, of not really having a place.
That's good.
Not only within my family, but just in the world.
I've got four brothers and one sister.
We used to fight a lot.
A lot of name-calling.
Everybody had a name for each other, vile names.
Obviously mine was poof.
George grew up in south London, but was always aware of his family's Irish roots.
I think I was raised with very Irish sensibilities.
My mother was born in Dublin, my dad, Jeremiah, has passed away.
He was born in England, but his family are from Ireland.
Growing up in the '70s, being Irish, you were really aware of, you know, the IRA bombings and innocent people were being killed, and they were such big news, you'd be made aware of the fact that your family were Irish.
- Are you OK if we turn the music off? - I don't care.
I hate music.
Over the years, George's often turbulent life has been headline news, but dealing with his demons has brought him closer to his family.
When I got sober, I remember kind of calling up my mum and kind of crying and just wanting to apologise and my mum said, "Don't apologise," I'm doing a really bad Irish accent, aren't I? "just stay clean.
" Today, George is a practising Buddhist.
I'm doing this for my mum.
I mean, I'm doing it for me as well, but I'm doing it, essentially, for my mum, because my mum recently started to explore her family history and started to find out fragments about my grandmother, her mother.
My grandmother was found wandering when she was a very young child in the streets of Ireland and she was put in a children's home.
Other than that, it's just kind of fragments, really.
There's one other family connection to Ireland that has always intrigued George.
When we were growing up, we used to think that one of our relatives was Kevin Barry, who was a very famous Irish freedom fighter, but it turns out one of my mother's cousins was hung with him in Mountjoy Gaol.
There's a very famous song called Kevin Barry, which we used to play when we were kids, so we know that there's a connection there.
But that's all we know.
I think there'll be a lot of sadness.
A lot of mascara running.
Even though I'm not wearing any make-up.
George is on his way to south-east London to visit his mother, Dinah.
My mum is so Irish and I think very, you know, very proud of her Irish roots.
I want to ask her some questions about her mum, because I was very close to my grandmother, but then when my grandmother was dying, I was a teenager, and I was a little bit kind of full of my own self-importance.
But I kind of regret that now, because I always think back and think about how much of a big part of my life she was when I was a kid and, you know, I would have loved my grandmother to see me get famous.
I think that would have been so amazing for her.
She would have been so proud.
It's so nice, no dogs yapping.
- Hello, love, all right? - Hi, Mummy.
- You look gorgeous.
- Who did your face? - You look gorgeous, yeah, you look great.
- Shut the door.
I'll make a cup of tea, Mum.
Look, an Irish cup.
I found and Irish cup, very poignant.
- You go and sit and I'll come in.
- OK.
How many cups of tea have been made over the years? - You have the nun cup.
- Thank you.
So, obviously, recently, you know, you've been talking a lot about tracing your family history.
And that's really got me interested in exploring a lot more of, you know, where I come from.
Well, you definitely are Jerry's son.
- So don't worry about that.
- Jerry, you mean Dad? Yeah, Dad, yeah.
This is a picture taken of you and me.
That's amazing, that picture.
I remember seeing that picture years ago.
I look like a, you know those Victorian dolls? - It's lovely.
- I mean, I'm huge.
You look gorgeous there, by the way.
- You were ten months old there.
- You look like me in drag.
You were ten months old there.
- What's this one? - This was taken in the front room.
- Which one's me? - Look at how sweet you were.
And look at Nan, Nan looks very serious.
- She looks - yes, she does, actually.
- She was quite scary, sometimes, Nan.
Do you remember she used to, like If you cheeked her, she used to hide with a wet flannel and slap you in the face when you weren't looking.
She had some quite, like, crafty little tactics.
Yeah, you have to remember, like, where she was brought up, you know what I mean? Very strict.
Your mum never talked about her childhood? No, she never did.
Never spoke about it.
And lots of times I asked her and she just, you know, "I've nothing to say.
" But I've always wondered why she couldn't talk about it.
I mean, it's funny for me, because obviously, when I was a kid, I was very close to Nanny Glynn, and I spent a lot of time with her.
Well, I remember when she came here, and she must have gone upstairs and you were singing, because you always singing, and she came down and she said to me, "You'd better nurture that child.
" And I went, "What do you mean?" She went, "You nurture him," she says, "he's got a beautiful voice," and I went, "OK, Mum.
" But, you know, I didn't know what to do.
Yeah, no, it's interesting because, obviously, you know, I have kind of quite strong memories of Nanny Glynn, so I really want to find out more stuff.
Yeah, well, this is one of the things that I've found.
Look at that.
Order of detention, Certified Industrial School.
"Whereas Bridget Margaret Kinahan", that's Nanny Glynn, "who appears to the court to be a child under the age of 14 years," "having been born, so far as has been ascertained, "on 9th January 1913.
" "Who resides at 39 Upper Gloucester Street in the county borough of Dublin," "has been found on the 15th day of December 1919" "at North Cumberland Street," "wandering and not having any visible means of subsistence.
" So she was six years old.
Wandering the streets.
That's amazing, that must have been really upsetting for you to For me, I cried.
I couldn't sleep for two nights because I wondered whether she had shoes on her feet, whether she had a coat.
You don't know how she got to be wandering the streets? - No, no.
- Yeah, that's so shocking.
When you see something like this, I mean, this is - That's your grandmother.
- Yeah, it's your family.
And it's very cold.
You know, you look at it and you're talking about a six-year-old child, but it's just very matter-of-fact, you know.
Do you know what was going on with your mother's parents when - You don't know anything? - I have no idea.
"It is hereby ordered that the said child should be sent to the "Goldenbridge Convent, Certified Industrial School, at Dublin.
I don't know who told me, but I remember being told that when your mum was in this place, they did terrible things, like if she wet the bed, they'd make her wear thre sheet.
- Yes, that was one of the things she did tell us, yeah.
It sounds like a really hideous, I'm sorry, that's just so sad.
That really breaks my heart because these people were supposed to be nuns, I mean, these are people that are supposed to be godly people, so I think it's actually more inexcusable when you hear things like that.
I still ponder.
I want to know more about my mum.
And I'm going to do my best to find out everything that I can about your mum.
I hope it's not too sad.
George has come to Ireland to try and discover more about his grandmother Bridget's early life.
I'm in Dublin, or as my mother would say, the old country.
But I'm really interested to know what this was like 100 years ago for my grandmother when she was a little kid, you know, six years old, wandering round the streets of this city.
I would love to know more about why she ended up at an industrial school.
- Hello.
- George has come to North Cumberland Street, where his grandmother Bridget was found wandering, to meet historian Katrina Crow.
- What a great pleasure to meet you.
- Nice to meet you, too.
Walk down with me here and I'll show you where Bridget's home would have been.
So number 39 Gloucester Street would have been just about ten houses down on this side.
She would have been very close to the market here on Cumberland Street, where she was picked up.
So she was found wandering the streets, but she was actually outside her house.
She's not wandering, she's actually outside her house.
Such a kind of shocking revelation.
- It's insane.
- Yes.
So why was she taken away? Because it was a common thing at the time for the NSPCC and the police to give as a reason for taking a child into care that they were wandering without a guardian.
At the time, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, or NSPCC, saw it as its mission to rescue vulnerable children from the streets.
But its inspectors were criticised for being overzealous in removing children like Bridget from poor families like the Kinahans.
The NSPCC didn't understand that taking children away from their families is a really serious, sort of crucial thing to do.
- So she was kind of nabbed like a stray dog? - I can tell you what the inspectors from the NSPCC were called in this area? The cruelty men.
The cruelty men.
Because they came and took children away from their families.
And they were dreaded and feared by everybody.
My mum is going to be so shocked to hear that.
- Does she not know? - She doesn't know that part of the story, she knows as much as I did, that my grandmother, when she was six, was found, you know, wandering the streets, I mean, that's what it says on this document, that she was found wandering, which is obviously a lie.
Which is really, really shocking.
If she was wandering, she would have been a good bit away from her home.
- She's literally outside the door.
- Yeah.
So it was very unfair, and very hard on her parents, and on her siblings, who must have missed her, you know? Katrina is bringing George to the Tenement Museum at 14 Henrietta Street to show him the living conditions for poor families in the city at the time his grandmother Bridget was picked up.
OK, let's come on in here.
There we go.
Now, this part of the room is set up as it might have been for a tenement dwelling in around 1911, 1912, up to the mid-20s.
So it's bang on the button for your family's period in Gloucester Street.
- How may people would have been in here? - There could have been eight.
We have a straw mattress.
So people would have slept on top of each other, under the bed.
Head to toe, very often.
If you can imagine what it was like to live here.
I mean, people washed in here, they cleaned their clothes in here.
These were the conditions for 20,000 families, including yours, back at the turn of the last century.
- Just incredible.
- So you can see why it would be very agreeable for children to go out of doors.
Children everywhere in the city were out in the streets, they're very visible in photographs, and we could look at some of those photographs now and let you see what life was like on the streets.
And this gives you an idea of the numbers of people who lived in these houses.
At this point, Dublin had the worst slums in Europe.
I think this may be the contents of two of the houses on the street.
Bridget would have understood this kind of scenario very easily.
She would have been about that big, the little one in the white dress.
- She would, exactly.
Mortality rates were incredibly high.
I think when you look at that, and then you kind of look back at that, it gives it a whole new kind of gravitas.
I'm just imagining how I would survive in a situation like that with all my - How do you think you would? - I don't know, but, you just think if you were a child with a lot of spirit, or you had any kind of individuality, I mean, it would have been a nightmare.
- Yeah.
Now here are a bunch of little kids, three of them barefoot, one, a little boy, who's dressed as a girl because they were the clothes available That would have been me.
That would have been you? That's an early George, look.
And fab boots, look.
And it was tough.
And a lot of them didn't make it to their tenth birthdays.
So my grandmother would have been kind of removed from a situation like this, really.
- She would, that's a point to remember.
- Was it better? This is my grandmother's Bridget's birth certificate.
The 9th of January 1913.
And I recognise that date, because I have a document that states that my grandmother was born on that day.
John Kinahan, that was the father, right? What does that say? Kate Kinahan.
- And that's his occupation.
- Labourer.
- He was a labourer.
- Labourer, we carried that tradition on.
We're moving on now to another document, George.
This is the indoor relief register from the North Dublin Union Workhouse.
You know what a workhouse is? The place where people went when they had nowhere else to go.
- It wasn't the Holiday Inn.
- It was not the Holiday Inn, well said.
John Kinahan, 39 Upper Gloucester Street.
He's 36.
Yes.
He goes in on November 22nd 1915.
- Hospital treatment.
- So he's in for his health.
And go across to the end, then.
When does he leave? - He's number eight.
- 13th of December 1915.
So he's in there for three weeks.
He's using the workhouse intelligently as a place to get health care.
Doctors were expensive and we didn't have a free health service or anything like it, so the thing we know from this now is that in 1915, John has poor health.
So was he around r when my grandmothe was taken away? Well, the next documents we're going to look at will answer that question and, first of all, there's her mother, Catherine or Kate.
So this is the death certificate.
- 1922.
- Yeah.
So that's three years after Bridget was taken in.
- She died.
- She died, yeah.
She lost her mother.
- 45.
Young.
- Very young.
Pneumonia.
Which was a disease of the poor.
And what about John? Here's John.
Again, check the date.
So she dies in 1922.
- 1926.
- 26.
- He's 41.
- Yeah.
- Heart failure.
- But also up here, malignant disease Disease of the oesophagus.
- That's right.
- It sounds like he had cancer.
- Yes.
- So young.
So she's taken away and they both die pretty soon.
They both die pretty soon afterwards.
That doesn't still doesn't answer the question of where they were what was, hold on, does it answer the question? - Sorry, am I being completely dim here? - No, you're not.
- We don't know, but what I can tell you So we don't know where they were when she was taken, but we know that We know that they were in ill-health, that he was in particular in ill health, as far back as 1915.
Maybe the family decided, because their health was bad, and because conditions were poor, that she might be better off in an industrial school, rather than staying - We don't know that.
- We don't know that.
And the other question is, these lovely people, did they make those kids' lives better by putting them in an industrial school? And that is the big question.
I don't think it is a question.
I don't think things were better.
I think that, however bad things are, when you're with the people that love you, even the worst conditions can be bearable, you know, I think that You're always better off with your family.
- It is very sad.
- Very sad.
I think it's important for us as a family to know the circumstances of Bridget's parents, the fact that they were ill, and they were really poor, as most people were, so it does kind of give you some solace.
But it is a kind of irony, you know, the NSPCC, their job was to protect children.
It's just You know, that's what makes me really angry.
George is on his way to the site of Goldenbridge Industrial School, where his grandmother, Bridget, was sent in 1919.
I phoned my mum.
She's very, very upset.
She cried.
And then I rang her again and sort of tried to explain the circumstances of her grandparents, what was going on for them, and I think that made her feel a little bit better.
I have my own ideas about what went on at Goldenbridge, so I feel it's going to be quite an emotional experience to be in that space.
George is meeting historian Lindsey Earner-Byrne.
- You're Lindsey, yeah? - Yeah, very nice to meet you.
- So this is it? - This is it, yeah.
It would have been bigger than this, though, obviously? It was actually a huge estate that this has all been built on.
There was a farm, a dairy, a secondary school and a laundry, and also this chapel here.
So it's the original chapel, which the children would have also worshipped in with the nuns and the industrial school was actually situated behind this building and nothing of that remains.
- Shall we go in and have a look? - Yeah, let's go.
So here we are in this defrocked chapel at the Goldenbridge Convent.
So my grandmother Bridget may have More than likely did worship in here with the nuns, that's right, yeah, I suppose what I'm interested in is what would life have been like for my grandmother here? Maybe to give you an idea about what life was like, we'll start with one of the few visual images we have of children in the industrial school.
So that's actually the girls lacemaking in this image.
So the industrial schools were created in the 1860s with the specific purpose of taking in vulnerable or abandoned children and giving them a training to make them, as they would have said at the time, useful citizens.
It doesn't look like a happy place.
I can only imagine how grim it must have been for a six-year-old kid to be put into a situation like this, I can't even begin to imagine.
In a sense, the aim was very noble.
The aim was to give, particularly girls, access to free education.
They would be educated, partially, reading and writing, but they would be trained, there was laundry, sewing, some manual work, domestic service.
Most Irish women made their living as domestic servants until the 1950s.
So an awful lot of girls in industrial schools were being trained to fill a market for middle-class ladies for when they came out.
- You're making it sound very gracious but - I know.
the information that I do know, if they wet the bed, for example, they were made to wear the sheet round their neck and to walk around with it.
It just sounds like such a grim place.
And that story recurs quite a lot in witness testimony for the period that your grandmother was there, so from the 1920s to the 1930s, particularly.
In fact, this is a witness statement that is reproduced in the Ryan Report, which was a report done into the industrial school system, and this is one account.
"If you wet the bed, Sister X would make you stand out of the bed with the sheet over your head.
" "If you fell asleep, she would come out with the stick.
"She hit you on the back and then you would be so sore "you couldn't sleep.
" Yeah, this kind of fits in with some of the stories.
So you have a lot of anecdotal evidence to support that.
So you wake up to that.
- How does the day get any better? - Yeah.
I suppose what I really want to know is, do you have anything that really relates to my own grandmother being here? The one document that all the children in the industrial school generated was the entry and every child who came in, since 1880, got a page and this one is your grandmother's.
Bridget Margaret Kinahan.
Six and 11 months.
Date of admission, 23rd of the 12th, 1919.
What is she charged with? Wandering.
My God.
If that was a crime, I would have been put away years ago.
This is interesting here, the reports of conduct and character.
Intelligent, anxious and amiable.
Gentle and kind.
Ambitious and painstaking.
- Do you think that reflected the woman you knew? - So much.
Useful, very good child, very bright.
- It's focused on her character much more.
- But it also feels like she kind of accepted it.
Yeah.
She's anxious initially, but by this stage, she's kind and willing.
But I think that when you think about a normal child's life.
How rich it would be, how colourful it, would be - It's a page, that's all.
- It's pretty tragic.
There is a sense that she just kind of got on with it.
So she's discharged on the eighth of the first, 1929.
- So my grandmother was here till she was 16.
- Till she was 16.
Sent to be a housemaid at a private hospital, Saint Vincent.
Wages £15.
So we know that your grandmother worked in that hospital until 1932.
Do you want to have a look at the document that tells us why she left? So this is the last document we have.
Married.
3rd of November 1932.
Bridget Kinahan.
Francis Glynn.
That's my grandad, Frank.
He's a butcher.
That explains a lot.
He used to kill chickens all the time, so he was very good at preparing chickens and things.
Richard Glynn, father of Frank Glynn, my grandad, Frank.
- Well, that's her father there, John Kinahan.
- John, obviously he wasn't alive then, and I'm sure she was desperate to start her own family, having been ripped from her own family, you know? Yeah, because there was no compulsion on her to marry, in a sense that she did have a job, which made her, well, quite lucky.
A lot of young women in Dublin would have struggled for a job and left the city.
- Well, let's hope it was love, Yes, let's take that reading in it.
that made her marry my grandfather.
What your grandmother's story tells us is a little bit about survival.
She survives ten years in that industrial school, comes out literate, with the ability to hold down a job, and she goes on and lives a life.
So she made it.
Yeah, she's definitely a survivor and, you know, when you hear these stories, you kind of realise why she was the way she was.
- In what way do you mean? - She was tough.
My mum always describes her as having incredible sadness in her eyes.
She wasn't really able to kind of show affection, you know, she was stern, you know, a formidable force.
It's a really interesting window into her life.
I knew her, obviously, as my grandmother, but I didn't know much about her childhood, so finding out that she may have once been in this very chapel is quite It feels good.
Her experiences here were quite harrowing, but reading the report on her character, one can only hope that that kept her out of too much trouble.
Being here, it makes me understand why she was the person that she was.
That she was obviously hiding a lot of pain but she got on with it.
She managed to raise a pretty healthy family and she's left an incredible legacy.
Yeah, I'm proud of her.
I'm really proud of her.
George's keen, while in Dublin, to investigate the family connection to Irish Republican Kevin Barry, who was executed by the British.
He's visiting his aunt Phyllis.
Auntie Phyllis is like, she's like Batman or Wonder Woman, she always turns up, you know, when my mum's been sick, or when I've been in trouble, you know, Phyllis is always there.
I want to find out a bit more kind of family history because I'm interested to find out about my grandfather Frank and his father, who was called Richard.
I don't really know his story.
Let me in.
- Look at you.
- Hi.
You look glamorous.
- Nice to see you.
- Good to see you.
Please.
In you come.
So, I found out a little bit of information about Nanny Glynn.
On their marriage certificate, which I saw yesterday, which was really nice, they put her father's name, even though he wasn't around.
He'd already died, but they put John Kinahan as the father and they put Richard Glynn, Frank's father, which is your other grandfather, right? Because obviously I never met them, Frank's mother or father, so what do you know about them? Well, now that's my granny and grandad and my uncle Dixer, which is your great granny and grandad.
- When you think of it, like - So that's Richard? That's Richard and that's Richard, he was called Dixer.
That's daddy's oldest brother.
- So which is grandma? - Grandma there.
This one.
So these two were married? Hold on.
- That's granny and grandad.
- That looks like a woman.
Does it.
So these two were married? I'm getting confused.
Who was married to who? Granny and grandad, there, my thumb is on them.
- So that's Richard there? - Yeah.
- What do you know about him? - Well, I know he was in the British Army and he fought in the First World War.
Until 1922, Ireland remained under British rule from London.
During this period, many working-class Irishmen, like Richard Glynn, joined the British Army, as it provided a decent job and a regular income.
Now, his wife, Granny Glynn, was married before, and she had two children.
- So she was married before him? - Before, yeah.
- Which is quite scandalous.
- She was married to his brother.
And then when he died, she married my grandad.
- So she was married to his brother.
- Yes.
The brother got killed in the war.
- So she married the other brother? - Yes.
- Practical.
- And then she had her daughter from the first marriage, her name was Annie, Annie Glynn, and Annie married a fellow called Thomas Bryan, and he was a Republican, and he was in Mountjoy prison, and he was hung in 1921 by the British Army and he was buried beside Kevin Barry.
Now, you know Kevin Barry, I've heard you singing that song.
I have, well, I remember when we were kids, obviously, we had this album called The Freedom Fighters.
It was a guy in a sort of cloth cap standing in front of the Irish flag.
And I used to play those songs, obviously, you know, Kevin Barry.
My Only Son Was Shot In Dublin, - The Wearing Of The Green - Give us a bar of it now.
The one was, was My only son was shot in Dublin Do you remember that one? And then we used to play, The wearing of the green The wearing of the green They're hanging men and women For the wearing of the green.
I'll never be able to go to the north again.
I remember playing those songs, I remember my auntie Kit, she always used to say, like, round about seven o'clock when there'd been a bit of drinking on Christmas Eve, "Put on the rebel songs", and we'd play them.
Just a lad of 18 summers Yet no-one can deny That, like Barry, we'll free Ireland For her faith, men live and die.
I remember the words.
Completely, yeah.
No, I always thought when we were growing up, I thought we were related to Kevin Barry - Did you? - for some reason, so, it was Bryan.
It was Bryan, yes, Thomas Bryan.
And he was someone that married into the family? Yeah, he married, yeah.
So Richard Glynn, my great-grandfather, was in the British Army.
- That's right, yeah.
His son-in-law, Thomas Bryan, was hung with Kevin Barry - Yeah.
- in Mountjoy Gaol.
- So that makes sense.
- Yeah, yeah.
George has learnt that his maternal great-grandfather, Richard Glynn, married his brother's widow and that her daughter, Annie, George's great aunt, married an Irish Republican called Thomas Bryan, who was executed by the British.
So I'm doing a little bit of detective work.
I'm looking up the marriage of my great aunt Annie Glynn and Thomas Bryan.
They got married on the 28th of November 1920.
Thomas Bryan and Annie Glynn.
14 Henrietta Street, Dublin.
So they actually lived in 14 Henrietta Street, where we went the other day to that museum.
That's trippy, I wish I'd known that when I was there.
Now it kind of takes on a whole 'nother sort of frequency.
George's returning to the Tenement Museum at 14 Henrietta Street, where he's discovered his great uncle, Thomas Bryan, lived.
How are you? Welcome back to Henrietta Street.
- Lovely cold weather.
- Nice to meet you.
Come on through.
So let me show you where Thomas Bryan and his family lived.
- Very exciting.
- He's meeting historian Ciaran Wallace.
Come on through.
- Is this the original? - This is the actual room where he - Man, that's amazing.
- grew up.
OK, it's been slightly redecorated for the purposes of the museum, but this is the room, this is the view he would have had.
So have you met Thomas and Annie? - No.
- Let me introduce you.
He's a very handsome man.
- Isn't he? - She looks quite fierce.
- Do you think? - Yeah.
She had good taste, Annie.
So Annie and Thomas would have lived in this space, in this room, this was their home where they set out on their married life as a young couple.
I've got a lot of questions, obviously, because it's a sort of interesting contradiction, the fact that my great-grandfather, Richard, fought in the British Army, and then you've got this young, handsome whippersnapper coming into your family with quite radical views, you know? - That's going to be interesting.
- For Richard, with his background.
Come on, I've got a few more things to show you.
What I'm interested in is I don't know anything about Thomas Bryan prior to him meeting my great aunt.
Well, I have a document here that might give you some background as to who he was.
Mountjoy Prison.
Thomas Bryan.
He was 19.
1917, so 1917, 18, 19, 20, so he was in prison three years before he married Annie.
He's an electrician.
So that's quite a good job at the time for a guy from this area.
He's got a trade.
- 14 Henrietta Street.
- Yep.
So this is what he's charged with, his offence.
"Acted in contravention of regulation 9E of the Defence of the "Realm Reg by taking part in a certain drill of a military nature.
" So, basically, he was pretending to be a soldier? Well, pretending is an interesting word.
So he's rounded up in 1917 for taking part in a drill of the Irish Volunteers.
Aren't the Irish Volunteers the IRA? They're the precursor to the IRA.
So we have to step back a bit to understand how he comes to be here, to the 1916 Rising.
Have you heard of the Rising? The Easter Rising in 1916 saw Irish Republican rebels launch an armed campaign in Dublin to bring an end to British rule.
Although the British quickly put down the rising, when they then decided to execute its leaders, the public mood swung behind the Republican movement, especially among young men like Thomas Bryan.
So Thomas grew up in this area, where there was suddenly a really brutal set of killings of civilians during the 1916 Rising, and this would have radicalised him and many other guys like him.
And they thought, it falls to us now, the younger men of the city, to do something.
So they were forming a secret army, which was the Irish Volunteers, out in fields in the countryside, and that's how he was picked up and arrested.
- Amazing.
And that's who he is by the time he meets and marries Annie.
- She definitely went for a bad boy.
- That seems to be a family tradition.
- That's amazing.
- They're married in 1920.
And you think, well, here's the happy ever after.
This is what happens next.
Secret evidence.
"At Drumcondra the 21st of the first 1921, Thomas Bryan was found with "one revolver and 20 rounds of ammunition.
Francis Flood also.
" So this relates to an incident in Drumcondra, which is a suburb about a mile north from here.
At Drumcondra, there's a bridge across the river and this is a unit of IRA men who's waiting behind the balustrade of the bridge to attack a police lorry that's coming past.
This is during the Irish War of Independence, so things have really heated up in the city and in the country entirely.
The Irish War of Independence began when the Republican Sinn Fein party formed a breakaway government in January 1919 and declared independence from Britain.
The Irish Volunteers that Thomas Bryan had joined now became the Irish Republican Army, or IRA.
It launched a guerrilla campaign in Ireland and the British responded by imposing martial law.
This meant being arrested could have serious consequences for an IRA Volunteer, like Thomas Bryan.
And this event goes horribly wrong.
The raid actually goes ahead, it happens.
Nobody's killed on the police lorry, but it keeps going, but within moments, the other battalion of police arrive and they start to capture and chase after the IRA unit and they round up most of them.
- Does he go to prison for this? He's arrested on this very serious charge and he's taken to Kilmainham Gaol.
And this is where things get very serious for Thomas Bryan? It's amazing to think that my great aunt Annie marries Thomas Bryan and within four months he's arrested on very, very serious charges and he's in prison.
And her future must have seemed so uncertain at that point, but I imagine that she knew what she was getting involved in.
Maybe that's what attracted her to Thomas, you know? His passion.
He was a very handsome man.
For me, this is really interesting, because when I was a kid, I used to play this album of rebel songs and being here, you know, it's like climbing into those songs, you know? And it's interesting because I became a musician and music's such a big part of my life, it is my life.
So it just feels like I'm climbing into a piece of really important, kind of, not only family history, but also Irish history, you know, and that just feels kind of incredible.
Now that I know who he is, now that I've seen a picture of him, I feel like I need to know more, I need to kind of experience more, you know, because I'm in his life now.
George is visiting Kilmainham Gaol, now a museum, to find that more about his great uncle Thomas Bryan's imprisonment.
- Hello.
- Hello.
- Here we are.
- Nice to meet you.
- Welcome to Kilmainham.
- After you.
He's meeting historian Aoife Torpey.
This is the more modern part of Kilmainham Gaol.
It opens in the 1860s.
- It's lovely and light and airy.
- Yeah.
That's about the only thing it's got going for it.
Yes.
It's beautiful, for a jail.
And this is where Thomas Bryan and the other men would have been held, in this wing, here.
Unfortunately, we don't know which cell was Thomas's.
So we're going to have a look in to give you an idea of what the conditions would have been like.
- They open out.
- Come on in.
When Thomas and the other men were here, it was a military prison.
- Definitely not pleasant.
- Exactly.
They had a bit of light.
It would have been quite sparsely furnished as well.
They probably had some blankets, maybe a wooden board for a bed.
It's impossible to even think about what you'd feel being in a room like this, you know, it's so It's basic isn't it? It's like a, it's almost like a tomb.
So, Thomas was here in Kilmainham, but only for quite a short period because they moved the men from Kilmainham to Mountjoy prison and it was in Mountjoy, about a week later, that Thomas receives his sentence.
And we have the document he would have been handed.
"Thomas Bryan, the court's found you guilty of the following charges.
"High treason.
" "The court has passed a sentence of death upon you.
" That's hard-core.
They're court martialled on 24th February 1921 and then they receive their sentence.
But no trial, nothing.
No.
Interesting when you look at a document, it just kind of gives it a whole 'nother frequency, you know? When you think, you know what I mean, this piece of paper is just awful.
What strikes me is that you could take away someone's life with a form.
It's just so startling.
What happened to Annie? I know they were just married, I mean, four months.
Well, actually on 25th February 1921, he writes to his father-in-law, Richard Glynn, who is your great grandfather.
"Dear Dick.
Just a few lines hoping you all at home are in the pink.
"Well, Dick, my trial is over, I have received my death sentence, but it's not confirmed yet, but that is only a matter of time.
" "I've not told Annie my sentence, needless to say I don't know how to do so.
" "Personally, I don't mind death in any form, but, naturally, my thoughts stray to my dear, little wife, for as she truly said some time ago, it is our women who suffer the most.
" "I wonder how she will take it.
" "Well, Dick, I know you will do your best to keep her spirit up and I will now close, wishing to be remembered to all the rest.
"Remaining your loving son-in-law, Thomas Bryan.
" "Cheerio.
" It's so like, my God, this is so amazing, to just to even read this is just There's great sensitivity in the letter.
I think the most poignant line, "I don't mind death in any form, but, naturally, my thoughts stray to my dear, little wife.
" He's clearly a very sensitive human being.
And he loves her.
Yeah, and that's beautiful.
When I started this journey, I never imagined I would actually sit here and read something that was written by Thomas.
I mean, it's overwhelming, really.
So this is another piece by Thomas.
This is actually a poem he wrote.
So we have the original here.
- In pencil.
- Yes.
So we have a transcript here.
"On a bed made of plants and a pillow of hair" "I lie down to sleep but I find no rest there.
" "I am thinking of home and the joys of my life.
" "And the sweet little Colleen I now call my wife.
" Colleen is girl, I know that.
"I ponder all, I am nearly bereft.
" "My life or my honour, which will be left.
" It's a good poem.
"I please and I pray to my Mother on high.
" "To ask God save me, for I don't want to die.
" "But to live for my wife and the dear little child.
" - He had a child? - Annie was pregnant.
Yes.
He's thinking of Annie and this child they're going to have and he's hoping that he's spared for them.
I think the sense that we get of Thomas is that he kind of knew what he was doing and he accepted the sort of consequences in a way, but still, dying for a cause must be quite difficult.
This is something more official and it's a letter to the Governor of Mountjoy.
"Sir, I have the honour to forward you herewith the written order of the general officer commanding in chief for the execution of the following persons now in your custody under sentence of death.
"Patrick Moran, Thomas Whelan, Frank Flood, Thomas Bryan, Patrick Doyle, Bernard Ryan.
" Very matter-of-fact.
Then on the reverse there's something there as well.
Yes.
So it tells you the time.
Thomas Bryan, 14th March, 8.
00am.
That was the time he was hung and he at the was hanged with Frank Flood at the same time.
So it was double hangings.
They went to the gallows together.
The hang house in Mountjoy is actually preserved.
And you can see where they were hanged in Mountjoy prison.
Definitely climbing into history.
Yes, you can't get any closer than that.
You get the sense that he started this political struggle knowing what the outcome might be.
The fact that my great-aunt Annie was pregnant, what a thing to find out that, you know, they had been married four months, he was now facing the hangman and he was having a kid.
I mean, that is just How human do you want to get, you know? It's just the most awful thing to find out.
Mountjoy prison is a mythical place in my mind.
You know, I've known about it since I was 12 years old.
But it wasn't something that I imagined that I would ever see or experience.
At Mountjoy, George is meeting historian Shaun Reynolds.
- Hello, Shaun, how're you doing? - Welcome to Mountjoy.
Now, I'll take you down to the hang house and I'll show you where your great uncle sadly passed away.
- OK.
Here, on the left-hand side here, is the hang house.
Now, I'll just open up here now.
This door is stuck.
Just watch your step please and you're into the hang house.
Or the execution chamber that some people call it.
This is where Thomas Bryan, Frank Flood, who were the last of the six to be executed.
So if you'll like to come upstairs now.
Now, you have arrived on the floor where the trap door is.
The first four started the execution at 6.
00.
Another four to two went at seven.
Thomas Bryan and Frank Flood were 8.
00.
The execution would have taken as little as 13 seconds for the two individuals to die.
- 13 seconds is a long time, though.
- It is a long time.
It was a sad morning because the two men, they stood side by side, were comrades in arms and they shared a cell here in the prison as well.
You can see the chain there.
Left standing on the platform.
And while that's in position The doors won't shut.
The trap doors won't release.
You would extract that.
You would send that forward.
That is possibly the last sound the individuals would have heard.
If you like, you can try that there, I'll show you, you can feel it.
I don't think I will.
- You're very welcome.
- And this is a nice touch.
It is, it is.
It is.
It's brutal.
The remains were removed then from here and they were buried just up to the left-hand side.
As you come in the main gate, they were buried up there in the garden.
- I'll leave you here to your thoughts.
- OK.
What a place.
I'll be really honest, and say actually I feel quite angry, actually, at the moment.
My overall feeling is of anger.
It's just awful.
It's like macabre theatre.
Having read the letter from Thomas to Richard, I imagine that my great-grandfather would have hated this.
He would have been heartbroken, I suppose, you know.
Because not only has he got to think about, you know, what's going to happen to Thomas, but also his own daughter, who's pregnant.
That just adds even more, like, sadness to this.
It's just, God, can it get any more sad? It's just so sad, you know.
What I should do while I'm here is I almost forgot.
The most important bit of the visit.
Thomas Bryan and the five other IRA men executed that day in 1921, along with four others, including Kevin Barry, hanged the year before, were buried in unmarked graves within the prison walls.
In time, they became known as the Forgotten Ten.
In 2001, that changed when their bodies were exhumed and nine of the ten taken to Glasnevin Cemetery, where they were reburied with state honours.
Thomas Bryan.
Incredible.
It's amazing to discover that this is kind of part of my family history.
It's incredible.
Kevin Barry there.
Obviously, that was the name I did know, growing up.
And now I know about Frank Flood as well.
I'm proud and I'm sad.
I'm proud and I'm sad, I think that's the best way to describe how I feel.
Now I really want to know what happened to the child.
What happened to Annie? To find out, George has come to the museum at Glasnevin Cemetery to meet historian Connor Dodd.
So we have a record here for you to take a look at.
And this is an order for an internment within the cemetery.
Thomas Bryan, 15 Dominic Street, Dublin.
This is the age.
The years are blank, the months are blank and one day.
So this is the baby that That Annie was having when he was hung.
So this is the child here.
- And the cause of death.
- Convulsions.
So that baby literally was born and died.
- Wow, that's very sad.
- Correct.
And if we look here, we can see the date on which 10th March 1921.
So this happened before he was hung? That was Thursday, the 10th March.
And he was hung on 14th.
Correct, the following Monday.
My God.
How much more tragedy can you put into a story? It's just the saddest thing.
God.
So much going on in that week.
We have another record here for you to have a look at.
Annie Christina Bryan.
And you can see, died, the date.
27th August 1930.
Had been an electrician's wife.
So she lived for he died 1921.
Maybe eight or nine years.
Nine years, yes.
And you can see the cause of death, which is Phthisis, which is tuberculosis, TB.
- OK.
So she never married again.
And died nine years later.
That is heavy.
I mean, I knew it wasn't going to end well.
That's sadder than even I could have imagined.
Poor Annie.
George is looking for the grave of his great aunt, Annie Glynn.
Someone's written on the back.
Annie.
At least there's something here.
I hope it didn't last very long.
So this is where she lies.
Having now found out what she endured, it's just unimaginable, you know, to think that while her husband was waiting to be hung, she lost their first child.
And we'll never know whether he knew, whether he went to his death, knowing that his first-born had already died.
I mean, what a I really hope he didn't know.
I really, really hope he didn't know.
It's such an incredible story and mad that no-one's ever talked about it.
They will now.
I shall make sure they do.
This story's like a great Irish song.
It's like the sort of thing you'd hear someone singing at a funeral or a family wedding, like an old drunk Irishman singing this traditional lament, and that's really what this story is like, it's like a really sad song.
My family's kind of association to really important parts of Irish history is a revelation.
There's a line in the letter to Richard from Thomas where he says, "It's the women that suffer the most," and that's definitely true of Irish history, you know, our mothers and our grandmothers, the women really bear the brunt of all the suffering.
Knowing what happened to my grandmother Bridget made me quite angry, to think she was taken from her family at six-years-old and put into a place where she knew nobody.
But, you know what, her story is a triumph.
I think that my mum will find this story really emotional.
It'll help her put the pieces together, you know, I think that she's going to be really fascinated.
She'll definitely cry.
George's final visit is the pub next to the cemetery to join up with Irish band Lankum, to sing the rebel song he remembers from his childhood.
In Mountjoy jail one Monday morning High upon the gallows tree Kevin Barry gave his young life For the cause of liberty I think for me, you know, music is such a powerful medium and Kevin Barry, as a song, still resonates because I knew it had a real importance, but I didn't really know how it related to me.
As he walked to death that morning And to be able to walk in those footsteps and to actually find out, sort of, family history has been very, very enlightening and powerful for me.
Shoot me like an Irish soldier Do not hang me like a dog For I fought for Ireland's freedom On that dark September morn.
And now I've proved beyond any questionable doubt that I'm definitely part of Irish history.
So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
I would describe myself as the kind of pink sheep of the family.
I definitely, growing up, had a real sense of being different, of not really having a place.
That's good.
Not only within my family, but just in the world.
I've got four brothers and one sister.
We used to fight a lot.
A lot of name-calling.
Everybody had a name for each other, vile names.
Obviously mine was poof.
George grew up in south London, but was always aware of his family's Irish roots.
I think I was raised with very Irish sensibilities.
My mother was born in Dublin, my dad, Jeremiah, has passed away.
He was born in England, but his family are from Ireland.
Growing up in the '70s, being Irish, you were really aware of, you know, the IRA bombings and innocent people were being killed, and they were such big news, you'd be made aware of the fact that your family were Irish.
- Are you OK if we turn the music off? - I don't care.
I hate music.
Over the years, George's often turbulent life has been headline news, but dealing with his demons has brought him closer to his family.
When I got sober, I remember kind of calling up my mum and kind of crying and just wanting to apologise and my mum said, "Don't apologise," I'm doing a really bad Irish accent, aren't I? "just stay clean.
" Today, George is a practising Buddhist.
I'm doing this for my mum.
I mean, I'm doing it for me as well, but I'm doing it, essentially, for my mum, because my mum recently started to explore her family history and started to find out fragments about my grandmother, her mother.
My grandmother was found wandering when she was a very young child in the streets of Ireland and she was put in a children's home.
Other than that, it's just kind of fragments, really.
There's one other family connection to Ireland that has always intrigued George.
When we were growing up, we used to think that one of our relatives was Kevin Barry, who was a very famous Irish freedom fighter, but it turns out one of my mother's cousins was hung with him in Mountjoy Gaol.
There's a very famous song called Kevin Barry, which we used to play when we were kids, so we know that there's a connection there.
But that's all we know.
I think there'll be a lot of sadness.
A lot of mascara running.
Even though I'm not wearing any make-up.
George is on his way to south-east London to visit his mother, Dinah.
My mum is so Irish and I think very, you know, very proud of her Irish roots.
I want to ask her some questions about her mum, because I was very close to my grandmother, but then when my grandmother was dying, I was a teenager, and I was a little bit kind of full of my own self-importance.
But I kind of regret that now, because I always think back and think about how much of a big part of my life she was when I was a kid and, you know, I would have loved my grandmother to see me get famous.
I think that would have been so amazing for her.
She would have been so proud.
It's so nice, no dogs yapping.
- Hello, love, all right? - Hi, Mummy.
- You look gorgeous.
- Who did your face? - You look gorgeous, yeah, you look great.
- Shut the door.
I'll make a cup of tea, Mum.
Look, an Irish cup.
I found and Irish cup, very poignant.
- You go and sit and I'll come in.
- OK.
How many cups of tea have been made over the years? - You have the nun cup.
- Thank you.
So, obviously, recently, you know, you've been talking a lot about tracing your family history.
And that's really got me interested in exploring a lot more of, you know, where I come from.
Well, you definitely are Jerry's son.
- So don't worry about that.
- Jerry, you mean Dad? Yeah, Dad, yeah.
This is a picture taken of you and me.
That's amazing, that picture.
I remember seeing that picture years ago.
I look like a, you know those Victorian dolls? - It's lovely.
- I mean, I'm huge.
You look gorgeous there, by the way.
- You were ten months old there.
- You look like me in drag.
You were ten months old there.
- What's this one? - This was taken in the front room.
- Which one's me? - Look at how sweet you were.
And look at Nan, Nan looks very serious.
- She looks - yes, she does, actually.
- She was quite scary, sometimes, Nan.
Do you remember she used to, like If you cheeked her, she used to hide with a wet flannel and slap you in the face when you weren't looking.
She had some quite, like, crafty little tactics.
Yeah, you have to remember, like, where she was brought up, you know what I mean? Very strict.
Your mum never talked about her childhood? No, she never did.
Never spoke about it.
And lots of times I asked her and she just, you know, "I've nothing to say.
" But I've always wondered why she couldn't talk about it.
I mean, it's funny for me, because obviously, when I was a kid, I was very close to Nanny Glynn, and I spent a lot of time with her.
Well, I remember when she came here, and she must have gone upstairs and you were singing, because you always singing, and she came down and she said to me, "You'd better nurture that child.
" And I went, "What do you mean?" She went, "You nurture him," she says, "he's got a beautiful voice," and I went, "OK, Mum.
" But, you know, I didn't know what to do.
Yeah, no, it's interesting because, obviously, you know, I have kind of quite strong memories of Nanny Glynn, so I really want to find out more stuff.
Yeah, well, this is one of the things that I've found.
Look at that.
Order of detention, Certified Industrial School.
"Whereas Bridget Margaret Kinahan", that's Nanny Glynn, "who appears to the court to be a child under the age of 14 years," "having been born, so far as has been ascertained, "on 9th January 1913.
" "Who resides at 39 Upper Gloucester Street in the county borough of Dublin," "has been found on the 15th day of December 1919" "at North Cumberland Street," "wandering and not having any visible means of subsistence.
" So she was six years old.
Wandering the streets.
That's amazing, that must have been really upsetting for you to For me, I cried.
I couldn't sleep for two nights because I wondered whether she had shoes on her feet, whether she had a coat.
You don't know how she got to be wandering the streets? - No, no.
- Yeah, that's so shocking.
When you see something like this, I mean, this is - That's your grandmother.
- Yeah, it's your family.
And it's very cold.
You know, you look at it and you're talking about a six-year-old child, but it's just very matter-of-fact, you know.
Do you know what was going on with your mother's parents when - You don't know anything? - I have no idea.
"It is hereby ordered that the said child should be sent to the "Goldenbridge Convent, Certified Industrial School, at Dublin.
I don't know who told me, but I remember being told that when your mum was in this place, they did terrible things, like if she wet the bed, they'd make her wear thre sheet.
- Yes, that was one of the things she did tell us, yeah.
It sounds like a really hideous, I'm sorry, that's just so sad.
That really breaks my heart because these people were supposed to be nuns, I mean, these are people that are supposed to be godly people, so I think it's actually more inexcusable when you hear things like that.
I still ponder.
I want to know more about my mum.
And I'm going to do my best to find out everything that I can about your mum.
I hope it's not too sad.
George has come to Ireland to try and discover more about his grandmother Bridget's early life.
I'm in Dublin, or as my mother would say, the old country.
But I'm really interested to know what this was like 100 years ago for my grandmother when she was a little kid, you know, six years old, wandering round the streets of this city.
I would love to know more about why she ended up at an industrial school.
- Hello.
- George has come to North Cumberland Street, where his grandmother Bridget was found wandering, to meet historian Katrina Crow.
- What a great pleasure to meet you.
- Nice to meet you, too.
Walk down with me here and I'll show you where Bridget's home would have been.
So number 39 Gloucester Street would have been just about ten houses down on this side.
She would have been very close to the market here on Cumberland Street, where she was picked up.
So she was found wandering the streets, but she was actually outside her house.
She's not wandering, she's actually outside her house.
Such a kind of shocking revelation.
- It's insane.
- Yes.
So why was she taken away? Because it was a common thing at the time for the NSPCC and the police to give as a reason for taking a child into care that they were wandering without a guardian.
At the time, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, or NSPCC, saw it as its mission to rescue vulnerable children from the streets.
But its inspectors were criticised for being overzealous in removing children like Bridget from poor families like the Kinahans.
The NSPCC didn't understand that taking children away from their families is a really serious, sort of crucial thing to do.
- So she was kind of nabbed like a stray dog? - I can tell you what the inspectors from the NSPCC were called in this area? The cruelty men.
The cruelty men.
Because they came and took children away from their families.
And they were dreaded and feared by everybody.
My mum is going to be so shocked to hear that.
- Does she not know? - She doesn't know that part of the story, she knows as much as I did, that my grandmother, when she was six, was found, you know, wandering the streets, I mean, that's what it says on this document, that she was found wandering, which is obviously a lie.
Which is really, really shocking.
If she was wandering, she would have been a good bit away from her home.
- She's literally outside the door.
- Yeah.
So it was very unfair, and very hard on her parents, and on her siblings, who must have missed her, you know? Katrina is bringing George to the Tenement Museum at 14 Henrietta Street to show him the living conditions for poor families in the city at the time his grandmother Bridget was picked up.
OK, let's come on in here.
There we go.
Now, this part of the room is set up as it might have been for a tenement dwelling in around 1911, 1912, up to the mid-20s.
So it's bang on the button for your family's period in Gloucester Street.
- How may people would have been in here? - There could have been eight.
We have a straw mattress.
So people would have slept on top of each other, under the bed.
Head to toe, very often.
If you can imagine what it was like to live here.
I mean, people washed in here, they cleaned their clothes in here.
These were the conditions for 20,000 families, including yours, back at the turn of the last century.
- Just incredible.
- So you can see why it would be very agreeable for children to go out of doors.
Children everywhere in the city were out in the streets, they're very visible in photographs, and we could look at some of those photographs now and let you see what life was like on the streets.
And this gives you an idea of the numbers of people who lived in these houses.
At this point, Dublin had the worst slums in Europe.
I think this may be the contents of two of the houses on the street.
Bridget would have understood this kind of scenario very easily.
She would have been about that big, the little one in the white dress.
- She would, exactly.
Mortality rates were incredibly high.
I think when you look at that, and then you kind of look back at that, it gives it a whole new kind of gravitas.
I'm just imagining how I would survive in a situation like that with all my - How do you think you would? - I don't know, but, you just think if you were a child with a lot of spirit, or you had any kind of individuality, I mean, it would have been a nightmare.
- Yeah.
Now here are a bunch of little kids, three of them barefoot, one, a little boy, who's dressed as a girl because they were the clothes available That would have been me.
That would have been you? That's an early George, look.
And fab boots, look.
And it was tough.
And a lot of them didn't make it to their tenth birthdays.
So my grandmother would have been kind of removed from a situation like this, really.
- She would, that's a point to remember.
- Was it better? This is my grandmother's Bridget's birth certificate.
The 9th of January 1913.
And I recognise that date, because I have a document that states that my grandmother was born on that day.
John Kinahan, that was the father, right? What does that say? Kate Kinahan.
- And that's his occupation.
- Labourer.
- He was a labourer.
- Labourer, we carried that tradition on.
We're moving on now to another document, George.
This is the indoor relief register from the North Dublin Union Workhouse.
You know what a workhouse is? The place where people went when they had nowhere else to go.
- It wasn't the Holiday Inn.
- It was not the Holiday Inn, well said.
John Kinahan, 39 Upper Gloucester Street.
He's 36.
Yes.
He goes in on November 22nd 1915.
- Hospital treatment.
- So he's in for his health.
And go across to the end, then.
When does he leave? - He's number eight.
- 13th of December 1915.
So he's in there for three weeks.
He's using the workhouse intelligently as a place to get health care.
Doctors were expensive and we didn't have a free health service or anything like it, so the thing we know from this now is that in 1915, John has poor health.
So was he around r when my grandmothe was taken away? Well, the next documents we're going to look at will answer that question and, first of all, there's her mother, Catherine or Kate.
So this is the death certificate.
- 1922.
- Yeah.
So that's three years after Bridget was taken in.
- She died.
- She died, yeah.
She lost her mother.
- 45.
Young.
- Very young.
Pneumonia.
Which was a disease of the poor.
And what about John? Here's John.
Again, check the date.
So she dies in 1922.
- 1926.
- 26.
- He's 41.
- Yeah.
- Heart failure.
- But also up here, malignant disease Disease of the oesophagus.
- That's right.
- It sounds like he had cancer.
- Yes.
- So young.
So she's taken away and they both die pretty soon.
They both die pretty soon afterwards.
That doesn't still doesn't answer the question of where they were what was, hold on, does it answer the question? - Sorry, am I being completely dim here? - No, you're not.
- We don't know, but what I can tell you So we don't know where they were when she was taken, but we know that We know that they were in ill-health, that he was in particular in ill health, as far back as 1915.
Maybe the family decided, because their health was bad, and because conditions were poor, that she might be better off in an industrial school, rather than staying - We don't know that.
- We don't know that.
And the other question is, these lovely people, did they make those kids' lives better by putting them in an industrial school? And that is the big question.
I don't think it is a question.
I don't think things were better.
I think that, however bad things are, when you're with the people that love you, even the worst conditions can be bearable, you know, I think that You're always better off with your family.
- It is very sad.
- Very sad.
I think it's important for us as a family to know the circumstances of Bridget's parents, the fact that they were ill, and they were really poor, as most people were, so it does kind of give you some solace.
But it is a kind of irony, you know, the NSPCC, their job was to protect children.
It's just You know, that's what makes me really angry.
George is on his way to the site of Goldenbridge Industrial School, where his grandmother, Bridget, was sent in 1919.
I phoned my mum.
She's very, very upset.
She cried.
And then I rang her again and sort of tried to explain the circumstances of her grandparents, what was going on for them, and I think that made her feel a little bit better.
I have my own ideas about what went on at Goldenbridge, so I feel it's going to be quite an emotional experience to be in that space.
George is meeting historian Lindsey Earner-Byrne.
- You're Lindsey, yeah? - Yeah, very nice to meet you.
- So this is it? - This is it, yeah.
It would have been bigger than this, though, obviously? It was actually a huge estate that this has all been built on.
There was a farm, a dairy, a secondary school and a laundry, and also this chapel here.
So it's the original chapel, which the children would have also worshipped in with the nuns and the industrial school was actually situated behind this building and nothing of that remains.
- Shall we go in and have a look? - Yeah, let's go.
So here we are in this defrocked chapel at the Goldenbridge Convent.
So my grandmother Bridget may have More than likely did worship in here with the nuns, that's right, yeah, I suppose what I'm interested in is what would life have been like for my grandmother here? Maybe to give you an idea about what life was like, we'll start with one of the few visual images we have of children in the industrial school.
So that's actually the girls lacemaking in this image.
So the industrial schools were created in the 1860s with the specific purpose of taking in vulnerable or abandoned children and giving them a training to make them, as they would have said at the time, useful citizens.
It doesn't look like a happy place.
I can only imagine how grim it must have been for a six-year-old kid to be put into a situation like this, I can't even begin to imagine.
In a sense, the aim was very noble.
The aim was to give, particularly girls, access to free education.
They would be educated, partially, reading and writing, but they would be trained, there was laundry, sewing, some manual work, domestic service.
Most Irish women made their living as domestic servants until the 1950s.
So an awful lot of girls in industrial schools were being trained to fill a market for middle-class ladies for when they came out.
- You're making it sound very gracious but - I know.
the information that I do know, if they wet the bed, for example, they were made to wear the sheet round their neck and to walk around with it.
It just sounds like such a grim place.
And that story recurs quite a lot in witness testimony for the period that your grandmother was there, so from the 1920s to the 1930s, particularly.
In fact, this is a witness statement that is reproduced in the Ryan Report, which was a report done into the industrial school system, and this is one account.
"If you wet the bed, Sister X would make you stand out of the bed with the sheet over your head.
" "If you fell asleep, she would come out with the stick.
"She hit you on the back and then you would be so sore "you couldn't sleep.
" Yeah, this kind of fits in with some of the stories.
So you have a lot of anecdotal evidence to support that.
So you wake up to that.
- How does the day get any better? - Yeah.
I suppose what I really want to know is, do you have anything that really relates to my own grandmother being here? The one document that all the children in the industrial school generated was the entry and every child who came in, since 1880, got a page and this one is your grandmother's.
Bridget Margaret Kinahan.
Six and 11 months.
Date of admission, 23rd of the 12th, 1919.
What is she charged with? Wandering.
My God.
If that was a crime, I would have been put away years ago.
This is interesting here, the reports of conduct and character.
Intelligent, anxious and amiable.
Gentle and kind.
Ambitious and painstaking.
- Do you think that reflected the woman you knew? - So much.
Useful, very good child, very bright.
- It's focused on her character much more.
- But it also feels like she kind of accepted it.
Yeah.
She's anxious initially, but by this stage, she's kind and willing.
But I think that when you think about a normal child's life.
How rich it would be, how colourful it, would be - It's a page, that's all.
- It's pretty tragic.
There is a sense that she just kind of got on with it.
So she's discharged on the eighth of the first, 1929.
- So my grandmother was here till she was 16.
- Till she was 16.
Sent to be a housemaid at a private hospital, Saint Vincent.
Wages £15.
So we know that your grandmother worked in that hospital until 1932.
Do you want to have a look at the document that tells us why she left? So this is the last document we have.
Married.
3rd of November 1932.
Bridget Kinahan.
Francis Glynn.
That's my grandad, Frank.
He's a butcher.
That explains a lot.
He used to kill chickens all the time, so he was very good at preparing chickens and things.
Richard Glynn, father of Frank Glynn, my grandad, Frank.
- Well, that's her father there, John Kinahan.
- John, obviously he wasn't alive then, and I'm sure she was desperate to start her own family, having been ripped from her own family, you know? Yeah, because there was no compulsion on her to marry, in a sense that she did have a job, which made her, well, quite lucky.
A lot of young women in Dublin would have struggled for a job and left the city.
- Well, let's hope it was love, Yes, let's take that reading in it.
that made her marry my grandfather.
What your grandmother's story tells us is a little bit about survival.
She survives ten years in that industrial school, comes out literate, with the ability to hold down a job, and she goes on and lives a life.
So she made it.
Yeah, she's definitely a survivor and, you know, when you hear these stories, you kind of realise why she was the way she was.
- In what way do you mean? - She was tough.
My mum always describes her as having incredible sadness in her eyes.
She wasn't really able to kind of show affection, you know, she was stern, you know, a formidable force.
It's a really interesting window into her life.
I knew her, obviously, as my grandmother, but I didn't know much about her childhood, so finding out that she may have once been in this very chapel is quite It feels good.
Her experiences here were quite harrowing, but reading the report on her character, one can only hope that that kept her out of too much trouble.
Being here, it makes me understand why she was the person that she was.
That she was obviously hiding a lot of pain but she got on with it.
She managed to raise a pretty healthy family and she's left an incredible legacy.
Yeah, I'm proud of her.
I'm really proud of her.
George's keen, while in Dublin, to investigate the family connection to Irish Republican Kevin Barry, who was executed by the British.
He's visiting his aunt Phyllis.
Auntie Phyllis is like, she's like Batman or Wonder Woman, she always turns up, you know, when my mum's been sick, or when I've been in trouble, you know, Phyllis is always there.
I want to find out a bit more kind of family history because I'm interested to find out about my grandfather Frank and his father, who was called Richard.
I don't really know his story.
Let me in.
- Look at you.
- Hi.
You look glamorous.
- Nice to see you.
- Good to see you.
Please.
In you come.
So, I found out a little bit of information about Nanny Glynn.
On their marriage certificate, which I saw yesterday, which was really nice, they put her father's name, even though he wasn't around.
He'd already died, but they put John Kinahan as the father and they put Richard Glynn, Frank's father, which is your other grandfather, right? Because obviously I never met them, Frank's mother or father, so what do you know about them? Well, now that's my granny and grandad and my uncle Dixer, which is your great granny and grandad.
- When you think of it, like - So that's Richard? That's Richard and that's Richard, he was called Dixer.
That's daddy's oldest brother.
- So which is grandma? - Grandma there.
This one.
So these two were married? Hold on.
- That's granny and grandad.
- That looks like a woman.
Does it.
So these two were married? I'm getting confused.
Who was married to who? Granny and grandad, there, my thumb is on them.
- So that's Richard there? - Yeah.
- What do you know about him? - Well, I know he was in the British Army and he fought in the First World War.
Until 1922, Ireland remained under British rule from London.
During this period, many working-class Irishmen, like Richard Glynn, joined the British Army, as it provided a decent job and a regular income.
Now, his wife, Granny Glynn, was married before, and she had two children.
- So she was married before him? - Before, yeah.
- Which is quite scandalous.
- She was married to his brother.
And then when he died, she married my grandad.
- So she was married to his brother.
- Yes.
The brother got killed in the war.
- So she married the other brother? - Yes.
- Practical.
- And then she had her daughter from the first marriage, her name was Annie, Annie Glynn, and Annie married a fellow called Thomas Bryan, and he was a Republican, and he was in Mountjoy prison, and he was hung in 1921 by the British Army and he was buried beside Kevin Barry.
Now, you know Kevin Barry, I've heard you singing that song.
I have, well, I remember when we were kids, obviously, we had this album called The Freedom Fighters.
It was a guy in a sort of cloth cap standing in front of the Irish flag.
And I used to play those songs, obviously, you know, Kevin Barry.
My Only Son Was Shot In Dublin, - The Wearing Of The Green - Give us a bar of it now.
The one was, was My only son was shot in Dublin Do you remember that one? And then we used to play, The wearing of the green The wearing of the green They're hanging men and women For the wearing of the green.
I'll never be able to go to the north again.
I remember playing those songs, I remember my auntie Kit, she always used to say, like, round about seven o'clock when there'd been a bit of drinking on Christmas Eve, "Put on the rebel songs", and we'd play them.
Just a lad of 18 summers Yet no-one can deny That, like Barry, we'll free Ireland For her faith, men live and die.
I remember the words.
Completely, yeah.
No, I always thought when we were growing up, I thought we were related to Kevin Barry - Did you? - for some reason, so, it was Bryan.
It was Bryan, yes, Thomas Bryan.
And he was someone that married into the family? Yeah, he married, yeah.
So Richard Glynn, my great-grandfather, was in the British Army.
- That's right, yeah.
His son-in-law, Thomas Bryan, was hung with Kevin Barry - Yeah.
- in Mountjoy Gaol.
- So that makes sense.
- Yeah, yeah.
George has learnt that his maternal great-grandfather, Richard Glynn, married his brother's widow and that her daughter, Annie, George's great aunt, married an Irish Republican called Thomas Bryan, who was executed by the British.
So I'm doing a little bit of detective work.
I'm looking up the marriage of my great aunt Annie Glynn and Thomas Bryan.
They got married on the 28th of November 1920.
Thomas Bryan and Annie Glynn.
14 Henrietta Street, Dublin.
So they actually lived in 14 Henrietta Street, where we went the other day to that museum.
That's trippy, I wish I'd known that when I was there.
Now it kind of takes on a whole 'nother sort of frequency.
George's returning to the Tenement Museum at 14 Henrietta Street, where he's discovered his great uncle, Thomas Bryan, lived.
How are you? Welcome back to Henrietta Street.
- Lovely cold weather.
- Nice to meet you.
Come on through.
So let me show you where Thomas Bryan and his family lived.
- Very exciting.
- He's meeting historian Ciaran Wallace.
Come on through.
- Is this the original? - This is the actual room where he - Man, that's amazing.
- grew up.
OK, it's been slightly redecorated for the purposes of the museum, but this is the room, this is the view he would have had.
So have you met Thomas and Annie? - No.
- Let me introduce you.
He's a very handsome man.
- Isn't he? - She looks quite fierce.
- Do you think? - Yeah.
She had good taste, Annie.
So Annie and Thomas would have lived in this space, in this room, this was their home where they set out on their married life as a young couple.
I've got a lot of questions, obviously, because it's a sort of interesting contradiction, the fact that my great-grandfather, Richard, fought in the British Army, and then you've got this young, handsome whippersnapper coming into your family with quite radical views, you know? - That's going to be interesting.
- For Richard, with his background.
Come on, I've got a few more things to show you.
What I'm interested in is I don't know anything about Thomas Bryan prior to him meeting my great aunt.
Well, I have a document here that might give you some background as to who he was.
Mountjoy Prison.
Thomas Bryan.
He was 19.
1917, so 1917, 18, 19, 20, so he was in prison three years before he married Annie.
He's an electrician.
So that's quite a good job at the time for a guy from this area.
He's got a trade.
- 14 Henrietta Street.
- Yep.
So this is what he's charged with, his offence.
"Acted in contravention of regulation 9E of the Defence of the "Realm Reg by taking part in a certain drill of a military nature.
" So, basically, he was pretending to be a soldier? Well, pretending is an interesting word.
So he's rounded up in 1917 for taking part in a drill of the Irish Volunteers.
Aren't the Irish Volunteers the IRA? They're the precursor to the IRA.
So we have to step back a bit to understand how he comes to be here, to the 1916 Rising.
Have you heard of the Rising? The Easter Rising in 1916 saw Irish Republican rebels launch an armed campaign in Dublin to bring an end to British rule.
Although the British quickly put down the rising, when they then decided to execute its leaders, the public mood swung behind the Republican movement, especially among young men like Thomas Bryan.
So Thomas grew up in this area, where there was suddenly a really brutal set of killings of civilians during the 1916 Rising, and this would have radicalised him and many other guys like him.
And they thought, it falls to us now, the younger men of the city, to do something.
So they were forming a secret army, which was the Irish Volunteers, out in fields in the countryside, and that's how he was picked up and arrested.
- Amazing.
And that's who he is by the time he meets and marries Annie.
- She definitely went for a bad boy.
- That seems to be a family tradition.
- That's amazing.
- They're married in 1920.
And you think, well, here's the happy ever after.
This is what happens next.
Secret evidence.
"At Drumcondra the 21st of the first 1921, Thomas Bryan was found with "one revolver and 20 rounds of ammunition.
Francis Flood also.
" So this relates to an incident in Drumcondra, which is a suburb about a mile north from here.
At Drumcondra, there's a bridge across the river and this is a unit of IRA men who's waiting behind the balustrade of the bridge to attack a police lorry that's coming past.
This is during the Irish War of Independence, so things have really heated up in the city and in the country entirely.
The Irish War of Independence began when the Republican Sinn Fein party formed a breakaway government in January 1919 and declared independence from Britain.
The Irish Volunteers that Thomas Bryan had joined now became the Irish Republican Army, or IRA.
It launched a guerrilla campaign in Ireland and the British responded by imposing martial law.
This meant being arrested could have serious consequences for an IRA Volunteer, like Thomas Bryan.
And this event goes horribly wrong.
The raid actually goes ahead, it happens.
Nobody's killed on the police lorry, but it keeps going, but within moments, the other battalion of police arrive and they start to capture and chase after the IRA unit and they round up most of them.
- Does he go to prison for this? He's arrested on this very serious charge and he's taken to Kilmainham Gaol.
And this is where things get very serious for Thomas Bryan? It's amazing to think that my great aunt Annie marries Thomas Bryan and within four months he's arrested on very, very serious charges and he's in prison.
And her future must have seemed so uncertain at that point, but I imagine that she knew what she was getting involved in.
Maybe that's what attracted her to Thomas, you know? His passion.
He was a very handsome man.
For me, this is really interesting, because when I was a kid, I used to play this album of rebel songs and being here, you know, it's like climbing into those songs, you know? And it's interesting because I became a musician and music's such a big part of my life, it is my life.
So it just feels like I'm climbing into a piece of really important, kind of, not only family history, but also Irish history, you know, and that just feels kind of incredible.
Now that I know who he is, now that I've seen a picture of him, I feel like I need to know more, I need to kind of experience more, you know, because I'm in his life now.
George is visiting Kilmainham Gaol, now a museum, to find that more about his great uncle Thomas Bryan's imprisonment.
- Hello.
- Hello.
- Here we are.
- Nice to meet you.
- Welcome to Kilmainham.
- After you.
He's meeting historian Aoife Torpey.
This is the more modern part of Kilmainham Gaol.
It opens in the 1860s.
- It's lovely and light and airy.
- Yeah.
That's about the only thing it's got going for it.
Yes.
It's beautiful, for a jail.
And this is where Thomas Bryan and the other men would have been held, in this wing, here.
Unfortunately, we don't know which cell was Thomas's.
So we're going to have a look in to give you an idea of what the conditions would have been like.
- They open out.
- Come on in.
When Thomas and the other men were here, it was a military prison.
- Definitely not pleasant.
- Exactly.
They had a bit of light.
It would have been quite sparsely furnished as well.
They probably had some blankets, maybe a wooden board for a bed.
It's impossible to even think about what you'd feel being in a room like this, you know, it's so It's basic isn't it? It's like a, it's almost like a tomb.
So, Thomas was here in Kilmainham, but only for quite a short period because they moved the men from Kilmainham to Mountjoy prison and it was in Mountjoy, about a week later, that Thomas receives his sentence.
And we have the document he would have been handed.
"Thomas Bryan, the court's found you guilty of the following charges.
"High treason.
" "The court has passed a sentence of death upon you.
" That's hard-core.
They're court martialled on 24th February 1921 and then they receive their sentence.
But no trial, nothing.
No.
Interesting when you look at a document, it just kind of gives it a whole 'nother frequency, you know? When you think, you know what I mean, this piece of paper is just awful.
What strikes me is that you could take away someone's life with a form.
It's just so startling.
What happened to Annie? I know they were just married, I mean, four months.
Well, actually on 25th February 1921, he writes to his father-in-law, Richard Glynn, who is your great grandfather.
"Dear Dick.
Just a few lines hoping you all at home are in the pink.
"Well, Dick, my trial is over, I have received my death sentence, but it's not confirmed yet, but that is only a matter of time.
" "I've not told Annie my sentence, needless to say I don't know how to do so.
" "Personally, I don't mind death in any form, but, naturally, my thoughts stray to my dear, little wife, for as she truly said some time ago, it is our women who suffer the most.
" "I wonder how she will take it.
" "Well, Dick, I know you will do your best to keep her spirit up and I will now close, wishing to be remembered to all the rest.
"Remaining your loving son-in-law, Thomas Bryan.
" "Cheerio.
" It's so like, my God, this is so amazing, to just to even read this is just There's great sensitivity in the letter.
I think the most poignant line, "I don't mind death in any form, but, naturally, my thoughts stray to my dear, little wife.
" He's clearly a very sensitive human being.
And he loves her.
Yeah, and that's beautiful.
When I started this journey, I never imagined I would actually sit here and read something that was written by Thomas.
I mean, it's overwhelming, really.
So this is another piece by Thomas.
This is actually a poem he wrote.
So we have the original here.
- In pencil.
- Yes.
So we have a transcript here.
"On a bed made of plants and a pillow of hair" "I lie down to sleep but I find no rest there.
" "I am thinking of home and the joys of my life.
" "And the sweet little Colleen I now call my wife.
" Colleen is girl, I know that.
"I ponder all, I am nearly bereft.
" "My life or my honour, which will be left.
" It's a good poem.
"I please and I pray to my Mother on high.
" "To ask God save me, for I don't want to die.
" "But to live for my wife and the dear little child.
" - He had a child? - Annie was pregnant.
Yes.
He's thinking of Annie and this child they're going to have and he's hoping that he's spared for them.
I think the sense that we get of Thomas is that he kind of knew what he was doing and he accepted the sort of consequences in a way, but still, dying for a cause must be quite difficult.
This is something more official and it's a letter to the Governor of Mountjoy.
"Sir, I have the honour to forward you herewith the written order of the general officer commanding in chief for the execution of the following persons now in your custody under sentence of death.
"Patrick Moran, Thomas Whelan, Frank Flood, Thomas Bryan, Patrick Doyle, Bernard Ryan.
" Very matter-of-fact.
Then on the reverse there's something there as well.
Yes.
So it tells you the time.
Thomas Bryan, 14th March, 8.
00am.
That was the time he was hung and he at the was hanged with Frank Flood at the same time.
So it was double hangings.
They went to the gallows together.
The hang house in Mountjoy is actually preserved.
And you can see where they were hanged in Mountjoy prison.
Definitely climbing into history.
Yes, you can't get any closer than that.
You get the sense that he started this political struggle knowing what the outcome might be.
The fact that my great-aunt Annie was pregnant, what a thing to find out that, you know, they had been married four months, he was now facing the hangman and he was having a kid.
I mean, that is just How human do you want to get, you know? It's just the most awful thing to find out.
Mountjoy prison is a mythical place in my mind.
You know, I've known about it since I was 12 years old.
But it wasn't something that I imagined that I would ever see or experience.
At Mountjoy, George is meeting historian Shaun Reynolds.
- Hello, Shaun, how're you doing? - Welcome to Mountjoy.
Now, I'll take you down to the hang house and I'll show you where your great uncle sadly passed away.
- OK.
Here, on the left-hand side here, is the hang house.
Now, I'll just open up here now.
This door is stuck.
Just watch your step please and you're into the hang house.
Or the execution chamber that some people call it.
This is where Thomas Bryan, Frank Flood, who were the last of the six to be executed.
So if you'll like to come upstairs now.
Now, you have arrived on the floor where the trap door is.
The first four started the execution at 6.
00.
Another four to two went at seven.
Thomas Bryan and Frank Flood were 8.
00.
The execution would have taken as little as 13 seconds for the two individuals to die.
- 13 seconds is a long time, though.
- It is a long time.
It was a sad morning because the two men, they stood side by side, were comrades in arms and they shared a cell here in the prison as well.
You can see the chain there.
Left standing on the platform.
And while that's in position The doors won't shut.
The trap doors won't release.
You would extract that.
You would send that forward.
That is possibly the last sound the individuals would have heard.
If you like, you can try that there, I'll show you, you can feel it.
I don't think I will.
- You're very welcome.
- And this is a nice touch.
It is, it is.
It is.
It's brutal.
The remains were removed then from here and they were buried just up to the left-hand side.
As you come in the main gate, they were buried up there in the garden.
- I'll leave you here to your thoughts.
- OK.
What a place.
I'll be really honest, and say actually I feel quite angry, actually, at the moment.
My overall feeling is of anger.
It's just awful.
It's like macabre theatre.
Having read the letter from Thomas to Richard, I imagine that my great-grandfather would have hated this.
He would have been heartbroken, I suppose, you know.
Because not only has he got to think about, you know, what's going to happen to Thomas, but also his own daughter, who's pregnant.
That just adds even more, like, sadness to this.
It's just, God, can it get any more sad? It's just so sad, you know.
What I should do while I'm here is I almost forgot.
The most important bit of the visit.
Thomas Bryan and the five other IRA men executed that day in 1921, along with four others, including Kevin Barry, hanged the year before, were buried in unmarked graves within the prison walls.
In time, they became known as the Forgotten Ten.
In 2001, that changed when their bodies were exhumed and nine of the ten taken to Glasnevin Cemetery, where they were reburied with state honours.
Thomas Bryan.
Incredible.
It's amazing to discover that this is kind of part of my family history.
It's incredible.
Kevin Barry there.
Obviously, that was the name I did know, growing up.
And now I know about Frank Flood as well.
I'm proud and I'm sad.
I'm proud and I'm sad, I think that's the best way to describe how I feel.
Now I really want to know what happened to the child.
What happened to Annie? To find out, George has come to the museum at Glasnevin Cemetery to meet historian Connor Dodd.
So we have a record here for you to take a look at.
And this is an order for an internment within the cemetery.
Thomas Bryan, 15 Dominic Street, Dublin.
This is the age.
The years are blank, the months are blank and one day.
So this is the baby that That Annie was having when he was hung.
So this is the child here.
- And the cause of death.
- Convulsions.
So that baby literally was born and died.
- Wow, that's very sad.
- Correct.
And if we look here, we can see the date on which 10th March 1921.
So this happened before he was hung? That was Thursday, the 10th March.
And he was hung on 14th.
Correct, the following Monday.
My God.
How much more tragedy can you put into a story? It's just the saddest thing.
God.
So much going on in that week.
We have another record here for you to have a look at.
Annie Christina Bryan.
And you can see, died, the date.
27th August 1930.
Had been an electrician's wife.
So she lived for he died 1921.
Maybe eight or nine years.
Nine years, yes.
And you can see the cause of death, which is Phthisis, which is tuberculosis, TB.
- OK.
So she never married again.
And died nine years later.
That is heavy.
I mean, I knew it wasn't going to end well.
That's sadder than even I could have imagined.
Poor Annie.
George is looking for the grave of his great aunt, Annie Glynn.
Someone's written on the back.
Annie.
At least there's something here.
I hope it didn't last very long.
So this is where she lies.
Having now found out what she endured, it's just unimaginable, you know, to think that while her husband was waiting to be hung, she lost their first child.
And we'll never know whether he knew, whether he went to his death, knowing that his first-born had already died.
I mean, what a I really hope he didn't know.
I really, really hope he didn't know.
It's such an incredible story and mad that no-one's ever talked about it.
They will now.
I shall make sure they do.
This story's like a great Irish song.
It's like the sort of thing you'd hear someone singing at a funeral or a family wedding, like an old drunk Irishman singing this traditional lament, and that's really what this story is like, it's like a really sad song.
My family's kind of association to really important parts of Irish history is a revelation.
There's a line in the letter to Richard from Thomas where he says, "It's the women that suffer the most," and that's definitely true of Irish history, you know, our mothers and our grandmothers, the women really bear the brunt of all the suffering.
Knowing what happened to my grandmother Bridget made me quite angry, to think she was taken from her family at six-years-old and put into a place where she knew nobody.
But, you know what, her story is a triumph.
I think that my mum will find this story really emotional.
It'll help her put the pieces together, you know, I think that she's going to be really fascinated.
She'll definitely cry.
George's final visit is the pub next to the cemetery to join up with Irish band Lankum, to sing the rebel song he remembers from his childhood.
In Mountjoy jail one Monday morning High upon the gallows tree Kevin Barry gave his young life For the cause of liberty I think for me, you know, music is such a powerful medium and Kevin Barry, as a song, still resonates because I knew it had a real importance, but I didn't really know how it related to me.
As he walked to death that morning And to be able to walk in those footsteps and to actually find out, sort of, family history has been very, very enlightening and powerful for me.
Shoot me like an Irish soldier Do not hang me like a dog For I fought for Ireland's freedom On that dark September morn.
And now I've proved beyond any questionable doubt that I'm definitely part of Irish history.
So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.