Great British Railway Journeys (2010) s04e24 Episode Script

Newbridge to Roscrea

1 In 1840, one man transformed travel In Britain and Ireland.
His name was George Bradshaw, and his railway guides Inspired the Victorians to take to the tracks.
Stop by stop, he told them where to travel, what to see and where to stay.
Now, 170 years later, I'm making a series of journeys across the length and breadth of these Islands to see what of Bradshaw's world remains.
For this leg of my train journey across the Irish Republic, I'm using an 1880s edition of my Bradshaw's Guide to travel across tracks that were laid in the 19th century when Great Britain and Ireland were a single state under Queen Victoria.
On this stretch, I'll visit the Irish National Stud, a bucking experience Oh, the horse is going very fast! It's absolutely exhausting! I'll discover that life was harsh for Ireland's poor When you came in here, you gave up everything and you signed up to a life within the workhouse.
and I'll uncover an astronomical feat of Victorian engineering.
- (Michael) What a construction.
- It was known locally as the monster.
Having sampled the rural charms of the south of the country, I'm continuing my journey through the Irish Midlands before veering out west to end up on the Impressive Atlantic coast In Galway.
Starting out In County Kildare, I'm travelling on what was, In Bradshaw's day, the Great Southern and Western Railway, through County Laols and finishing In County Offaly.
During Queen Victoria's reign, the British Army made use of the railways to maintain order in an increasingly rebellious Ireland.
At my next stop, Newbridge, my Bradshaw's tells me, "There was an encampment on a large scale, which was the temporary sojourn of the Prince of Wales in 1861.
" I shall be interested to find out more about that royal visit.
The encampment referred to Is the Curragh Camp.
The vast open flats of the Curragh Plain had, for hundreds of years, provided the perfect terrain for military manoeuvres and cavalry training.
At the outbreak of the Crimean War In the 1850s, the British Army made It a permanent training base.
- Charlie.
- Hello, Michael.
Sergeant Charlie Walsh Is the curator of the Military Museum.
Ah, I see here you've got a display about the Prince of Wales, 1861.
This is referred to in my Bradshaw's Guide, his sojourn here.
Why was the Prince of Wales sojourned on the Curragh? (Charlie) The prince was to be based here for ten weeks, where he was inducted and trained in military manoeuvres.
He was also to be trained in how to conduct himself in a social situation.
The prince, eldest son of Victoria and Albert, was considered by his parents something of a wild child.
And at 19, he was sent to the Curragh for his military training.
His parents expected him to rise from ensign to Brigade Commander In just ten weeks.
Even so, this sociable prince found time for fun.
Now, this actually says "The Prince and the Showgirl".
What's this story? The Prince and the Showgirl.
Well, what happened one night was that, whilst the prince was, erm, in the company of some senior officers that were having a function, and when the senior officers went to bed, the junior officers and the prince were still up drinking.
And what happened is, apparently, that the junior officers then smuggled in an actress into the prince's quarters.
By the time news of the prince's amorous adventures with the actress Nellie Clifden had broken, he was back In England and studying at Cambridge University.
Prince Albert was furious at his son's Indiscretion.
Already unwell, on 25 November 1861, the Prince Consort travelled to Cambridge to confront his son.
Although they reached a reconciliation, just one month later, Prince Albert died.
Now, Queen Victoria, it has been said, that she blamed the early death of her husband on what happened here in the Curragh due to the prince's activities.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
So, this showgirl was a lady who was no better than she should be, as they say.
- Er, I'll leave that uncommented.
- (laughs) From the Crimean War through to the First World War, the Curragh was one of the British Army's most Important training bases, stationing up to 30,000 troops at any one time.
That was all to change, however.
In 1921, after years of conflict and bloodshed, the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed, which ended British rule In much of Ireland.
And on 16 May 1922, the British handed over the camp to the Irish Free State Army.
Do you get the impression the British Army left in a kind of careless hurry? No, we've actually found documents where the British Army were quite meticulous in the cleanliness of the camp before they handed it over to the new National Army.
They went right down into the small detail.
They actually blackened the fire grates, they ironed the billiard table cloths and, also, even went as far as sharpening the billiard table cues for the new National Army.
A sign of respect after all that bitterness.
It is, indeed.
It's a sign of the way things are moving on now.
On that momentous day, the Irish Tricolour was holsted up the flagpole and has flown over the camp ever since.
The Curragh Is still an active training base for the Irish Defence Forces, now deployed In UN, EU and NATO peace enforcing missions.
I'm on my own Irish manoeuvres, however, so It's back to Newbridge Station.
As I continue my journey, my Bradshaw's says, "A little to the side of the line is the Curragh race course, the Newmarket of Ireland on a fine down six miles long.
" So it seems then that the Curragh turf has not just been the home to armies, it also has a horsey pedigree.
I'm not stopping to have a flutter, though, I'm bypassing the race course, and crossing the plain to the next stop along, Kildare, because just a few furlongs from here Is the Irish National Stud, the seed of Irish horse racing.
I'm hoping that Chief Executive John Osborne can tell me how geology, the military and the railways all combined to help the sport of kings to reign supreme here.
Well, now, how did Irish racing start here at the Curragh? Well, racing is associated with the army officers quite a bit wherever you go.
The army officers, for fun, would entertain themselves by taking each other on at horse racing.
And then they formed a turf club, and from the turf club, they would challenge each other to match races, and racing evolved in the same way it has done in other parts of the world.
And the Curragh was a perfect place to locate horse racing, as an open plain with plenty of areas to gallop your horse.
(horse whinnies loudly) There's a commentary on our conversation.
Erm, the origins of the National Stud, where we are now? (John) It was bought in 1900 by, erm, a brewer of Scots descent called William Hall Walker.
And he was a sportsman who won the 1896 Grand National.
And, I think with the proceeds of that particular escapade, he bought this farm and converted it into an elite stud farm.
And he had some very eccentric ideas about how it should be done.
And from the very start, he used to mate his mares by horoscope.
- And he was fascinated by astrology.
- (laughs) And everybody laughed then, too.
Until he became the champion breeder for ten years between 1905 and 1915.
(Michael) How important have the trains been in your history? Well, the train would have been the artery for horse racing as well and a lot of the Irish racecourses, not coincidently, evolved close to the mainline railways.
We take for granted how easy it is to ship horses twice around the globe nowadays, but back then, the race horses travelled by train as well.
In Bradshaw's day, so close was the relationship between the railway and racing, that the course had Its own sidings and the Great Southern and Western Railway Company sponsored an annual race, which Is still run today: The Railway Stakes.
I'm just wondering about any famous equine names that would have been rail passengers over the years.
Ambush was a famous red.
He was the winner of the 1900 Grand National for the Prince of Wales at the time.
And also, great champions like Pretty Polly, who was a great race mare, would have travelled by train, and Bahram, the Aga Khan's Triple Crown winner in the '30s, would also have travelled by train.
In 1917, William Hall Walker gifted his farm, lock stock and saddle, to the Crown, with the Intention that It would become the first National Stud, and Ireland has been rewarded with world-class winners ever since.
Sinead Hyland, marketing coordinator, has agreed to fill me In on the more Intricate workings of the Stud.
Sinead, I think I understand the word "stud", but how does the business really work? Well, we're one of the only stud farms open to the public.
Stud, I suppose, it encompasses all of the stallions here.
They're our main source of income.
We've six stallions this year, and we're pretty much wrapping up our breeding season now.
The horses have "ladies" who will visit them up to four times a day.
- Four times a day? - Four times a day, yes.
We also have a teaser.
He has probably the worst job on the farm.
Who's a teaser? Teaser is, erm, for ladies, it's their first time visiting one of our stallions and, erm, he gets them he gets them ready, basically.
- But he's a horse? - He's a horse, a little pony stallion.
(Michael) Right.
(Sinead) This is actually our top stallion, Invincible Spirit.
- (Michael) What a fantastic horse.
- He's beautiful, even to somebody who doesn't know what to look for in a thoroughbred.
I mean, he's a beautiful specimen.
He stands at 60,000 euros, and he covered 136 mares this year, so he is, erm, he's our top dog.
Just take that a bit more slowly.
You're saying that every time he covers a mare, 60,000 euros? - Just like that.
- And he covered 134 in a year? Yep, up to.
He would have about Up to four ladies a day would visit him.
Impressive.
That's over 8,000,000 euros a year.
However, the Stud aims to produce not just thoroughbred horses, but also first-class jockeys, as for the last 40 years, It's been home to Ireland's Racing Academy.
That is one of the most bizarre sights I ever saw.
I had no idea that this went on.
This is how you train jockeys? It is.
This is Barry Walsh here.
(Barry) OK, guys, let's turn them off there for a sec.
Turn them off.
He's raring to go.
- Barry.
- How are you? Pleased to meet you.
I'm Michael.
It's lovely to see you.
So (laughs) - Would you like to have a go yourself? - (laughs) How could I refuse? (Barry) If you just sort of swing your leg over, then.
(Michael) Good deal easier than getting on a real horse.
- (Barry) You say that now.
- (Michael laughs) (Barry) OK? One, two, three, up you get.
Keeping your hands down.
Bring your knee back a small bit.
Head up.
And always looking where you're going.
OK? So you can just sit back down there, and we'll start her off.
OK? One, two, three, up you go.
Hands down.
Ease back a small bit.
Don't crouch down too much now.
Don't over-exaggerate.
A little bit quicker.
(laughs) Oh, my goodness.
Now, I've got to relax, haven't I? Nice and relaxed.
Backwards and forwards.
So easy to relax in this position! - Keep that left hand quiet.
- Enjoying the ride.
- (they laugh) - Hands down.
Knees in.
- Think you can stride quicker? - Stride quicker.
Whoa.
Whoa.
Look ahead.
Oh, the horse is going very fast now.
It's absolutely exhausting! I'm running out of breath.
I'm exhausted.
(sighs) Ah, a politician jockeying for position.
Unseated again.
I'm returning to the Iron horse to resume my journey west.
I'll be crossing the border from County Kildare Into County Laols.
- Is this free? - It is.
Thank you.
My next stop will be in Portarlington, which my Bradshaw's tells me was formerly called Cooletoodera.
"William III gave it to General Rouvigny, who settled it with French and Flemish Protestants and built the two churches.
" And I believe that the railway station also shows sign of this little town's heritage.
- My stop.
Bye-bye.
- Bye-bye.
Opened In 1847, Portarlington was and still Is a focal point on the Irish Rail Network.
On the Dublin to Cork mainline, today It's a busy junction where passengers can branch off to Galway, Ballina and Westport.
Back In Bradshaw's day, the lines weren't as numerous.
But this picturesque station provided a vital rest stop for early travellers.
Portarlington really is the finest looking station I've seen in the Irish Republic, with its gables and its Tudor chimneys and its bell tower.
Apparently, there used to be a bell in the tower because trains would make a special long stop here to allow passengers to get off and eat and drink in the dining room, and then the bell would ring to tell them it was time to get aboard and the train was about to go.
Which makes Portarlington a pretty hospitable place and somewhere that I'm happy to break my journey and end my day.
It's a new day, and I'm continuing through the Irish Midlands deeper Into county Laols before ending In County Offaly.
In Victorian Ireland, third-class tickets made it possible for millions to take the train.
Even so, rail travel would have been beyond the wildest dreams of the poorest.
I'm going to alight at Ballybrophy to find out how life was lived by those who had nothing.
(announcement) Shortly arriving at Ballybrophy.
Thank you for travelling with larnrôd Éireann.
(Michael) Between 1720 and 1820, the population of Ireland exploded, doubling In size from three million to over six.
Unlike England, which was undergoing an Industrial Revolution, In rural Ireland, employment was virtually non-existent and land, upon which the Irish labourer relled, was both costly to rent and overly sub-let.
By the end of the 18th century, about a third of the country was near starvation level.
Poverty was endemic.
State Intervention became unavoidable.
The government's solution was the workhouse.
I've come to Donaghmore Workhouse, now a museum, to meet Its chairman, Trevor Stanley.
- Trevor.
- Michael.
(exhales) An extraordinary complex of buildings here.
What were they originally? Er, buildings were structured in such a way that we had the girls' and boys' dormitories to the front, the men and the women's dormitories in the middle and the infirmary at the back.
First of all, you've told me something I hadn't realised, the men and women and boys and girls were split up on arrival.
Very much so.
One of the strict rules that they had within the workhouse in Ireland was to divide the families.
And that was ultimately not to encourage people into the workhouse.
When you came in here, you gave up everything and you signed up to a life within the workhouse.
The 1838 Irish Poor Law Act decreed that poor relief was available In the workhouse only.
It was this or nothing.
The country was divided Into 130 administrative unions, each containing a workhouse.
They were set up and run by an elected Board of Guardians financed by a levy on the local landowners, their principle being that property was to pay for poverty.
I know the law in Ireland, although it's slightly later than the law in England, was based on the same thing.
And the idea was that you were going to have poor people, but you had to absolutely discourage them from entering the workhouse.
It had to be the worst possible thing.
And I think the expression was that the conditions in a workhouse had to be "less eligible" than life outside.
(Trevor) They had to be harsher.
They had to give up whatever holdings that they had outside, and those holdings were divided up to other people within the landlord estates.
When they came in here, they literally lost their dignity.
The ethos of the workhouse was that Inmates should be worse clothed, worse lodged and worse fed than people outside.
However, even the Poor Law Commissioners recognised that the standard of living for most Irish poor was so low that It would be difficult to establish one even lower.
The workhouse system was so despised that, despite widespread poverty, In 1846, the number of Inmates across the country's workhouses stood at just 43,000, less than half their capacity.
- Unchanged since Victorian times.
- I'm afraid so, Michael.
(Michael) This was the boys' dorm? You can see the whitewashed walls.
Whitewash was used to keep disease down because the lime would kill the bacterias and the bugs.
This room, I always say, is built for ventilation and not for comfort because you have air vents between each window and you have air vents under the plinth as well, too.
It's terrible, but it's interesting that the Victorians understood the connection between disease and lack of cleanliness and they understood the need for ventilation.
I mean, this is quite advanced in some ways.
It is, and I suppose they learnt very quickly because when you put a group of 50, 60, 70 boys into any room and if they have a sniffle or a cold, it spreads through like wildfire.
I imagine the death rate was pretty ghastly.
Death rates would have been pretty high in workhouses in general because people were at such a low ebb in coming in.
The food, the accommodation was not designed to fatten them up, or to improve them, it was just basic maintenance.
And that obviously led to a lot of disease.
Typhus, dysentery, cholera would have been the three main diseases.
Death Inside the workhouse was common, but by 1847, those outside became victims of famine as successive potato crops failed.
The workhouses were deluged.
By 1851, their population stood at 217,000, more than double their Intended capacity.
Workhouses designed for hundreds were forced to house thousands.
So, tell me how the system began to creak and crumble under the famine.
Well, I suppose the ultimate breakdown of the system was that the people that came in here had no way of getting back out.
And emigration was a method of getting people out and to reduce numbers, but, ultimately, that was only for families that were healthy.
So for other people, they had to stay here.
And, obviously, the whole system began to crumble after that.
By the early 20th century, It was clear that the workhouse system needed radical reform.
A royal commission In 1906 recommended the system be abolished.
The workhouses were designed to use public money to relieve poverty, but to make It shameful, so as not to discourage people from working If they could remain Independent.
The scale of misery unleashed by the famine overwhelmed the system, adding to resentment against landowners and the British establishment.
My Bradshaw's enticingly tells me of the Roscrae and Parsonstown line 22.
5 miles long.
"On arriving at the town of Roscrae, it divides into two branches.
" "The one to the northwest to Parsonstown or Birr, near Parsonstown Castle, seat of the Earl of Rosse with a famous telescope here.
" Unfortunately, the line no longer stretches so far.
And so my quest for that renowned astronomical instrument means that I must alight at Roscrea.
Victorians were as passionate about scientific exploration as they were about rail travel.
Whether professional or amateur, their thirst for knowledge was Insatiable.
And Birr Castle, an ancestral seat deep In the Irish bogs, became an unexpected centre of scientific discovery.
The current Earl of Rosse Is going to enlighten me.
- Hello.
You're welcome, Michael.
- Thank you very much indeed.
- Tá fallte romhat, as we say.
- That's a very nice welcome.
The Parsons, the famlly name of the Earls of Rosse, have been at Birr Castle since 1620.
It's one of the oldest Inhabited homes In the county, and one particular ancestor Interests me.
My Bradshaw's says there's a famous telescope here.
Which ancestor was that? That was my great, great grandfather, the third Earl.
I'm number seven.
And he was my great, great grandfather who built this telescope, that we're just going to see here, in the 1840s.
It was completed just before the famine really struck.
(Michael) I read about this telescope in the book, but it gave me no hint of how enormous it was going to be.
What a construction.
(Earl) It was known locally as the monster, His Lordship's monster.
And it certainly was the biggest in the world for three quarters of a century.
It enabled him to see further into space than anyone had ever been able to see before.
William Parsons, the third Earl, graduated from Oxford University with a first class honours degree In mathematics.
But he was simply an extraordinary and enthusiastic amateur.
That makes this 16-ton telescope, with Its 72" mirror, an even more outstanding feat of engineering and architecture.
With a new telescope of this power, what new discoveries were enabled? I think the Whirlpool Galaxy was the most significant of the discoveries that he made here, and literally during the first few months of the operation of the telescope in 1845.
The discovery, what, that galaxies had a kind of spiral shape, is this? Were spiral in shape, like the one that is called the Whirlpool, of which we have one of the most beautiful drawings in the galleries here.
Because everything he saw, he drew.
But it all had to be made here, entirely by the people of Birr, mobilising the coopers to make the curved beams of the tube, the carpenters to make things like the galleries, and, of course, the blacksmiths to make all the ironwork.
And luckily, Birr, as a garrison town, then had a good supply of craftsmen to make everything.
So all the coopers, blacksmiths and carpenters were mobilised to make this.
The Earl's leviathan telescope remained the world's largest for over 70 years, and put Birr on the map.
Scientists, stargazers and engineers from all over the globe came to see It, their journeys much facilitated by the arrival of the railway In 1858.
Now, Michael, this is what we call our muniments room, where we keep all the archives.
And these go back to more or less when we came here in the 1620s, so about 18,000 historical documents in all these boxes.
This must be a very considerable archive by national standards.
I think it's the largest private archive that is still useable in Ireland.
And out of the archives I've got this old book, which is the visitors' book of the observatory at Birr Castle.
And maybe I'll just open the first page to show you the significance of the initial signature, which is that of Charles Babbage, who the third Earl invited to inaugurate this book on September 91850.
(Michael) And Babbage, what would you say was his place in history? He is the grandfather, or now maybe even the great grandfather of the whole of every computer in the world today.
Extraordinary.
The story of science at Birr Is far from over, as even now astrophysicists are using the grounds to measure solar flares using a radio telescope.
The third Earl would be proud.
In 19th-century Ireland, poverty-stricken peasants were caught between starvation and the workhouse.
The British Army was here to keep them in order, but also bequeathed to the Irish a love of horse racing.
Meanwhile, aristocrats expanded our knowledge of science, the sort of progress so admired by George Bradshaw.
On the final leg of this journey, I'll discover historic Irish jewellery with royal connections I'm ready for my patient.
meet an ancient people's king Happy and glorious, long to reign over us.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you.
and get to grips with some oral history.
My own native land far away - Well done, Michael.
- (applause)
Previous EpisodeNext Episode