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00:00Ireland an ancient land filled with wonder I absolutely love I mean we live in paradise
00:12I dived all over the world I've never seen anything like it before the country's national
00:18parks are the guardians of this landscape they display the stunning habitats and incredible
00:26wildlife and they celebrate the rich history of this island these secret places were absolutely
00:35vital to their survival the amazing thing about this garden the layers of history that have been
00:41attitude have enhanced us but these are also places visited by millions in each episode we'll
00:55soar above two of these parts to witness the traditions they maintain there's very little
01:05difference in what I'm doing here now and what they did 100 years ago to follow the vital work
01:12they champion we don't look after it and care about it that's not going to be here for much
01:18longer and to marvel at the natural beauty they protect
01:24at the heart of Ireland's west coast stand two national parks separated by less than 50 kilometers
01:49Connemara and wild Nathan for millennia the exposed windswept lands near that coastline stood as the edge of the known world
02:16but while this is once a remote untamed wilderness it grew into an area rich in stories and tradition
02:27the two parks shine a light on this region's character and significance
02:34the northernmost of this pair is wild Nathan home to one of Ireland's largest wilderness areas
02:56a beguiling peaceful landscape that hides many treasures of the past
03:03some of which have been left undisturbed for thousands of years
03:07to its south lies Connemara a place deeply connected to the local community
03:19and a favorite spot along the wild Atlantic way tourist trail that stretches the length of the country
03:27this region's relationship with the ocean has long shaped its history
03:35but over 100 years ago well before the establishment of the national parks
03:41it was not so much the Atlantic more Connemara's proximity to the land beyond it
03:47that drew the world's attention to this once little known area
03:52it was the first time a direct non-stop air crossing had been made
04:03the pioneering airmen may have mistaken Connemara's bogland for a firm grassy landing site
04:18but by touching down here they were able to spread word of their success almost instantly
04:30as this area's proximity to North America meant it was home to another world first
04:37in the northwest of Connemara National Park stands its iconic peak
04:49which gained its name from the glinting quartz crystals peppering its exposed features
04:55more than a century ago Guglielmo Marconi the Italian Irish inventor and pioneer of wireless communication
05:16stood upon these slopes and looked out across the Atlantic
05:19and in doing so he spied an opportunity that would help revolutionize the way we live
05:29we don't really use radio for intercontinental communications
05:44it's kind of been forgotten about
05:45but for the first 60 years of the 20th century it was the way phone calls were made messages were sent
05:54it was the internet of its day
05:56in 1907 almost 15 kilometers from here near the town of Clifton
06:02Marconi had opened the first commercial transatlantic telegraph service to use wireless technology
06:09four years later he came here to test a new idea
06:18I'm researching for a book about the history of the local Marconi station
06:22and every time I visit the diamond I always hopefully try and find some new pieces of evidence
06:27and we're just checking this area there was three mass in this area roughly behind us
06:32we're just going to have a look and see see what we can see
06:39at the time telegrams sent along undersea cables were connecting the world empires governments royalty
06:51the average person in the street messages that had previously taken weeks to reach their destination
06:58now took almost no time at all
07:05but Marconi knew how to take this to the next level
07:13and make a little money along the way
07:17having already proven radio could be heard across these distances in 1901
07:25Marconi's Clifton site was primed to undercut the expensive undersea cable companies
07:31by charging five pence per word sent half the going rate
07:39but there was a problem his technology was limited
07:42it could only send or receive
07:48so Marconi was getting more telegrams they could handle
07:51so he decided there has to be a way of sending and receiving at the same time
07:55so he came here to diamond hill
07:58he treated this this area these hills as a giant laboratory
08:03and the more I research it the more you thought you can't help but fall in love with it
08:08you know the fact that we all have a mobile phone in our pockets
08:13you know one only has to ask well how did that phone get in our hands
08:17Marconi needed to develop something called a full duplex system
08:22but this had never been done before
08:26when you make a mobile phone call today this is full duplex half duplexes like using your walkie-talkie
08:40you can only transmit you cannot receive it together
08:43soon the slopes the ridge line and the land beyond were draped in some 5,000 meters of copper and bronze wire
09:00there was a line of mast running right up along this ridge line to the top of the diamond and over it
09:14and down to the receiving room where all of the experimentation took place
09:18and we know one of the mast was here
09:20because over here we have the remains one of the few remains of Marconi here on the ground
09:25this is one of the anchor supports for the mast
09:28the ambition was to somehow block out the outgoing radio chatter of the nearby transmitter station in Clifton
09:40while still hearing the signal sent from the other side of the Atlantic
09:50after half a year of trial and error at the base of the hill
09:54until finally a clean transmission was received
10:06there's nowhere else on earth where something like this took place
10:08they figured out how to do it
10:10and make our modern telecommunications world possible
10:14through the 20th century
10:16radio spread the news of historic events
10:20it connected people
10:24and it sparked the transformation of our world through the use of electronics
10:32so in 1919 it wasn't just the touchdown of that pioneering transatlantic flight
10:42that came with a jolt
10:44but also the news of this historic moment
10:48as it was fired out from a bog on the west coast of Ireland
10:52despite Connemara's somewhat surprising history at the forefront of technological progress
11:08it remains a place where culture and tradition are held dear
11:14it's a place where culture and tradition are held
11:16in the past
11:18Connemara sits within County Galway
11:20where 50% of residents can still speak Irish
11:24the highest proportion of any county in the country
11:26tight-knit communities are vital to the survival of the old ways
11:32and in the small village at the base of Diamond Hill
11:36is a venue that's helping keep alive a different link to the past
11:50the most important place
11:52the most important place
12:14Yeah, Irish traditional music is extremely popular
12:18It creates community and it's an important part of Irish culture.
12:25It's a very healthy place, you know.
12:28It'll never die.
12:30The future of it is very safe.
12:36Letterfrack has garnered a reputation
12:39as a place that supports and promotes traditional music.
12:42But for Luc, it was a national park that first piqued his interest.
12:48My desire to learn the accordion was at the National Park
12:55the first time where I'd seen the accordion being played.
12:59And now he returns the favour for others.
13:02That's really why you play it, you know,
13:05to bring joy to people and experience joy.
13:08I play music sometimes in the National Park
13:11for events like Culture Night.
13:13Sometimes on weekends, like on a Sunday,
13:16we kind of play outdoors there and people having their lunch
13:20can just come by and listen and have a bit of a dance if they feel like it.
13:25While this area has just a few hundred full-time residents,
13:37it's known for the strength of its community.
13:40And ever since the National Park opened, it has helped bolster this.
13:44A really important part of the community here,
13:51it brings so many people into the community.
13:53And, yeah, it's a very special place, National Park.
13:57Like the wider area beyond its borders,
14:16much of the National Park still retains the feel of a wild, untamed landscape.
14:28Look around you.
14:38There's no intensive agriculture.
14:40There's no intensive industry.
14:43Look at the mountains.
14:45The Connemara National Park.
14:47In a few areas, that wildness has been harnessed.
14:56And down where the land and sea collide are the bountiful results of a perfect storm.
15:02Every oyster takes the flavour from the bay it's grown in.
15:18Think of the nutrients being gathered all the way from the Gulf of Mexico,
15:21all the way across the Atlantic Ocean,
15:24flow down into Ballina Kill Bay and fuse with the waters coming in from the National Park.
15:30That's what gives our oysters their unique flavour.
15:38The oysters here take three years to grow,
15:41from seed to the desired size for harvest.
15:44But within that time, the 15,000 mesh bags the oysters are grown in
15:49are turned twice a month.
15:51And when it's time for harvest, they're moved to another area of the bay.
15:56Each day is a race against the clock to get the work done.
16:06We always start at this every day because, as you can see,
16:09we're working out with the tide.
16:11And then once the boats can no longer move, once they get dried out,
16:16they'll head off and do another job.
16:22Proximity to fresh water sources, exposure to the tide and surface water movement.
16:27These factors influence the shape of the shell and the meat content of the oysters.
16:33The growth this season is just phenomenal.
16:39It's nearly too much to keep on top of it.
16:42It's hard work.
16:43But, yeah, we're getting there slowly.
16:47But the oysters, they're good.
16:49They're top quality there now.
17:06The final stint of an oyster's time in the bay is spent on a higher area of the shoreline,
17:11where they feel the change in tides more acutely,
17:14and their shells toughen as a result.
17:20These oysters are coming in to be hardened off so we can grade them for sale
17:24in around about three, four weeks' time.
17:27By doing that, they concentrate on themselves,
17:30they fatten themselves up, which is good for the consumer, really.
17:33And that's what we're doing here today.
17:49The farm here has been going since 1893.
17:56And just as it's always been, with the tide almost out,
17:59the team's time in the water is up.
18:04Unlike the old days, however,
18:06the business today doesn't solely rely upon the harvest.
18:16The relationship with the park is very positive.
18:18The number of visitors who visit the park every year,
18:21it's phenomenal.
18:23And we obviously then, they come down and they visit the tour.
18:25That's sort of synergy between the two.
18:27Oyster farming is not a long-established tradition in this region.
18:44In the past, for most, the land, not the sea,
18:47would have provided work and sustenance.
18:50But to farm this terrain successfully required the help of a particular animal.
18:54I don't think that you can get much more Irish than the Connemara pony.
19:03They're so much part of our past, our present, and our future.
19:10We're very proud of our Connemara ponies.
19:15Some claim the breed came to Ireland with the arrival of the Celts.
19:21Others suggest Vikings brought them here.
19:24While a few even claim they're descendants of horses that swam to shore
19:29from the sinking ships of the Spanish Armada in the 16th century.
19:32The more recent heritage of the park's herd, however, is a little more certain,
19:40as Cathy and Martin have been managing and breeding them for many generations,
19:45including these two broodmares.
19:47Aha, you see a bucket, don't you?
19:52Yes, good girl.
19:56Revered for their kind nature,
19:59but also their strength and sure-footedness across the uneven, boggy terrain,
20:04this breed is a symbol of the region.
20:06And as such, the National Park has been home to a family of Connemara ponies since the 1980s.
20:17We attempt to breed the very best of the Connemara pony.
20:22So they exemplify the true-to-type traits.
20:25So the people come and they see, well, this is what a true Connemara pony looks like.
20:30In the past, nearly every farm in this area would have had to have a Connemara pony.
20:36It was part of the tradition.
20:38It was part of their working system to have a pony to help them survive on their farms.
20:43But when the Great Famine brought Ireland to its knees in the middle of the 19th century,
20:49this breed also suffered and its population plummeted.
20:53As you look around, you can see that the landscape here is tough,
20:57and that reflects the sort of life that the people here had.
21:01The people had very little food for themselves,
21:04and so it was obvious they'd have very little food for the ponies as well.
21:07And so the ponies had to be very tough to survive.
21:10They had to work while living on the bare minimum.
21:12In the 1920s, a formal breeders association was founded to ensure the future of this pony.
21:31Its story since has been one of great success.
21:34Albeit not on the farm, but competing at events in front of a devoted audience.
21:43And the biggest show of all is found just a few kilometres down the road.
21:47To win in Clifton, that is the pinnacle of success.
21:56If you can win in Clifton with your Connemara pony, then you could die happy.
22:03The Connemara pony festival can be traced back to 1924.
22:06And for over 75 years now, the town of Clifton has been its home.
22:12This festival is the ultimate show for your Connemara pony.
22:37This is where you bring your best of best Connemara.
22:40From in hand, to show jumping, to carriage driving, it's here.
22:49It's a fabulous, fabulous event.
22:51Yeah, and a great platform for our native pony.
22:57Having come back from the brink, today the breed is thriving.
23:01And their success is placing Connemara on the world stage once more.
23:05Now, there's a lot of interest in them globally.
23:11There's ponies in Sweden, Norway, France, China, America.
23:15Yeah, they're in big demand.
23:18But at a more local level, these ponies are still rewarding their owners
23:23with the same loyalty and hard work that they've always been known for.
23:31This is my 13-1 little brood mare. She won her class today.
23:36This was her very first show, so I'm absolutely delighted.
23:39Who couldn't fall in love with this breed?
23:44They're so kind, they're so reliable, they're so versatile, sure-footed,
23:50and they're a gorgeous pony.
23:51Heading north, away from Connemara, lies one of the West Coast's most spectacular scenes,
24:09Clue Bay.
24:10Feeding this area are the waters that flow down from the surrounding mountains.
24:28Including those streams and rivers that begin their journey in the Nathan Begg range.
24:33The peaks of which form the backbone of Wild Nathan National Park.
24:54The park is home to an area once famously described as the loneliest place in Ireland.
24:59It's a land that offers escape, or, as has sometimes been required in the past, a place to hide out.
25:20In the east of Wild Nathan, head guide Michael Chambers is returning to an area he has spent years exploring.
25:29And where his family played a part in the local history.
25:35So I remember when the mountains came alive to me as a young man.
25:39My father stopping me by a silver stream and pointing out to the mountains where his father had brought Irish volunteers.
25:47That disappeared into the mountains without a trace.
25:51From 1919, the Irish War of Independence enveloped the country in conflict, even drawing in its remote wilds.
26:04As the years passed, I took her upon myself to go and explore these mountains to see could I find evidence of some of these stories.
26:17Marion Dowd first came to the park eight years ago, after Michael's search for war remains unearthed something far older.
26:26Ah, Marion. How are you? Great to see you. Great to see you.
26:33I'm glad to come back. Thank you. It's been ages.
26:35That previous discovery made headlines across the country.
26:42And today, Marion's come back to investigate a new site containing a collection of bones that Michael uncovered almost 200 vertical metres above the valley close to the top of Corrine Moor Hill.
26:55Let's just say I'm glad I started going to the gym last January.
27:13I know.
27:15Tucked away up here with a commanding view over the area, this cave would have made an ideal hideout for anyone on the run.
27:36What makes this decrease?
27:45Fighting between the Irish Republic and army and British forces ended with partition in 1921.
27:54But civil war followed.
27:56Coming up to the centenary of the revolutionary period, I started looking at how the IRA had
28:05been using caves as part of guerrilla warfare and using caves as dugouts where they could
28:11hide out while they were on the run.
28:13Look at the entrance to the caves there.
28:16This looks amazing.
28:17Yeah, so a lot of people would have thought this was just a dead end and it opens up
28:21into the large chamber inside.
28:32Looking for evidence of this cave's use, Marion and Michael gradually worked their way through.
28:51It's very typical for what you might expect from a war of independence dugout.
29:02Certainly areas where 10, 12 men could easily have stayed for days or weeks on end if necessary.
29:08There's lots of animal bone in here.
29:11Some of that would be natural occurrences, but some of it may also relate to food that
29:15was consumed in the cave during the 1920s.
29:23Dotted across Ireland are around 1,000 caves.
29:27But the Irish Republican Army were far from the first to explore these secret underground
29:31realms.
29:36Caves tend to have collections of stories through time.
29:39It's just layer after layer of story.
29:46When Michael brought Marion to the National Park eight years ago, it wasn't animal bones
29:51that she was examining.
29:52It was human bones.
29:59Michael was the first person to step into that cave in about 5,500 years.
30:08The discovery was of national importance.
30:11The team had unearthed fragments of bone belonging to at least 10 individuals.
30:16That included four children and an infant.
30:21And further analysis revealed that the site could have been used for over 1,500 years.
30:27It tells us that this was a really important primary place for processing the dead in prehistoric
30:34times.
30:36The clues Marion is searching for here, however, don't require tests in the lab. Instead, all
30:57that's needed is an eye for detail.
31:04What I'm looking for are things like cut marks to see if there's any sign of butchery.
31:09And yeah, it looks like you've got one here.
31:12So that's a butchered rib.
31:13So that's what you're looking at there as a joint of meat as opposed to, you know, an
31:18animal that's fallen in here.
31:20That's amazing.
31:21All those amazing stories from a few bones that we can preach together that bits of history.
31:26Hidden away in the wilds of Ireland, there are thousands more of these old dugouts.
31:43There's just a small matter of finding them.
31:47There's just a small part of it.
32:14To the west of the Nathan Begg Range,
32:16lies the largest intact Atlantic blanket bog in Western Europe.
32:27Part of a sprawling grassy wetland divided by rivers and streams.
32:35And it has proved a valuable source of inspiration for one writer.
32:45I'm finding this place just keeps drawing me back.
33:04These landscapes and these rivers really inspire me.
33:08They're not just about fish and wilderness. They're also about a human experience here.
33:15Although once utilised for cattle grazing, tillage, fishing and hunting, the Great Famine, mass emigration and other factors all contributed to this area emptying.
33:37But in the void left behind, an opportunity has arisen.
33:44The chance to renew and protect the health of this landscape.
33:51The National Park has brought a whole new level of expertise and interest into these areas.
34:07Nature has become the guiding force here once again.
34:12It's something the importance of which is easy to appreciate.
34:16It's obviously one of the great scandals of our time that so many of our rivers are not in good shape.
34:23Rivers are polluted or neglected or are overexploited.
34:29So, wherever you have a wild river like this, it is a great treasure.
34:34It is something to be celebrated.
34:36For today's fishing, however, there'll be no fanfare.
34:43While he usually practises a catch and release approach to fishing, Sean hasn't had so much as a bite at the end of the line.
34:52There have also been many, many blank days, and that really does sharpen your appetite for the fishing.
35:03And it makes the good days even more special.
35:15The river was rain, then rain for a second day.
35:19The dripping heather and every shining stone for 14 miles were flowing towards the sea through the passage of a famous spade stream.
35:34Alone on the moor, an angler moved through all of this, carrying a silver salmon hanging from his fist in fulfilment of its own weight of light.
35:49While the southeastern edge of the national park lies around 10 kilometers from the coastline, for one species of fish, that stretch is just a tiny portion of a far longer journey.
36:05At the end of winter each year, wild Atlantic salmon take part in one of nature's most remarkable migrations.
36:12It's an amazing species.
36:21It spawns here in the national park, makes its way out of the Atlantic Ocean, swims thousands of miles, finds its way back up to the stream that it was born in, and starts the cycle again.
36:39Salmon rely on the Earth's magnetic field, and a keen sense of smell, to find their way home.
36:54But for those heading to the national park, they'll first have to go to this stretch of river, where the Marine Institute have established a checkpoint.
37:06So we have the Atlantic Ocean on that side, and we have fresh water on that side, so the national park, Wild Neff and National Park is up there.
37:15So every salmon that is moving between fresh water and the sea has to go through this trap.
37:21Before they're allowed to continue upstream, a few measurements will need to be taken.
37:37Every salmon is catalogued and recorded, and the data collected feeds into one of the longest running Atlantic salmon censuses.
37:48Pato is the one there, because she's really good at handling fish.
37:52Thank you, Elvira.
37:53So we can't hold them for too long out of the water, so we have a very good routine going that we can get through it quickly and not forget anything.
38:01It's not very easy to catch these customers. They're coming on a long journey, so all they want to do is go up to fresh water.
38:17But we've got one here.
38:22With the clock now ticking, Pat and Elvira have less than a minute to take their measurements.
38:27That is a nice fish. So we're just going to find out whether it's male or female, and take our samples.
38:34That's a male. Silver too, Elvira.
38:44We count them, we measure them, take their length.
38:49The size of the fish gives an indication of its reproductive ability.
38:55We'll take some scales to say the age of the fish.
38:59Similar to tree rings, the number of concentric rings on their scales indicates the fish's age.
39:08TSU will be 4039.
39:11We'll also take a small sample of flesh or tail for genetic analysis.
39:18The salmon run begins here in June, and lasts right the way through August.
39:28These stragglers mark the end of the season.
39:32But during its peak, the team can process as many as 80 salmon a day.
39:48As well as keeping tabs on the salmon, the Marine Institute are also monitoring the water quality of the National Park's rivers.
40:00So in here we have a lot of water samples that we've taken of macroinvertebrates, which are the small little insects that you find in all the rivers and lakes in the country.
40:20And they're the salmon food.
40:22So it's good to get an idea of what the salmon are eating.
40:25And they're also a really good indication of the water quality in the rivers that the salmon are living in.
40:38The population of Irish Atlantic salmon has decreased by 90% since records began in 1975.
40:47Overfishing, climate change, and habitat degradation are all to blame.
40:57So there's multiple stressors, and they're probably indicative of every other species in freshwater and the marine.
41:04But because they're migratory and they have these two habitats, they're kind of getting a double whammy in both habitats.
41:10In 2018, the National Park grew by over 40%, with almost 5,000 hectares of mountain and former conifer plantations added to its land.
41:24Which included some upstream sections of the Salmon Rivers.
41:29The reason for expansion was to support the restoration of this habitat.
41:34We're really excited to hear about the National Park because it gives us a chance to think about ecological restoration at a landscape scale.
41:47So the kind of scale that you need to have a positive impact on things like salmon populations.
41:52And we hope and presume that as the decades go past, we're going to see this in our long-term data that we're collecting here in the Marine Institute.
42:01Part of the reason the size of the park can be increased by so much is that Wild Nathan sits within County Mayo, which has no large cities and is one of the less densely populated areas in the country.
42:20The National Park is even said to contain the most remote place in Ireland, a point which stands some eight kilometres from the nearest road.
42:33For many, the chance to be immersed in this beauty and wildness is reason enough to visit.
43:01While others come to marvel at a consequence of this remoteness that's only visible once the sun has set.
43:14We bring people out to give them an experience of obviously the skiescapes above, but not just that.
43:30It's about experiencing natural darkness, which so many people rarely get the chance to do now because of the growth of artificial light at night.
43:37Despite being a gold tier international dark sky park, sadly, there's no guarantee that the park's weekly dark sky walk won't be hampered by a few rain clouds.
43:56We'll look at the summer triangle.
43:58We'll look at the summer triangle, Molly, over here.
44:01So there's the stars of Vega and Altair and Deneb.
44:07Wild Nathan is Ireland's only national park where the dark skies are protected.
44:17In a world where 80% of the global population live under light polluted skies, for one member of tonight's group, it's crystal clear how important such protection is.
44:28You're enveloped by this dome of stars, and the feeling that you get from that is really so special.
44:41Aurora Borealis, shooting stars, the Milky Way.
44:50All these things really entice me out and make me want to share that feeling of joy with someone who looks at my images.
45:11Having a space where I can do that, where it's dark, there's no interruption from man-made light.
45:18It really lets you see the real wonder and awe of the night sky.
45:23Found in this once remote area at the edge of the world.
45:48of the world. The two national parks of Wild Nathan and Connemara protect not only a landscape,
45:56but also the stories that shaped the coastal region. And while they offer a chance to peer
46:03into that remarkable past, perhaps the most important experience they preserve is a true
46:10sense of the wildness that once defined this land.
46:40This is just the last one.
46:47This is a very interesting place to be found.
46:52And this is a very interesting place to be found in the open.
46:58The open source of Wild Nathan and Connemara are also found in the open source of the land.
47:03This is a very interesting place to be found.
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