Original subtitles

ADRIAN: The island of Ireland.

No matter where I am in the world, I always look forward to coming home.

I want to take you with me to some of my favourite places.

I'll share my passion for food...

That's a beautiful dish. Thank you.

Maybe even a bit of creme fraiche. Creme fraiche? Going too far. Come on.

...history...

It never ceases to amaze me, this monument.

How did they dream up these things? Yeah.

...and scenery.

This really must be one of the most incredible views of any formal garden anywhere.

I'll take you behind the scenes of where I grew up...

Thank you very much.

...and reveal a few secrets along the way.

Me and a mate and a couple of girls. That was a tester then, you know.

As well as old favourites, we'll go to places I've always wanted to see.

Come with me. I'm Adrian Dunbar and this is My Ireland.

On this part of our road trip, we're travelling down Ireland's ancient east.

Land of myth and legend.

Unlike the rugged west coast, the east is calmer and perhaps less well known

but it's an area with real hidden gems, both people and places,

that I can't wait to share with you.

We're starting in the Boyne Valley in County Meath,

just 30 miles north of Dublin.

In the last series, we went to the Skelligs,

those wonderful monastic settlements off the coast of Kerry.

And this time we're going to Newgrange,

which is a megalithic monument that was built about 600 years before the first pyramid.

I was there before, in the past,

and I'm very excited about going there today.

The Boyne Valley has some of the world's most ancient

and mythical landscapes that are filled with relics and ruins

that reveal the drama of early Irish history.

From the site of the famous Battle of the Boyne

to the megalithic marvel that is Newgrange.

At over 5,000 years old,

it's one of the most important Neolithic sites in the world.

It never ceases to amaze me, this monument,

the idea that it's 5,500 years old

and yet it looks incredibly modern.

Yeah, it is just so big. Yeah.

Ancl if we're impressed now, can you imagine coming on a visit

all those years ago when you were seeing things like this? Yeah.

Clare Tuffy is the manager of the Bru na Boinne area,

which is famous for its mythical prehistoric passage tombs,

of which Newgrange is the most spectacular.

The mound covers a single tomb

where the remains of at least five Neolithic people were recovered.

So the last thing that they would have clone

before they went inside was carry the remains of their dead across the entrance to it.

So many people interpret it as like the threshold

between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

This giant monument that pre-dates Stonehenge

stands 13 metres high, 85 metres across,

and is built with 200,000 tons of material.

Surrounding the base are 97 kerbstones,

each weighing at least a ton

and it's faced with a massive wall of brilliant white quartz.

The quartz is like a beacon in the countryside. Yeah.

It brings people towards it. Yes, yes.

It must have been extraordinary if you were two or three miles away here,

suddenly seeing the sun hit this incredible wall. Yeah.

Some of the kerbstones are engraved with symbols

that we now call megalithic art.

The most impressive is the highly decorated entrance stone.

But all of this remained hidden until a new landowner

began quarrying stone here over 300 years ago.

The clay they discovered the monument in 1699,

they were taking stones away,

not knowing they were going to find this fantastic thing.

They found this carved stone,

and then they knew they were on to something. Right.

Walked behind it, opened up the entrance.

The passage and chamber were perfectly intact.

Nobody had been in for thousands of years. Yeah.

And then in the 1960s, it was decided that it should be excavated.

Ancl Professor O'Kelly, he was the leading archaeologist in Ireland at that time,

and he thought he wouldn't find anything here.

But how wrong Professor Kelly was.

He went on to discover one of Newgrange's most remarkable secrets.

So he excavated very carefully and found this box.

He called it the roof box.

And at first they didn't know its purpose, they had no idea.

But he realised once the survey was clone that it faced south of east,

and if it caught the sun, it would be at sunrise at winter solstice.

These Stone Age ancestors built the roof box

to perfectly align with the rising of the winter solstice sun.

The ray of light reaches nearly 20 metres into the heart of the chamber.

The earth's axis changes, doesn't it? Mm.

So has there been a change in the alignment?

Yeah, there has. Now it is the sun enters the chamber at two minutes to nine

but 5,000 years ago it entered the chamber at six minutes to nine.

So in 5,000 years, we've lost four minutes,

which as a time-telling device is pretty good.

It's absolutely extraordinary. Extraordinary. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It really means that the ancestors were a lot brighter

than we possibly give them credit for, for a start.

Ancl what I love about these monuments is that

they release their secrets very slowly.

We don't know all their secrets yet.

No. We're still finding them out.

And in 2018, close to the site, there was another chance discovery

as the Boyne Valley shared one more of its remarkable secrets.

Is this the drone that found Dronehenge?

This is not the one. The drone that found Dronehenge is officially retired.

All right. Bless it.

Primarily because I don't want to damage it. No, no. It's got a place in history. It certainly does.

Anthony Murphy, an expert on Newgrange,

was flying his drone over this field

when a huge monument that had been hidden for thousands of years revealed itself.

I've always been interested in megalithic Ireland

and I've been wanting to meet Anthony since he made this incredible discovery.

This is basically a replay of what I saw the first night

and I'm flying the drone around it, looking at the enormous size of it,

the symmetry of it, and the patterns of it.

Must have been a shock. Finding it difficult to draw breath,

actually shaking with excitement, you know.

Immediately I saw it, I let out a shout, "What the hell is that?"

I think we knew within maybe half a minute or a minute

of having first seen it that what we were seeing was a henge.

And, of course, the fact that it's within 700, 800 metres of

the great monument of Newgrange. Yes.

In one of the most studied archaeological landscapes in the world.

It was really, really hard to believe

that it actually existed and that it wasn't some sort of prank, you know?

But it definitely wasn't a prank.

The henge they discovered was around 150 metres across,

almost twice the size of Newgrange.

It only appeared because the unusually long, dry summer had an effect on the crops.

The wheat was greener where there had once been dug-out trenches.

Whilst you wouldn't notice this from the ground, from the air, it's dramatically visible.

This is the miracle of the crop marks. I call it a miracle. It's like a hologram.

Archaeologists believe the outer rings would have been post holes,

the perimeter of a wooden structure.

It has been speculated they may have supported tiered seating, something like an arena, you know?

Was it a place only of ritual or was it a place of sport?

Maybe there were sort of something like gladiatorial contests taking place

in some of the henges, you know? OK.

Whether it was trade or music or horse racing or beating each other to death, who knows?

You know... Anthony, I didn't know you'd go that far, but...

HE LAUGHS The...

By the way, there were something like a dozen henges here,

which is the highest concentration of that type of monument

anywhere on the face of the planet and we didn't know that before 2018.

You could walk that field 365 clays of the year

and never get a sense that there was a huge arena there

at one time in the past. Yeah.

Next, an old friend and Michelin star chef treats me to brunch...

Mm. It gives you a lot of fulfilment, food like that.

Yes, of course. Yeah.

And I meet the man behind one of the most iconic images in the world.

I needed to do something I felt big.

I'm Adrian Dunbar and I'm showing you around the Emerald Isle.

Dropping in on a few local legends I'd like you to meet.

So we're on our way to Virginia Park Lodge, County Cavan.

I'm looking forward to seeing my old friend Richard Corrigan, who's invited us for breakfast.

The last time I was there, about nine years ago.

Should be interesting.

Virginia Park Lodge is in the small town of Virginia,

founded in the reign of Elizabeth I.

It was originally built as a hunting lodge for the first Earl of Bective, Lord Headfort,

one of Ireland's richest men.

In 2014, Michelin-starred chef Richard Corrigan

bought the estate and lovingly restored it.

It's set amongst 100 acres of truly stunning grounds and epic scenery.

Sitting on the banks of Lough Ramor, it's even more beautiful than I remember.

Good to see you. Welcome. Yes, thank you.

Welcome to Cavan. What a spot. Virginia.

The last town in Ulster, looking down towards Leinster here.

And you're right on the side of the lake and you have a huge property here at the minute.

Tell us a bit about that.

Well, Virginia Park Lodge, it was a private estate up to the 1940s

and, of course, I was married here around 30 years ago. Wow.

I had not a shilling in my pocket. HE LAUGHS

I remember drinking a bottle of the wine and sitting in the front room saying,

"God, I'll buy this place one clay."

Ancl it came up for sale in 2012.

Yeah. It was a really crazy time to buy anything, frankly. Yeah.

But I looked at this place and I thought, it's the biggest doer-upper you could ever face, really.

A matter of nine years.

I remember coming to it in the very early days. Early clays. Yeah.

And now I've just had a quick look through.

I'm amazed at the amount of growth that's happened.

The amount of stuff that you've done within those nine years is absolutely extraordinary.

When you put the order in for £35,000 worth of trees,

you know, that kind of scale, then you realise, God Almighty,

this is a lot of money, you know? Yeah. To feel broke all the time.

THEY LAUGH

But you have something lovely to look at. Why are you motivated?

Yeah. Yeah. I have this! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

One of Richard's main aims is to be as self-sufficient as possible,

something he's achieved with all of this incredible produce.

The kitchen gardens are being lovingly brought back to life

by a team of Ireland's finest gardeners.

I remember when these bushes went in, Richard, some time ago.

Ancl how good are they now, huh? Oh, they look incredible.

Look how much fruit are on this. I mean...

HE LAUGHS

Redcurrants, they need to be picked now. Yeah, they do.

They do. Well, I mean, they're so good. I mean, they're delicious.

You don't have to think too hard but turn them into jam.

Just warmed in a tiny little base syrup.

I mean, what a delicious dessert served with a little almond biscuit.

Oh, yeah, that'll be good. Maybe even a bit of creme fraiche.

Creme fraiche. Going too far. Come on.

Richard is going to make me a dish of smoked herring

accompanied by ingredients all from his garden.

I'm going to use some grapes, courgette flowers and some nasturtium.

That's what we're going to have for breakfast, is it? And brown bread.

What are you picking? The flowers? The nasturtiums and some of the flowers.

I always think quite peppery on the palate. Yeah. Great. just great eating.

Gardens should be good for the soul and good for the mind.

They should feed you. They should not just feed you food.

Yeah. They should feed your mind. Your enthusiasm. That's right. Yeah.

So I often come down here and just sit here and just, you know, ideas come to your head.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. That's what gardens is about, you know.

They nourish your body and nourish your mind and nourish your soul.

I mean, most chefs, Ady, would give their right arm for this polytunnel. I know. Yeah.

That's it really. Lovely. Brilliant. That's it. Beautiful.

The fresh produce is grown for ten months of the year.

Not only is it for the restaurant here,

it also supplies Richard's three London restaurants.

What are we going to do? Well, one of my one of my great, great favourite people in Ireland

is a London Scots lady.

Yeah. Sally Barnes. Right.

She's a little smokery in West Cork and, Ady, just...

It's the perfect...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, how she, from the wood chip.

It's delicate. It's delicate. Yeah.

So this is a bit of a, it's a very, all chefs would say a simple recipe.

A little bit of water, a tiny bit of sparkling in there.

Mm-hm. Of course, we're in Ireland, a little bit of butter.

You have to put the butter in.

Ancl on the other side, we've a little bit of Wexford. OK.

Home salted bacon. Nice.

This is real country house fare. Yeah, yeah.

And I just put that... Oh, you put it skin side up? Yeah.

You and I go back a long way.

I mean, I first heard about you, of course, when you were in Cork Street.

You were just cooking really good grub, Irish food, delicious food.

And your cooking background was straight off the land.

Straight off the land. I was brought up with a horse in the garden

but I remember eating well and eating lots of nice things. Yeah.

At 18, I decided, let's skip the country and just head into Amsterdam.

Yeah, you went to Amsterdam.

Most people have gone to London or Paris. Yeah, but I enjoyed it.

I enjoyed the tolerance.

Amsterdam has always been a far-reaching, liberal, tolerant place. Yeah, liberal, yeah.

Ancl Ireland seemed very, in the '80s... It wasn't a very liberal place.

It wasn't very liberal and it wasn't tolerant.

I need some grapes. Grapes, I'll get you some grapes. Lovely grapes. Yeah, lovely.

Hup! There's a few grapes there.

The grapes are good, huh? They're excellent. I mean, the grapes are good.

Yeah. So we just throw them in there.

I'm just going to take a little bit of the courgette flowers, which we just picked.

Put them in there as well. Nice. That really looks so nice already.

Ancl we take a little bit of the little horseradish

into the butter emulsion, just to give it a little wake up.

You know, you're spending a lot more time here in Ireland.

That's sitting well with you at the minute.

Yeah, my head's in a really nice place.

You know, the Ireland that I left in '82

is not the Ireland I came back to. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, it's busy. It's busy. It's a big...

Cultural wise. It's full on.

You know, it's like the community has culture, the community has intellectual integrity. Yeah.

Go down and have a pint and express your opinions.

Yes, that's right. Ancl you'd find 20 were different.

Yeah, there's no doubt about that.

These are great, the nasturtiums.

Oh, yeah, beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, that looks really, really good.

It's really good. That's a new way of breakfast, you know? Yeah.

There's a spoon there. Here, go for it.

Mm. That's so good.

It gives you a lot of fulfilment, food like that. Yes, of course. Yeah.

That's it. Look at that. just beautiful.

It really does look beautiful. Thank you, Richard.

Sound as a pound.

It's always great to catch up with old friends

and, of course, to be treated to a bite to eat.

It set me up for my 90-minute journey south

to meet another local legend whose name you might not recognise

but his work you most certainly will.

So we're on our way to see jim Fitzpatrick, an artist and illustrator,

very influential illustrator from the '60s and '70s album covers, etc,

for Thin Lizzy and people like this.

But what he's most famous for is an iconic image which has travel led the world

and everybody watching this program me will know it.

I'm very excited about seeing this man. He's a true genius.

Jim lives in possibly one of the most idyllic spots in Ireland,

the peninsula of Howth Head just outside Dublin.

When the weather is good, you could be forgiven to thinking

you were in the Mediterranean or even South America.

Jim began his career working at an ad agency in Dublin

and got his big break designing album covers.

But it was a chance meeting in 1961 with the revolutionary Che Guevara

that eventually broughtjim to design this deceptively simple image.

Jim. What a fabulous place. Come on in.

Will do, brother. Will do.

Here we are, you and me and the cat and an incredible view, jim.

Let's go back to '61

and the fact that you find yourself in a little village called Kilkee

in County Clare in the west of Ireland.

I was working as a barman

and I was working in the bar on the Sunday after mass

and in walked three very unusual-looking gentlemen.

They were dressed in combats, what we call combats now.

And they sat down and Che came up to the bar.

Ancl I said to him, you know, "What brings you here?"

Ancl he said, you know, "Er, drink."

Ancl eventually I learned that he had been on a stopover

in Shannon Airport because they were fog bound

and someone brought him out to Kilkee.

He ended up in the Marine Hotel bar

and when he realised I knew who he was, he was surprised.

But in Franciscan College Gormanston, they showed us newsreels during the movies every Sunday

and there was Che and the lads all arriving in Havana on tanks.

So I knew damn well who he was. Yeah.

And the Franciscans you must remember are radical.

They invented liberation theology.

I kind of explained the Irish diaspora to Che.

Yeah. He must have been thinking, What is this guy on?

But that's when he told me he was Irish.

He didn't say he was Argentinean Irish.

He said, "I'm Irish."

Ancl he explained to me that his lineage was from Galway and Cork.

So Che flew on to Cuba? That's right.

So then at some point you came across this wonderful photograph. Absolutely. Yeah.

But you didn't take this photograph? No. That was a very famous photograph

taken by the wonderful fashion photographer called Korda.

Ancl he just appeared on the balcony for that split second and Korda got his image.

Commissioned after Che's death in 1967

to produce a work for a commemorative exhibition,

jim set about creating this image.

I needed to do something I felt big.

I worked in advertising.

I knew the simple use of what was called spot colour.

I went for just red and black.

Well, he's a Communist, so I thought red, you know.

Ancl then the yellow star, even though it's red on his cap, I thought worked well.

The image rapidly went global.

Dubbed the face that launched a thousand T-shirts,

andjim could have made a fortune,

but he refused to license it for any official use on T-shirts,

posters, or to promote any products.

In fact, he's even tried to gift the commercial rights to the Cuban people.

It has an energy of its own now, you know?

People across the world have used it.

I mean, it's been used by revolutionaries

and it's used throughout Latin America.

It's almost become a sacred object, which is wonderful, you know? Yeah.

Considering he was an atheist and a Communist,

you're investing a lot of spiritual energy into someone.

But the interesting thing is, a critic pointed out,

I changed his gaze from the photograph and gave him a more upward gaze. Yes.

Ancl that was from me looking at religious iconography, pure and simple. Of course, yeah.

You know, my instincts were to, because he was murdered,

was to elevate him. Elevate his look. Yeah.

I'm not saying he's a god. I'm not saying he's a saint.

But to me, he was an extraordinary man.

Well, it's a powerful, powerful image that's going to endure

long after you and I have shuffled off the mortal coil. I hope so.

Jim, thank you so much. Thank you very much indeed.

Next, we'll visit a truly spectacular country house...

You can't beat that, can you? It's just got to be one of the most beautiful views in Ireland.

...and hop on a bike for a historical ride with a view.

Oh, this is great. Isn't it amazing?

It's like cycling in the air. Yeah.

I'm Adrian Dunbar and I'm your guide as we explore

some hidden gems on the east coast of Ireland.

We're in County Wick low. We're going to Powerscourt,

1000 acres owned by the Slazenger family.

I'm very excited. I've been to this place many times before,

and I'm really thrilled at looking at the gardens

and showing you something of this wonderful, wonderful estate.

Set in the shadow of the imposing bare rock of Sugarloaf Mountain,

the Powerscourt Estate really is breathtaking.

From the moment you arrive, you know you're somewhere special.

Hi, Alex. Adrian, welcome.

Good to see you, fella. Good to see you. Welcome to Powerscourt.

Thank you very much. Very much. And what a place Powerscourt is. I mean, look at that.

You can't beat that, can you? That's just got to be one of the most beautiful views in Ireland.

Yeah.

Alex Slazenger is the head gardener here.

His family have owned the Powerscourt Estate since 1961.

Alex, you know, you've grown up here.

You're one of the first people we've met who actually lives

in the place that we're visiting. Yeah.

And one of the things I wanted to ask you was,

what was it like growing up here as a child? This was my playground growing up. Yeah.

Myself and my brother and my sisters used to explore.

There was the dungeons that were still intact.

There were still chains on the wall. The gardens then, you know,

we used to, we used to explore every nook.

I know every single inch of this. I bet you do, yeah.

We used to ride around here on our motorbikes. We used to have parties in here.

Yeah. But my grandmother had this vision of turning Powerscourt

into a commercial venture.

Somewhere like this, you have to have people coming in. Yeah.

So we basically took the estate in 1961 and opened up the gardens to the public.

Ancl it's really nice because it's a family business. Yeah.

My uncle, my late uncle, Dr Michael Slazenger, he took the reins on then

and said, "Look, if we're going to do this, let's do it right." Yeah.

We're always really conscious of what we do at Powerscourt

has to keep the romance of the place.

Yeah. And I'd love to show you rest of the garden.

Let's take a look around. We'll hop on the chariot and have a look. Yeah, let's do it.

Alex has devoted the last decade to arming himself with academic qualifications

and specialist experience so he can give these gardens

the proper care that they deserve.

The grounds stretch over 47 acres and are separated into different areas,

including Ireland's longest double herbaceous border

and replicas of original European statues

that the previous owners commissioned on their travels in the 1800s.

In 1908, a touch of the exotic was brought to Powerscourt

with this beautiful Japanese inspired garden.

What I love about the Japanese garden is how relaxed it is. Yeah.

So we've got the kind of sounds of water.

I've got water coming over there. I've got water I can hear behind me.

Yes, yes. So, you know, it kind of sets the theme.

It really does. And it kind of chills you out as well.

While there are many areas of beauty here,

what Powerscourt is really famous for is the award-winning Italian garden.

This really must be one of the most incredible views

of any formal garden anywhere, you know, within Europe.

I mean, it's just absolutely extraordinary.

So this shows the house in its full glory now.

Yeah, it's stunning.

Ancl this is, you know, this is the point,

this is the point of interaction between the formal garden

and the natural garden. Yeah.

Ancl I think it was really clever the way the architect,

so the architect was a guy called Daniel Robertson,

and he wanted the Italian garden to mix in with the landscape,

so the use of water is big in Italian gardens.

So having this big lake here, what we calljuggy's Pond or Triton's Lake.

Triton. Yeah.

Ancl having the, you know, the house in the background.

This fountain, that would have been gravity fed.

And, of course, from the terrace, you know,

you look down here and then you look over here

towards the Sugarloaf Mountain,

which is an extraordinary mountain in itself.

So, I mean, the vista either way is just incredible.

Before the Slazengers bought Powerscourt,

the Wingfield family owned it for more than 350 years.

Richard Wingfield was granted the estate in 1603 by Queen Elizabeth I

as a reward for his military achievements.

Work on the exquisite 68-room mansion began in 1730.

But much of what we see today in the gardens

wasn't started until around 100 years later.

So you're looking at 1844 now. Yeah.

Ancl what's big in fashion is Italian garden.

So formality, pomp, showing off.

HE LAUGHS Ancl that's what we have here.

We have amazing terraces here. Yes.

Dug out from 1844 to '75, 100 men, 13 years, by hand... Wow.

...to clig these terraces. Trees were coming in from the Americas.

Yeah. Australia, Africa. Wow. Ancl they wanted the latest thing.

But the ironic thing was 1875 hits, Italian gardening goes out of fashion.

Right. So they complete the garden in 1875, 1876.

By that stage, it's gone already. It's too late.

HE LAUGHS But really clever design.

This is our showpiece. It's beautiful.

You know, this is what we won the award, third best garden in the world.

Wow. And when you see it from above, it really does...

You think this was always here.

The striking Sugarloaf Mountain, backdrop to Powerscourt,

was also an essential landmark for pilgrims and scholars

travelling along the east coast,

going to Glendalough, or the Valley of the Two Lakes.

And as we continue our journey, we pass by this impressive landscape.

Set in the Wick low Mountains National Park,

it's an area of such natural beauty that around 50,000 acres are protected.

It's also home to one of Ireland's most important monastic cities

that was founded by Saint Kevin, a young monk

from a royal family some 1500 years ago.

With countless stone ruins of chapels, churches and many graves,

Glendalough remains a spiritual place to this day.

I'll never tire of Ireland's ancient past or its sensational scenery.

And as we travel led two hours south to our next stop,

the beauty continues.

So we've left County Wick low. We're heading south

to the beautiful county of Waterford and the Waterford Greenway,

which is the reimagining of an old railway line

that has brought a huge amount of tourism into the area.

It's been a very successful project. Looking forward to hearing about it.

Over the past decade, Ireland has transformed many of its disused railway lines

into thriving green ways.

Built for cyclists and walkers to enjoy

away from the dangers of other traffic.

How you doing, Adrian? Yeah, good to see you.

Declan Kelly from Wild Rover Bikes is going to show me around.

We have 46 kilometres of Greenway to cycle. Right. Are you up for it?

We'll give it a go anyway, I'll tell you that. We'll do some of it, anyway.

Yeah, we'll do some of it, OK!

I'll give you the helmet. OK, man.

Looking good. OK, great.

When you're ready. Let's do it. Let's go.

We're starting our ride on the Kilmacthomas Viaduct.

Built in 1878, it's a magnificent limestone structure,

with eight arches high above the valley of the Ma hon River.

Since the Greenway opened five years ago,

the number of people that have come here because of the Greenway.

People come from all over the world. Really?

Because this has become famous. Where we heading now?

So we're heading now to the Ballyvoyle Tunnel. Right. OK.

On March 25th 1967,

the last train travel led this very route.

Exactly 50 years later, the Greenway opened.

It follows the old Waterford to Mallow railway line.

And we're quickly approaching one of the highlights en route,

the Ballyvoyle Tunnel.

Now this is lovely. This is the opening of the tunnel now.

Yeah, this is incredible. This is something special.

Here we go. Oh, yeah.

Ancl you hear the difference in here? Yeah.

ADRIAN YODELS

CHILD WHOOPS

Nobody uses the bell. They all shout. They all shout.

The tunnel is 400 metres long.

Built in 1871, it still retains many of its original features.

When it was the old railway, anybody working in there used to have to duck

into the alcoves as the train went through. Oh, yeah.

They made the tunnels very small. Yeah.

So now they have the lights in there and it has its own atmosphere.

Feel the difference in the temperature.

It's very, very... It's quite cold in here compared to outside. Yeah.

Wow. Well, we're nearly there. So we come out the end of the tunnel here. Yeah.

Ancl you just see the difference.

When I take my kids down here, they say this is like coming into Jurassic Park this end.

Oh, yeah. It looks like the gate to Jurassic Park.

Yeah, it has a bit of that, hasn't it? Yeah.

But this is just an extraordinary, beautiful sight.

But you can see why people come from so far to see it. Yeah, absolutely.

The next bridge here is steel.

Ancl this was the first piece of infrastructure

built after the War of Independence. Right.

The 46-kilometre journey is much more than just beautiful scenery.

The Ballyvoyle Viaduct has a place in history.

In 1922 the originals tone bridge was attacked during the Irish Civil War.

A year later, the job was completed when an empty train was run into the gap.

It caused complete demolition.

This railway line was so important that a quick replacement was essential

and after hostilities ceased, this new steel bridge was built.

One hundred years later, it's still going strong

and gives incredible views over the valley below.

Wow, this is great. Isn't that amazing?

It's like cycling in the air. DECLAN LAUGHS

The more I learn along this route, the more I understand why it attracts people

from all over the world.

Despite the rain.

It's full of history, as well as the more unfamiliar landscape

of Ireland's east coast.

It may lack the drama of the more famous west coast,

but the small harbours, hidden rocky coves and calm serenity are just as beautiful.

Oh, yeah. This is what everybody comes for.

There she is. Dungarvan Bay. That's a spectacular view.

The sea, oh, the sea. That's so pretty.

The east coast is so charming, isn't it? It's amazing.

It's some view. It's stunning.

It would have been the last view people had when they were heading off to England. Yeah.

Never to come back. That's where the boats left from. Yeah. Yeah.

So the last view would have been that beautiful bay.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah, that would have broke your heart, all right. Yeah.

Next, we continue along the east coast for an 800-year-old piece of history.

There we go, Adrian, 22 metres up.

Isn't it beautiful? Fantastic. Absolutely stunning.

Our Irish road trip is nearing its end.

There's still one place I'd like to show you

in the scenic south-east corner of Ireland.

We're on our way to the Hook Lighthouse,

the oldest continuously working lighthouse in the world.

It's in a very beautiful place. I wanted to see it for a long time.

With a bit of luck, the sun might be out.

At the very tip of the rugged Hook Peninsula,

guarding the entrance to Waterford Harbour,

is the Hook Lighthouse.

And what a sight it is.

With the unmistakable black and white bands of the 800-year-old tower standing proud.

Across the estuary is the village of Crook,

believed to have been the inspiration behind a famous saying.

Oliver Cromwell once vowed to take the city of Waterford by hook or by crook.

Adrian. Good morning. Good to see you, brother. Great to see you down at the Hook Lighthouse.

Yeah, well, was there ever a more beautiful or historic place in Ireland, you know?

Noel Lynch is the head tour guide for this fascinating piece of history

that goes back even before the lighthouse was built.

It is the gateway into Ireland. I mean, you can access a quarter of Ireland by boat from here.

The Three Sisters rivers are exiting just behind the tower.

So Tipperary, Offaly, Monasterevin.

The likes of the Celts, the Vikings, the Normans.

And now you're here. Now I'm here, yeah.

Who was it who arrived here first, Noel?

The first people that we know that lit fires here were Welsh monks.

I mean, we're less than 270 kilometres from Wales from here.

Just straight over? They settled there, lit fires.

You know, they were here when the likes of the Vikings came through,

seventh, eighth, ninth century.

Ancl then, of course, you had the Norman invitation to Ireland. Yes.

A lot of people seem to think that the Normans just woke up one morning and invaded us.

But, no, it was we invited them in. Yes.

One of the Normans guided in by the Welsh monks' beacon

was William Marshall, a Knights Templar.

He was said to be one of the greatest knights to have ever lived.

He built the lighthouse to protect and develop the shipping trade,

which was hugely important in the 13th century.

So that was early 1200s. Right.

And the lighthouse has remained here.

It's the same building. What you're looking at over my shoulder now, Adrian,

is an 800-year-old fully intact medieval lighthouse.

What makes this medieval marvel so special

is it remains virtually untouched.

It's hard to believe that this is 800 years old.

This is the main event. They suppose it's 115 steps. Wow.

Oh, yeah. When we get up to the very top of the lighthouse,

I think you're going to be seriously impressed.

You don't have any oxygen or anything. Oxygen? Yeah. No oxygen today.

A spiral staircase winds its way up inside the four-metre-thick stone walls.

Unusually, it rises anti-clockwise.

Most medieval towers had clockwise stairs to give the sword arm

of the right-handed defenders more freedom of movement.

Ah. So there we go, Adrian.

22 metres up. Wow.

Ancl pretty much a 270 degree view. Isn't it beautiful?

Fantastic. Absolutely stunning.

Oh, and the sun out to meet us.

The sun always shines on the righteous, my friend.

HE LAUGHS Well said.

I don't know what I'm doing here then.

We're standing here at the very top of the tower.

We're not at the very top, of course. No, no, no, we're up 22 metres at the moment.

It's as far as we go. The lens is up at the top there.

It's 36 metres in total.

And how far out to sea, then, would that light have been visible?

The light at the moment, you're talking about 36 to 40 kilometres.

As far as, say, the cold, probably talking about the same,

really, 25, 30 kilometres when you're looking out. Really? Yeah.

You would have seen that? Would have seen it.

You'd have had no other lights around. So even if you saw smoke. Of course.

Yeah. It was warning you of the danger. Right.

From here down to Slade Harbour,

we're looking at the graveyard of a thousand ships.

Ancl that's with a lighthouse. Right.

You know, so you can imagine without a lighthouse,

the dangers that would have been here.

There are four floors here with ribbed vaulted ceilings made from stone,

which provided both structural strength and a fire break between the floor levels

should the beacon ever have burnt out of control.

Are all lighthouses the same, or do they have little differences between them?

Well, you'd have to have little differences with lighthouses.

If every lighthouse in the country was black and white, how would you know where you were?

If every night marker was a single flash every three seconds,

how would you know where you were?

You have a clay marker, you have a night marker,

and you used to have a fog signal.

Our clay marker is a white tower with two black lines.

Our night marker is a single flash every three seconds.

So the next lighthouse along here... Yeah. For instance,

you could go to the Tuskar Rock, which is not too far away from us,

that's a double flash every seven and a half seconds.

You could go to Dunmore East across the estuary. That's a long flash every four seconds.

So it's important to know where you are.

Not every ship or vessel up to recent times

had the fancy equipment that we have today.

Before modern-day GPS and radar, these lights were vital.

And in 1822, French physicist Augustin-jean Fresnel

revolutionised how the light worked.

He developed the compact lens that was wrapped around the lamp

to concentrate the light rays into a powerful parallel beam.

It's been called the invention that saved a million ships.

Oh, wow. That's absolutely spectacular, that lamp.

It is pretty special, isn't it? Oh, it's unbelievable.

It's to give an idea to people of what a Fresnel lens looks like

and their hand-wound triangular prisms.

We just have a little LED light in here to give you an idea.

Yeah, it's beautiful. I mean, this one is quite old.

Ancl as you can see, just a little rotation and it will probably stay going for a few minutes.

Wow. It really is like a work of art, though, isn't it?

Yeah, I think it's... I mean, if I was to see that in a museum of modern art,

you would really pass no remarks.

It's an incredible piece of engineering as well. Beautiful.

Absolutely beautiful that it's still here, still intact.

I think at the end of the clay, it'll be here long after we're gone.

I know, but to be able to say that you were here or for me working here. Yeah.

You were part of it. Yeah.

It's a privilege, really, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, truly. Really is.

Well, the day's going down, the weather's drawing in,

but we've had an absolutely brilliant trip through Ireland this time.

We met some fantastic people. We went to some amazing places.

But now as the going gets tough,

we're going to head for the high stool.

I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. Slan.

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