Presenter Joe Mahon visits Rathlin Island off the coast
of County Antrim. Joe sails across from Ballycastle to Rathlin Island recountig
some of the violent history of the island's historical battles. Onshore he
meets RSPB warden Liam McFaul, as they gaze upon the flocks of seabirds on the
island's cliffs and discuss how the eggs were once a staple part of the
islanders' diet.
Joe talks of the history of Rathlin during the Middle
Ages and Tudor times and shows the remains of Bruce's Castle. Marine
archeologist, Wes Forsythe, shows Joe evidence of ruined kilns for a kelp
industry on the shore. This in turn was used in the linen industry and, once
iodine was discovered in it, by medicinal and photographic industries.
Joe stands beside a
memorial to the famine and tells how Rathlin lost half its population to
emigration in its aftermath. Peggy McFaul sits in her garden and tells Joe of
her life on the island since the 1940s and of the hardships she remembers
growing up there. Her grandson, Benji McFaul, is the last full-time fisherman
on the island and talks to Joe from his boat. Julie-Ann McMullan tells Joe of
how she left a good job on the mainland to live on the island and shows her
collection of animals including donkeys and a Shetland pony.