Lesser Spotted Ulster Series 12 Episode 2: Rathlin

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Lesser Spotted Ulster Series 12 Episode 2: Rathlin

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Details

Location

Rathlin Island

Year

2010

Date

Production 26/09/2010

Length

47min 05sec

Audio

sound

Format

Betacam SP

colour

Source

Digitised as part of the BFI Heritage 2022 project.

Courtesy

British Film Institute, ITV, UTV Archive

Rights Holder

It is illegal to download, copy, print or otherwise utilise in any other form this material, without written consent from the copyright holder.

Description

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.

Credits

An Ulster Television Production.
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