Bbc history of ireland fergal keane biography wikipedia

The Story of Ireland tackles long-standing ideas about Irish history. Have you heard the one about the Irish Kings of England? Or that the Romans thought Ireland was inhabited by cannibals? Are the Irish really Celts? Over the course of the series Fergal travels across three continents, tracing the events, the people and the influences that shaped modern Ireland.

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The veteran journalist said the idea for the series came from watching the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in He said The Story of Ireland tackles the misconception that the history of the island is simply one of conflict between the Irish and the English. What we tried to do with this is to see Ireland in a much bigger sense and to look much further back.

Part of the whole business of creating a nation is that you need a myth and the great myth of the Irish nation is that it was Catholic and Gaelic for all time and forever more, and of course that's not the truth of who we are or who we were. The series begins by exploring the prehistoric Ireland and examines the myth of the Irish as a Celtic race.

The first episode contains quite a few surprises, such as evidence of ancient Irish Kingdoms in England and the Roman view of the island as a land of cannibals.