Ireland: A Television History S01E03 · Two Nations (1700-1845)

Overview

In the 18th century Ireland was virtually two nations. A new breed of nationalists, the United Irishmen, worked to bring the two nations together and plotted, with French help, to set up an independent Irish Republic embracing Protestants and Catholics alike. But the national rebellion degenerated into a bloody sectarian revolt. By 1801, with Britain and Ireland united, Catholics were not represented in the merged Irish and Westminster parliaments. Daniel O'Connell fought for and won Catholics' right to sit as MPs before embarking on a campaign to repeal Union.

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Subtitles

Episodes

1. 1 1. 'A Nation Once Again...'1980-12-02Robert Kee surveys the different races of invaders that, over the centuries, have gone to make up today's Irish people - from the stone-age men to the coming of the English and the
2. 2 2. No Surrender (1607-1691)1980-12-09With the flight of the last of the Gaelic earls from Ulster at the beginning of the 17th century, thousands of English and Scottish Protestants settled on land that had belonged to
3. 3 3. Two Nations (1700-1845)1980-12-16In the 18th century Ireland was virtually two nations. A new breed of nationalists, the United Irishmen, worked to bring the two nations together and plotted, with French help, to
4. 4 4. Famine (1845-1849)1980-12-23Nearly a million men, women and children died in the great potato famine which devastated Ireland; another million emigrated, mainly to America. The British Government's attempts t
5. 5 5. Fenians (1848-1867)1980-12-30A secret organisation known later as the Irish Republican Brotherhood planned rebellion in the 1860s. Money and support came from Irish immigrants in America. But the Fenian rebell
6. 6 6. Parnell (1875-1891)1981-01-06No man ever disturbed British democratic politics so profoundly as Charles Stewart Parnell. He raised Irish national political feeling to the most effective level it had ever achie
7. 7 7. Ulster Will Fight (1882-1914)1981-01-13In 1914 after 30 years of opposition to Home Rule, the Ulster Unionists brought the UK to the verge of civil war in defiance of a Home Rule Act that would have put Ulster under an
8. 8 8. Rising (1914-1916)1981-01-20Tens of thousands of Irishmen enlisted in the British Army to fight, as they thought, for the rights of small nations like Belgium or even Ireland. Then, on Easter Monday 1916, a s
9. 9 9. Terror (1919-1921)1981-01-27In 1918 Sinn Fein, pledged to an independent Irish Republic, won a sweeping victory at the first British General Election since the war. Irish nationalists set up a parliament of t
10. 10 10. Civil War (1921-1924)1981-02-03The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 gave Ireland dominion status as the Irish Free State, and the six counties of Northern Ireland the right to opt out. Die-hard Republicans of the IRA
11. 11 11. Freedom (1923-1951)1981-02-10Civil War divisions continued to dominate politics in the Free State. After ten years Eamon de Valera, on the losing Republican side, eventually came to power with some help from t
12. 12 12. Six Counties (1921-1974)1981-02-17From its foundation in 1921, the new Protestant state of Northern Ireland proclaimed its loyalty to the UK, protected by the armed Royal Ulster Constabulary and 'B' Special Reserve
13. 13 13. Prisoners of History1981-02-24Ireland's past has formed Ireland's and Northern Ireland's present (1981). Eire still seeks the unity of all Ireland; the Protestant North still resists; Catholics in Northern Irel