Given our current economic difficulties, a five-part landmark history of Ireland couldn’t be more timely. Just as we are about to rip it up and start again, along comes Fergal Keane with over 20 years of experience as a BBC foreign correspondent to cast new light on our troubled past and reflect on the twists and turns that got us to where we are now.

“The story of Ireland is vivid, exciting and immensely varied,” Keane reflects. “It’s far more than the sum of old clichés and myths which set the Irish as a people who were prisoners and victims of history. This series sees Ireland as an international island which is both changed by and helps to change the world beyond her shores. As a foreign correspondent who has travelled to every continent I have tried to bring my experience of the wider world to this story of Ireland. And I have tried to see our past with a clear eye and an open heart.”
My own involvement began almost a year ago with a phone call from series producer and director Mike Connolly. A native of Wexford, Mike made his way to London during the ‘Boomtown Rat’ era. He eventually found himself executive producer of BBC’s music entertainment department. Down the years he has overseen such landmark documentaries as Jazz and Folk Britannica and The Story Of Jamaican Music. Now he was at the helm of an eagerly anticipated historical documentary on his native country. I was thrilled to be part of the crew.
“It’s been a huge challenge to produce the first comprehensive television history of Ireland since Robert Kee’s acclaimed series of 1981,” says Mike. “Ireland has opened up in dramatic ways in the intervening 30 years and has achieved a profile on the international stage that could hardly have been imagined back then. This has changed the perception of Ireland, both in the minds of the Irish themselves and in the eyes of the rest of the world. We address this in The Story Of Ireland.”
The biggest challenge for the series was to agree upon an artistically satisfying way of recreating Ireland’s past. By using your humble correspondent’s ‘scraperboard art’ the producers found a new way of unlocking Irish history.
Looking back at the project, I can only conclude that there is definitely no other time in our quite often harrowing history in which I would choose to live. Also, given that we managed to struggle through it all with a positive sense of ourselves intact, we will surely overcome our present difficulties too.

The Story Of Ireland, a BBC/RTÉ co-production, airs on RTÉ 1 on Tuesday nights at 10.15pm. Also available on the RTÉ Player.