Derrigimlagh, Ireland
Ramblings
BBC
4.5 • 768 Ratings
🗓️ 23 February 2017
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Clare Balding explores a new pathway just outside Clifden in County Galway. This walking route, across the Derrigimlagh Bog, is a mosaic of tiny lakes and peat rich flora and fauna. Its a fairly lonely spot, as walking guide, Paul Phelan explains but its the place where two truly remarkable events of the twentieth century took place. In October 1907 the first commercial transatlantic message was transmitted from Marconi's wireless telegraphy station on the bog, to Glace Bay, Newfoundland, Canada. In 1919, aviators, Alcock and Brown crash landed there at the end of the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic. Historian, Mike Cronin joins Clare and Paul to explain the significance of both events and they discuss why this wild and dramatic landscape means so much to them. Producer: Lucy Lunt.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a BBC Radio 4 download. You're listening to me. Claire Balding with another edition of ramblings. |
| 0:10.6 | There's a chilly wind blowing from the west, but the good news is that I am on the west coast of Ireland, |
| 0:16.4 | and it's clear and sunny and fresh and bright. And today I'm walking in a bog. |
| 0:23.9 | Now, you wouldn't ordinarily do that, I know, |
| 0:26.3 | but it has great historical significance. |
| 0:28.6 | Last week I was walking along the route that was taken by those suffering from the great famine. |
| 0:35.1 | It was a little further north than this in County Mayo. |
| 0:37.3 | Today I'm in County Galway exploring two incredible technological advances of the 20th century. |
| 0:43.3 | And I'm doing so with two men who know exactly what they're talking about. |
| 0:47.3 | Paul Feeleyn, who has his walking gear. |
| 0:49.3 | I can see his poles in the back of his rucksack. |
| 0:52.3 | And Professor Mike Cronan, morning, guys. You're |
| 0:54.3 | huddled around the information panel here, playing with things. There are things to play with, |
| 1:00.8 | yeah. And sound effects and all sorts over here. That's right. What we're about to experience |
| 1:06.2 | is a fabulous new facility, which is based on the story of this place, |
| 1:13.3 | Derry Gimma. |
| 1:14.4 | It's quite an extraordinary story |
| 1:15.9 | because two very important things to do |
| 1:18.6 | with transatlantic communications happened here. |
| 1:21.0 | Marconi, the Italian engineer and inventor, |
| 1:25.1 | he had a huge facility here |
| 1:26.9 | to demonstrate his wireless telegraphy. |
... |
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