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Seriously...

The River Man

Seriously...

BBC

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.1885 Ratings

🗓️ 7 December 2021

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

100 years ago the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed, bringing to a formal end the Irish War of Independence and ending centuries of British colonial control. During the war members of the IRA were pitted against the Royal Irish Constabulary, the British Army and the notorious Black and Tans and Auxiliaries. It's a story of divided loyalties and the unresolved traumas of war, with resonance today as Britain and Ireland struggle to address the legacy of the more recent violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. In an investigation into the fate of one man, James Kane, the River Man, executed by the IRA a century ago, by men he knew and who liked him, Fergal Keane explores some of these issues. Why did they kill him and what were the consequences for his family and his executioners? Producer: John Murphy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box.

0:05.0

The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from.

0:09.0

And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape.

0:12.0

The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape.

0:12.5

The IRA inmates who found a way.

0:14.5

I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path

0:19.5

through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history.

0:25.0

The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them.

0:28.5

Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds.

0:35.0

BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts.

0:39.0

Welcome to Seriously from BBC Radio 4.

0:43.7

I'm Vanessa Kasule.

0:45.6

Radio 4 is home to the world's best audio documentaries, and each week you'll find two

0:51.2

hand-picked programs in this feed.

0:53.5

You're about to hear something gripping, extraordinary, and seriously unforgettable. Freeman's Journal, the 14th of June, The dead body of Fisheries Inspector James Kane, ex-Sergent RIC, was found on the public

1:18.2

road at Kilmorna, about three miles from the store on Tuesday morning. There were several bullet wounds to the head and

1:25.7

chest. A handkerchief was drawn over the face and attached to the body was a card with the words,

1:32.0

convicted spy, let others be where, IRA.

1:37.0

I knew the places where he'd suffered and died. I'd walk them with my father.

1:46.0

Our people have lived in North Kerry in and around Lestole for centuries.

1:51.0

But of the murder that happened on the roadside at Shanacool

1:55.8

and the extraordinary bitterness that followed of that and the part played in it

...

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