The first of 13 programmes Written and presented by Robert Kee
A Nation Once Again
Ireland: A Television History is the first major attempt to tell the history of a country on television - from its first beginnings to the present day.
Since the late 1960s we have all grown used to the suffering and violence in Northern Ireland. But these are just the latest events in an old story that began 800 years ago when England first became involved with Ireland - whose first inhabitants had arrived there 8,000 years before.
In this first programme Robert 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 Scots - and he asks if all these races can ever be ' a nation once again'.
This series won the BAFTA award for the Best Factual Series in 1981. Beautiful, visually fascinating and highly intelligent television (observer) ... Masterfully ungarblcs the past
(NEW YORK TIMES)
Series producer JEREMY ISAACS
Producer JENNY BARRACLOUGH