Irish Script 4
17 Aug 04
Timings based on plop 50 frames before the 1st frame

01 00 13 22
Autumn in the north Atlantic.

01 00 17 16
“It’s the time when heat leaves the year.”

01 00 23 08
Fishermen, shepherds and small farmers have the long winter ahead to wonder if their lives will have to change.

01 00 40 24
Distant global corporations make decisions which sweep away regional economic choice and freedom.

01 0055 06
But some people resist, preferring their own foods and traditions to those imposed by distant powers.

01 01 20 01
In this episode we go to Ireland’s northwest coast, from Achill Island to the Westport region of county Mayo.

01 01 32 00
These are the drumlins, an area of uncertain boundaries between land and sea where inlets, coves and tiny islands rise above the surf.

01 01 41 18
This is poor land of thin soils, wet peat and rock.

01 01 46 09
Within the water marshes -a special ecological area- are rushes, sedges, flags, ferns, blackberry, hawthorn, elderflowers and sloes.



01 01 59 12
Pre-dawn, Jimmy Garrigan’s 23 Fresians amble towards the milking machines.

01 02 09 02
Jimmy provides milk to the local creamery.

01 02 15 08
His father returned from Chicago and bought the land for grazing. Jimmy holds onto the farm because he loves it, but his children won’t take it on. Jimmy fears farmers like him won’t survive much longer in the area.

01 02 28 20
He produces 45 thousand gallons of milk a year. The price, determined by invisible market forces and regulation has remained unchanged for so long he can’t remember.

01 02 50 19
His only private client is Andrew Byrne, a local cheese maker who collects the strained raw milk at dawn.

01 03 19 09
Andrew produces 40 kilos of cheese each week, a small production but he sells-out to his clients.

After having several jobs including being in the military, Andrew, an Englishman, married an Irish woman and came to live in the area.

He learned his cheese making skills from a local woman and continues to develop them.

01 03 39 15
The raw milk is heated, he adds an edible bacteria and rennet which thickens the milk into curds.

01 03 51 20
Andrew’s production, as other artisan’s, supports local farmers who maintain stone walls, hedgerows and countryside buildings. But low crop prices set by the supermarkets and European Union subsidies threaten the survival of the food producers and the things they maintain.

01 04 23 03
Once the curd is set, Andrew slices it with a ‘harp’ to allow the liquid or whey to run off.

01 04 31 18
This is used to feed local pigs.

01 04 36 17
The curds are packed into plastic moulds .

01 04 54 19
Andrew lubricates the curds with whey and places them under weights to press and dry them.

01 05 07 09
Some cheese is placed in brine to develop a skin and then left to age, becoming drier and more tangy.

01 05 24 09
On an inlet off Clew Bay this stone marker above a well commemorates where Saint Brenden was said to have stopped to collect fresh water before his voyage to the new world.

01 05 38 12
On the hill overlooking this is Bonita Stoney’s isolated house.

01 05 43 24
Course wholemeal flour, butter, sugar, bread soda and buttermilk…a by-product of butter making- with these Bonita makes an Irish soda bread.

01 06 14 13
While it bakes she searches her garden for late autumn cabbage and carrots.

01 06 30 17
Bonita, who is a fine artist, relies upon her garden to help her manage a budget.


01 06 36 16
The baked bread cools in a cloth to stop the crust from becoming hard and then a feast is made of the bread, local butter and Patrick’s cheese with herbs.

01 06 53 18
Niall O’Donnell’s family were dispossessed of their rich farms to the north in the 1750’s when the English and their Scots allies drove the Irish from the best lands.
Niall said “Then the famine years, from 1845 to 50; it was difficult keeping going’.
They learned tragically how growing a single variety of a single crop to survive on - in their case the Lumper potato, made them vulnerable. A blight killed harvest after harvest; there was nothing left to eat.
For this reason alone, regional bio-diversity must be maintained.
Niall continued ‘Eighty years ago we went from horse and plough to tractors but the real change happened starting the 60’s. Now the EU tell us to get rid of sheep. They’re paying people to do nothing- used to be on the number of animals you had; now it’s for land so those with large holdings get richer and we…well’

01 07 52 10
Niall cares for his sheep, watching over them like a country doctor.
Naill said ‘I’ve got 67 years; what goes on now doesn’t much matter to me. But setting aside land- It’s more difficult for the children. They’re going away to be educated, their roots will be in city life.’

01 08 55 10
Niall’s vegetable patch represents the diversity the Irish have learned about. It overflows with beetroot, cabbage, parsley, parsnips and potatoes which he grows for himself and generously shares with others.

01 08 05 06
Celtic folk song

01 09 31 22
Louisa says:‘beautiful spuds.



01 09 33 06
The potatoes and other vegetables come from Niall’s garden.

01 09 37 03
The leg of lamb is a hogget or one year old that has been raised and slaughtered locally and then hung to release the moisture making for a better texture and taste.
Louisa prepares it by larding with garlic and rosemary revealing an historical fraternity between the Irish and the French.

01 09 55 10
Louisa says
And in she goes…:

01 10 01 07
Louisa says
It’s quite a lively piece of cabbage this. It’s got a lot of residents.

01 10 04 22
When people have been dispossessed by invasion, famine, or as now by global corporations and unfavourable subsidies, it is difficult to maintain traditions. They are often borrowed from richer societies.
But food and music are enduring.

01 11 03 14
Up on the mountains above Clew Bay, Niall grazes his sheep on the commons.
He said “I’d never leave the land…this is a place of open space, there’s freedom, the freedom of the mountains to walk on.”

01 11 17 19
The sheep know their grazing areas …if you move them they’ll return. The knowledge, called hefting or flock memory, is passed from ewe to lamb.

01 11 34 07
Big John, also overseeing his sheep said”…I wouldn’t do anything else. I work 24 hours, 7 days a week to give my children better choices.’
But there’s no cushioning and he can’t afford their further education.

01 11 56 19
On the mountains, rivulets form streams which become rivers
and the rivers flow into the Bay where there are scallops, mussels, oysters and salmon.

01 12 06 16
Although Clew Bay is a conservation area, industrial salmon and trout farms held by foreign corporations may be upsetting the ecological balance.

01 12 16 01
Alan Stoney searches for shell fish. He explained: “there’s a dispute as to whether pollution from local industrial aqua-farms have caused the collapse of the wild sea trout and oysters. Fortunately local opposition has stopped outside investment which tends to concentrate on profits rather than the problems of pollution and sustainability.”

01 12 34 20
Alan rows ashore to search for mussels and velvet crabs. These are exported to Spain where they are prized.

01 13 04 17
Wet, chilly, difficult and at times discouraging but fresh and a beautiful solitude.

01 13 15 01
Ironically shellfish is still distained by the local population who see it as poverty food only eaten when the potato famine struck.

01 13 23 12
With little in his bucket Alan sails to another beach and comes across his friend Francis and his father Jim, experienced fishermen.

01 13 40 17
Alan:
Are you on velvets?
Jim:
Velvets we’re on.


Later 01 13 45 01
Francis
There’s something to do all year; in springtime, what we say from January to April, you’d be repairing pots as well as picking Periwinkles and occasionally cut seaweed. At times of the year you’re busier than others but generally there’s always something to do on the shore; isn’t that right?

01 14 02 18
These men help each other; their comradeship is beyond monetary value. They know how to pass on knowledge or to sit together, silently watching the sea.

01 14 14 18
Before setting off they check their lobster pot.

01 14 22 23
Mary McLoughlin, a chef at Kirstin MacDonagh’s Quay Restaurant boils one of Jim and Francis’ lobsters.
This breaded local salmon steak is also prepared in the French fashion .

01 14 36 05
Prawns with parsley are cooked in cream and served as a sauce for the baked salmon.

01 14 59 03
The boiled lobster is served with a lemon butter.

01 15 03 00
In the bay Alan’s search for shell fish continues.

01 15 10 16
He goes to a friend’s mussel farm where he snares and pulls up a rope the mussels grow on

01 15 26 10
…it’s harvest time.

01 15 39 02
Wide on boat
Further out in the bay between the drumlins islands, closer to the stormy north Atlantic, Alan drags for seafood.

01 15 46 18
These islands used to be inhabited by farmers and shepherds. As in many areas of harsh weather and poor farming land, the young are drawn to the urban centres with the promise of a better life; the old stay and die; the houses fall to ruin.

01 16 04 24
The sledge is dragged along the sea bed picking up a crop of whatever is in its path.

01 16 18 00
Alan finds mussels, small sweet scallops called cloocheens and this small oyster…too small to harvest.

01 16 28 22
Alan’s experienced eye sees the tiniest of shellfish and with respect for sustainability throws back anything too small or young.

01 16 38 18
This was not a bountiful day but with pollution and diseases spreading from the industrialized aqua-farms, few days are.

01 16 51 12
Back at the Quai Restaurant, Mary steams open the mussels in a traditional French liquor of butter, white wine and onions.


01 17 17 12
Kirstin, the owner, uses only west coast fish and tries to buy from small local suppliers as these cloocheens, stir fried with vegetables.

01 17 29 00
Irish FOLK SONG ABOUT SPORTS song

01 18 07 23
Chris Smith, another English émigré, grows organic vegetables in a river valley. ‘It’s good soil’ he said, “but the tomatoes don’t like the west of Ireland.”

01 18 18 18
Although, Britain, next door, imports 70% of its organic food, Chris said: “People are leaving organic vegetable growing. The Celtic Tiger, Ireland’s rapid economic development within the EU, aggravated the problem in creating wages too high for farmers to afford.

01 18 35 12
His holdings are abundant with produce. He said the more diverse the garden the better it is. He divides the beds and rotates the crops “so”, as he said: “if you get a caterpillar on one bed of broccoli the others needn’t be damaged.”

01 19 49 24
“I used to say that you could make a living on an acre; now it’s just a second income … but it’s a lovely thing to do.”

01 19 09 09
In Westport, Chris and others sell at a weekly farmer’s market providing townspeople with direct access to local produce.

01 19 25 03
Cassie Kelly’s Porter Cake is renowned. Dried and candied fruits, brown sugar and dark stout are mixed with flour and other ingredients to form a seductive cake.

01 19 45 10
Irish folk song about the fair

01 19 37 16
But Cassie is stopping commercial sales; there are too many EU rules for an individual to sustain. This is how culture disappears.




01 20 11 14
Gerard Chambers minces the meat for Sean Kelly’s prized sausages. Sean said “Better to spend the money on the casings; customers tell the difference. Nothing artificial; good pig’s gut.”

01 20 29 14
Sean told a story: “When I started, I made 18 pounds of sausages. A pound I gave away, a pound I cooked and the rest I threw out. It’s trial and error to find a recipe that works for local tastes.”

01 20 45 16
Sean said: “People here are changing because of media and travel. Tastes are more adventurous. Now we make black pudding with white pudding down the middle – the white’s without blood.

01 20 58 02
John Killeen mixes suet, oatmeal, barley and spices with pig’s blood.

01 21 08 13
After soaking a day it’s stuffed into casing and slowly poached.

01 21 17 16
In Kelly’s Kitchen next door, chef Lyndon Walsh fries black and white pudding.

01 21 28 14
Lyndon prepares an Irish Stew with root vegetables, potatoes and lamb. Purists claim that only mutton should be used. Mutton came from older lambs which no longer sufficiently produced wool and milk.
As early as 1800 an English ballad celebrated: “hurrah for an Irish stew that will stick to your belly like glue.”

01 22 00 18
Antoinette and Noula of The Village Bakery make pies and breads and provide a community gathering place. When they applied to the local Enterprise Board for a development grant, they were told that regardless of the café’s social benefit, to receive money for expansion, their kitchen has to be separated from a café.
An elderly woman said after her son died it was the only place she could come to talk- Antoinette and Noula saved her life. But distantly made rules are still rules.

01 22 44 08
They carry on without the grant and their deep apple pies with cream are still appreciated.

01 22 52 19
At Derreen on Achill Island these trials were started to promote the sheep industry.

01 23 02 02
One man said: “If a ram wins one of these shows, the value of the animal increases and it does the shepherd good, his reputation.”
“People round here help each other…a good ram is allowed to roam amongst everyone’s sheep so all get the benefit.

01 23 18 22
But the way things are going, sheep will be gone in 5 years and then the people. Nothing here for the young.”

01 23 26 00
Another said: “What’s going on here is we’re returning to the old system: people with money are buying the land from the sheep farmers who can no longer afford to keep it; we’ll all become tenants again. Everyone’s saying that decisions are made in offices hundreds of miles away by people who know nothing. No one comes to ask the people who actually do the jobs…”

01 2352 14
Tension until the prizes are awarded…

01 24 04 06
…then a moment’s gratification in an otherwise tough life..

01 24 20 19
At the Caellie- ‘a get together’ -Mary Connolly helps to keep alive traditional dancing.

01 24 54 23
Winter’s coming in from the Atlantic, the shepherds, crafts people, farmers and fishermen will have time to consider if fortune will allow for their traditional music, food and stories to continue.

01 25 06 21
“This is a true one”, said the butcher. “There’s always an important man in the pub and one night this one comes home with a black eye and the wife says to him: what happened to ya and he says: ‘I was talking when I should have been listening’.”

TEXT:
What (people) are saying is that human dignity and ecological sustainability…should be at the very foundation of…economic policy.
From FENSES AND WINDOWS by Naomi Klein
P68 of Flamingo edition