Season 1
Who are the Irish, really? This program aims to separate fact from fiction as it reveals little-known truths, including: the Irish people may not even be Celtic; St. Patrick was a minor missionary whose impact on the nation's conversion to Christianity was minimal; scholarly monks in the seventh century reinvented Ireland's heroic, mythical past—the stories we know today—for the purpose of converting its pagan peoples; Ireland actually benefited from the Viking invasion.
Episode Guide
Opening hour probes whether kernels of truth lie within the legends of formidable warriors like Cu Chullain and immortal rulers such as Queen Maeve. Are the Irish even Celtic? Archaeologists have found little evidence. The program also surveys the vast burial mounds that dot Ireland's verdant landscape, the climatic Bronze Age disaster that forever altered Ireland, the subsequent era of prosperity that transformed Ireland into Europe's richest nation, the role of Rome in Ireland, and the founding of a new kingdom in Scotland by Irish warlords who would ultimately take over the entire country.