Three generations of republicans

Wednesday 18th

We had heard and seen from the Irish Prime Minister, members of the Irish Parliament, eminent historians and members of the Irish public.

That was not enough.

We were set a mission by Daybreak.

Ravi, Thursday’s editor was keen to get a family on the programme that had seen the changes in Ireland through the generations.

The task seemed like an almost impossible one but we managed to come up with one.

So in the early evening we got into Grainne’s smart red Italian car and she drove us out to the south side of Dublin.

We were given a nervous but very warm by the family of Liam Keoch.

At 92 years old might not have been old enough to remember the momentous events of 1916 and 1922 but his father Ned had and had told him all about it.

Not only that, a lot of the things that his father had amassed was in the small front room of his house. It was almost like a shrine to his his father’s memory.

He had been a member of the Irish Citizen’s Army and the original IRA, a rather different organisation from the thugs of today.

We had arrived in perfect time to see the speech that the Queen was giving at Dublin Castle being broadcast live.

I recorded Liam, his daughter Helen and his grand daughter Michelle watching the speech. When that was done we got their reaction to it and filmed Michelle and Liam showing Grainne some of the things that were in the front room.

There were embroidered handkerchiefs, one with the names of the men from his unit who had lost their lives. Ned had done it when he had been in prison.

Grainne chatting to Helen, Liam and Michelle.

Neds slightly faded certificate of membership to the Irish republican Army,

We went back to the hotel very happy with what we had recorded which included Liam's recounting of the events of first Bloody Sunday at Croke Park in November 1920 that Ned had witnessed first hand.

When Grainne had recorded her voice over she headed home with the happy knowledge that she was not having to get up early for live broadcasts. She was going to have a pretty exciting day ahead.

Gary know of some very evocative music, “Foggy Dew” that I could put on to the edit. He then hit the hay after his early start and I carried on with the edit which was not without the odd moment of frustration, mainly when it took a lot longer to sent the cut report to Daybreak than it had done over the last few days.