Armchair Travel: First World War, Libya's Gaddafi, Art of China

Armchair Travel
The First World War Remembered
     This week, one hundred years ago, Germany had just declared war on Russia and France and followed up by invading neutral Belgium and Britain declared war on Germany. The First World War, the so-called 'war to end all wars' had begun. It didn't do that, but it did change the course of Ireland's history.

The Royal Irish Rifles in a communication trench during the Battle of the Somme, believed to be July 1, 1916. Photo:Imperial War Museums, London

     To examine this, The Forgotten War? Ireland and World War One (RTÉ One  10.35pm Tuesday, August 5), John Bowman hosts a discussion on why thousands of Irishmen inlisted to fight with the British army and examines the consequences of the war on the country. The 1916 Easter Rising coincided and then there those, at the time, who felt a hope that Irish Nationalists and Ulster Unionists fighting along side each other would promote the idea of home rule. The discussion includes Edward Madigan, Evelyn O'Rourke, Catriona Pennell, Paul Bew, Robert Ballagh, and also archived interviews with war veterans
     In the first of a two part documentary My Great War: Home By Christmas (RTÉ One 9.35pm Monday, August 4), descendants of Irish soldiers travel to Europe to hear stories of great-grandfathers, aunts and uncles who fought in the British Army during the First World War. Sean Malone tries to find out the truth about Sergeant Michael Curley, a relation who is said to have killed his own commanding officer while trying to save his comrades
     The second part the documentary My Great War: Hero to Traitor (RTÉ One 9.35pm Tuesday, August 5), more Irish relatives give accounts their ancestors' roles in the war. Mike Grey visits France, to find what caused his grandfather to suffer from shell-shock and Paul Conlon tells of the eight brothers in his family from Sligo who fought in the conflict and how his family coped when only four returned. Kerry Rooney tells her great-grandfather fighting at the Battle of the Somme and reflects on why as a Catholic he fought with a mainly Protestant division.

Michael Portillo at Poelcapelle British Cemetry.                                                         Photo: BBC/FremantleMedia UK/John Hall

     A new Michael Portillo railway series relating to the First World War begins, A Railway War Begins (BBC2 N Ireland 6.00pm Monday August 4 Continues Tuesday to Friday 6.30pm August 5 - 8). He travels through Britain and Europe examining the impact of railways - effecting how the war was fought and used to transport millions to the trenches. He visits Metz, France; Southampton, England; the north-east of England;  Hampshire; the south coast of England; Quintinshill, near Gretna Green, Scotland; Abancourt, northern France; Bristol's Temple Meads station; Ypres, Belgium.

Libya's Muammar Gaddafi
There are 2 documentaries about Libya's Muammar Gaddafi. First, a repeat showing of  Mad Dog: Gaddafi's Secret World - Storyville (BBC4 10.05pm Sunday August 3), looks at the private life of former Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, outlining his alarming abuse of power. Pieced together from the Pacific, Cuba, Brazil, the US, South Africa and Australia, the programme explains how Libya's huge oil reserves were the reason why he managed to both maintain such a strong alliance with the West finance terrorism, and finally ending with the Arab Spring that heralded his overthrow and death in August 2011
     Then there is Mad Dog - Inside the Secret World of Muammar Gaddafi (RTÉ One, 9.35pm Thursday August 7) This documentary takes us into the Libyan dictator's palace, at his cronies and courtiers, nuclear smugglers and a virgin suicide squad. the program moves from Brazil to Beirut to track down the men and women who worked for Gaddafi.
(Please note that since I have not seen either programme before, they might actually be the same programme using different titles)

The Golden Age of Art in China
     Andrew Graham-Dixon resumes his journey through China to the Yellow Mountains in Art of China (BBC4, 9.00pm Wednesday, August 6) He is on a quest to locate Chinese landscape painting from from the 10th to the 15th century(from the Song to the Ming dynasties) - the golden age of art in China.

Thomas Paine: a detail from
a painting by Auguste Millière

Champion of Democracy and Human Rights

     I enjoyed last weeks episode of Melvyn Bragg's Radical Lives on John Ball,  one of the leaders of the Peasant's Revolt in 14th-century England, and as he was also a persecuted priest I would add him to the list of precursors of the Reformation.
     This week he deals with the18th-century English radical Thomas Paine: Melvyn Bragg's Radical Lives: Rights of Man (BBC2 N Ireland 9.15pm Saturday August 9). Paine wrote three of the best regarded political books of all time - Common Sense, Rights of Man and The Age of Reason - they inspired the American Revolution. Paine was also an active contributor in the French Revolution and sought political reform in Britain. Bragg travels to Norfolk, England; Philadelphia and New York, USA; and Paris, France in the footsteps the great champions of democracy and human rights

On an Island off the Coast of Sicily
In this Inspector Montalbano episode, The Sense of Touch, (BBC4, 9.00pm Saturday August 9) we visit an island off the coast of Sicily where a blind man dies in what appears to be an accident. But events change as Montalbano finds the the man had recently deposited a sizable sum of money to his bank account and so begins an investigation into a supposedly charitable organisation. This story was tele scripted for TV based on the detective novels of Andrea Camilleri - but not from from any specific book