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| | | From Shetland to the Scilly Isles, Open Country travels the UK in search of the stories, the people and the wildlife that make our countryside such a vibrant place. Each week we visit a new area to hear how local people are growing the crops, protecting the environment, maintaining the traditions and cooking the food that makes their corner of rural Britain unique.
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|  | | Paul McCooey and Helen Mark | |
Ongoing excavations just outside the village of Toomebridge, in Northern Ireland, have unexpectedly unearthed the earliest recorded evidence of farming on the island. As the diggers moved in to work on the Toome bypass, on the northern shores of Lough Neagh, archaeologists found more than 10,000 artefacts, including Stone Age axe heads and flints from 9,400 years ago, through to bronze age times about 4,500 years ago. The find is described by the digs head archaeologist Paul McCooey, as "a once in a lifetime find", showing the transition from hunter gatherer to farmer.
Helen Mark was granted privileged access to the site that in less than a month will be turned over to construction workers. Using the dig as a starting point, Helen explores how the community in and around Toomebridge has retained many of the characteristics of their geographical ancestors who worked the land for survival over 9,000 years ago.
Eel fishing is the lifeblood of Toombridge, providing a living for over 150 families who live around the shores of Lough Neagh. When Father Kennedy arrived in the village, over 30 years ago, he found a community of fisherman that were "deprived and persecuted". He helped the fisherman set up a co-operative and to buy out the rights to fish for eels on the Lough. Standing on an eel weir, as the river Begg rushes by beneath them, he explains to Helen how an eel caught on the Lough today will be shipped live, smoked, and on sale in Dutch delicatessens tomorrow.
Pat Pollock shot his first duck at the age of nine. Since then he has been in love with the art of wild fowling. Taking Helen Mark out to an island on Lough Neagh as dusk settles in, he explains the importance of wild fowling to the local community.
Helen ends on the shores of Lough Beg, just North of the Toome bypass. Local environmentalist Seamus Burns first discovered the Lough whilst looking at a map. Telescope in hand he drags Helen Mark across the muddy fields to the shores of the Lough, where they can watch the migrating birds which have made this such an important site.
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