Derrigimlagh, Ireland

Available for over a year

Clare Balding explores a new pathway just outside Clifden in County Galway. This walking route, across the Derrigimlagh Bog, is a mosaic of tiny lakes and peat rich flora and fauna. Its a fairly lonely spot, as walking guide, Paul Phelan explains but its the place where two truly remarkable events of the twentieth century took place. In October 1907 the first commercial transatlantic message was transmitted from Marconi's wireless telegraphy station on the bog, to Glace Bay, Newfoundland, Canada. In 1919, aviators, Alcock and Brown crash landed there at the end of the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic. Historian, Mike Cronin joins Clare and Paul to explain the significance of both events and they discuss why this wild and dramatic landscape means so much to them. Producer: Lucy Lunt.