Forgotten way of life captured in new tv3 documentary series
Funded by TV3 and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, Islanders is a four-part series produced by 3Studios that premieres at 9 p.m. tomorrow (Wednesday, April 15).
From Arranmore in Donegal to Whiddy Island in Cork via Inishturk (Mayo), Islanders is a revelatory series that captures the fight for a way of life that is rapidly disappearing.
In the series premiere we visit the island community that Ireland forgot existed, we witness a mother's heartbreak as her son leaves the island at 12 years of age, and we meet fishermen near extinction due to 'harsh regulations'.
Filmed in 2014, Islanders follows the lives of native islanders across an entire year. Set within breathtaking landscapes, the islanders' stories are emotive, uplifting and told with honesty and frankness.
Episode one begins 14 kilometres out from the Mayo coast, where the beautiful island of Inishturk reveals itself. With just 55 residents, it is home to Bríd Heanue (33) and her son Nathan (12). Bríd's eldest son Chris (16) lives and schools on the mainland.
With no secondary school on Inishturk, Nathan will be leaving the island in September to join his brother at Rice College in Westport. It is a day Bríd dreads. She said: 'That's a very emotional subject with me. It's going to be heartbreaking for me as he's been my little baby here at home. I'm going to find that very hard. All of our family are going to find that hard.'
Not only will Nathan's mother be losing her son, but the island will be losing another islander.
The series premiere also brings us down the coast to Whiddy Island in Bantry Bay, Cork - home to just 22 people - and northwards to the Donegal Gaeltacht to Arranmore, which outwardly seems to have everything a community requires but also suffers a problem emblematic of many islands - its population is in swift decline.
With many twists and turns along the way, Islanders will follow the lives and stories of these characters over a tumultuous year to learn what threatens their survival, to discover a different way of life, and to share in what it means to be an islander.