Episode 1: The Border

What will happen to the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland after Brexit? We discuss how Britain has ignored this problem, and speak to ordinary people on the border about their lives and their fears about any hardening of the border. Naomi reports from the border on how Brexit could affect a family of farmers and a man who has to cross the border four times in 10 minutes to get to his nearest town. We hear how talk of a united Ireland is on the rise, and a Sinn Fein councillor who is missing a few fingers from his struggles against a hard border in the past tells us a return to violence "depends on what conditions are created". Tim lays out how the border came to be in the first place, from the plantations, through religious wars, rebellions, and the war of independence that led to the emergence of the modern Irish state. What is Ireland anyway? This episode gets the facts straight.