The Troubles: Return of the IRA (Part 3)

**Tom Holland** (0:03)
This episode is brought to you by Claude by Anthropic.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (0:06)
Tom, as you know, recently, I've had to work through all kinds of issues. One of them was having to write the notes for a series about the First World War in 1915 Would have been so easy to be overwhelmed by that, like an Italian soldier trudging up a limestone hill towards Austrian guns. But whereas the Italians often felt alone, I knew that I always had you, and that was very special.

**Tom Holland** (0:26)
You did, Dominic.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (0:27)
And if I'd had to do it on my own, I'd have probably been daunted. And the good news is that when you need help, there's Claude.

**Tom Holland** (0:34)
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**SPEAKER_3** (1:05)
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**SPEAKER_4** (1:19)
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**SPEAKER_3** (1:21)
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**Tom Holland** (1:40)
Now, before we go to today's episode, I have some insanely exciting news for you. On Friday, the 4th of September, Dominic and I will be forming live at the Southbank Centre in London. And better yet, we will be doing something completely new, something that no one has ever heard before on The Rest Is History. The ultimate Victorian adventure.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (2:04)
So to give you just a little taste, we will be in Africa in 1868 The Emperor of Abyssinia, Theodore II, has kidnapped 59 Europeans and he is holding them hostage after descending into this demented rage because one of his fellow monarchs, Queen Victoria, has declined to answer his letters. I'm not making this up.
And the British, after months and months of fruitless waiting, have lost patience and they have sent a military expedition under General Napier halfway around the world to save them. An expedition that includes thousands of mules, loads of elephants, and they even had to build their own railway across the highlands of Abyssinia or Ethiopia to try to get to his mountain citadel. It is a bonkers story.

**Tom Holland** (2:56)
Yeah, it's absolutely extraordinary, full-blown British Imperial epic full of ludicrous behavior, mad characters, colossal moustaches, everything that we love on The Rest Is History. It is, though I say so myself, a guaranteed classic in the making.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (3:15)
So you're probably thinking, how can I get a ticket for this extraordinary Victorian adventure? Here is the answer. If you want to get a ticket for this event on Friday, the 4th of September, all you have to do is to go to therestishistory.com. It is as simple as that. You maybe have to part with some money, but it will be money very, very, very, very well spent. See you there.

**Tom Holland** (3:49)
Down through the centuries, the people of Ireland have been forced to wage a continuing and arduous struggle for freedom and equality. For generations, division and despair have scarred the countryside. Often alone, often without notice from others throughout the world, brave men and women of Ireland have given their lives for the principles they hold dear. Today, the Irish struggle again.
The crisis now, however, is especially serious because the hate and bitterness are taking a new and far more drastic turn.

**SPEAKER_5** (4:30)
Ulster teeters on the brink of a civil war that threatens to engulf all of Ireland.

**Tom Holland** (4:38)
The government of Ulster rules by bayonet and bloodshed. The soaring toll of death and violence is uncontrolled. Thousands flee their homes in terror. Businesses are bombed and factories close down. Barbed wire roadblocks imprison every street corner. Young children stand on curb stones and shout shrill insults filled with hate.
Ulster is becoming Britain's Vietnam.
So that was Senator Edward Kennedy taking time off from driving young women into tidal ponds and then pretending it never happened to make a helpful intervention on the plight of Northern Ireland in the United States Congress on the 20th of October, 1971 And Dominic, this was a speech that went down in Britain like a cup of cold sick. And I suppose the members of the British population who particularly enjoyed it were the Protestant majority in Northern Ireland itself. But having said that, it did go down very well with Catholics in Northern Ireland, didn't it? And indeed in Ireland more generally.