Critics miss the wonder of the things that made us who we are

HAD anyone bothered to ask I'd have told them for nothing.

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When a replacement anthem was needed to unify the various Irish sects, north and south, to be played at big sporting occasions, Dominic Behan's shanty Thank God We're Surrounded By Water could have ticked most of the boxes.

It's a good seafaring ballad fit for a wild island tribe.

In their wisdom the powers that be asked Phil Coulter instead and the rest is slightly cringeworthy history.

But if you wanted reminding that being surrounded by water is what defines us more than any other thing, it came this week in the shape of two epic new RTE productions.

Both have the taste of salt air about them and plenty of Irish people doing what we have done well for centuries - gazing out at the waves and contemplating the sheer unlikely wonder of it all.

From That Small Island ambitiously sets out to tell the story of the Irish since prehistory in four lavish Sunday evening episodes.

On Mondays, Hell For Leather even more ambitiously tries to capture Gaelic football's part in that tale in a mere five parts.

DETERMINED

Both depict the Irish as a tribe apart, cut off by the waves at the edge of the world.