The Cable that Changed the World
In the race to create a global communications network between Europe and America, Cyrus Field gathered a team of experts, including the eminent Belfast-born physicist William Thomson.
Jessie Buckley narrates the extraordinary story of the first transatlantic communications cable.
16 August 1858: a short message is telegraphed from County Kerry to Newfoundland, 3,000km away: 鈥楨urope and America are united by telegraph. Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will towards men.鈥�
The Morse code message is conducted along the new underwater transatlantic telegraph cable laid across the bed of the Atlantic Ocean. Sending the same message by ship would have taken at least ten days, but the transmission takes just hours and heralds the dawn of the modern communications age.
The quest is driven by visionaries and pioneers. Among them are Cyrus Field, a wealthy businessman who, despite his immense success, ends his life in poverty; Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph and Morse code; Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the British engineer who pushes boundaries and budgets; and Belfast physicist Lord Kelvin, who calculates how to achieve what had hitherto been deemed impossible.
Together, their ingenuity and relentless pursuit helps realise one of the great scientific accomplishments of their age for which Valentia, on Ireland鈥檚 remote western coast, is ground zero.
Last on
