Kings in Grass Castles (1998)

I'll never look at a potato the same way again! I'd heard of the Potato Famine before but seeing poor farmers in the cold windy hills of Galway Ireland scratching the dirt only to find a rotten potato certainly paints the picture. All those Irish who starved or had to migrate surely got one of many the raw parts of English imperial history when their ancestors lost their arguments with England. They toiled in squalor and still were not able to meet the demands of their absentee landlords who bathed in wealth in the next island. This TV mini-series tells the story of Patsy Durack and his family who decides to change the inevitable course of their fate were him to follow his father's lead and drags them to Australia. Here they pay off their indenture and eventually become successful farmers of cattle in Queensland where land the size of small European countries was being sold for a song. Never mind the indigenous people who lived there who in turn got the raw end of the deal thanks largely to an illegitimate government who did not recognize them as humans. The irony of the story is beautifully illustrated at the end when Pumpkin, as Patsy called his long time indigenous friend, he says to him : 'Twenty five years, and you still don't know my name, it's Burrakin'
This mini-series is worth every minute of the two hundred or so. It is very well written and the story never drags. The direction of the acting is economical too and never dwells for long on the sad or happy bits. Shot on location both in Australia and Ireland there's plenty of country to look at and there are really great backdrop scenes with lots of indigenous extras. David Ngoombujarrae is very good as Burrakin and Stephen Delane also as Patsy. The emphasis of the story too in the end is not so much about the injustice  to the Irish or to the Aborigine but the ironies of history.