Two Offaly locations feature on Disney+ documentary 'Europe from Above'
TWO locations in Offaly are featured in a Disney+ documentary currently showing on the popular channel.
Banagher Concrete and Birr Castle make an appearance on the 'Europe from Above' series which features Ireland in one episode.
The documentary shows workers at Whitten Haulage from Birr, safely transporting 50 metre long beams made by Banagher Concrete through the town of Birr in the dead of night.
Viewers can see the truck with its heavy load crawl through the streets negotiating tight corners where the beams come within a metre of some of the buildings, while being carefully directed by an employee on the ground.
The beams are helping to build a new bridge on the bypass in Macroom and are the largest ever manufactured and transported by road in Ireland and the UK. Viewers can see the load arrive at its destination in Cork. The two-span bridge will be 121 metres long when complete and crosses the Bohill River and a local road.
Birr castle with its Great Telescope the 'Leviathan' is the second excerpt from Offaly. The documentary explains how the 3rd Earl of Rosse, William Parsons, designed and built the largest telescope in the world and how he discovered the spiral nature of the galaxies. Then it goes on to show the I-LOFAR (Irish Low Frequency Array) also situated at Birr Castle.
The LOFAR is described as ''a network of state-of-the-art telescopes used to observe the Universe in unprecedented detail at low radio frequencies. It is one of the largest astrophysics projects in Europe.''
Other places shown in the episode include a behind the scenes look at Croke Park in Dublin, the deer rutting season in the Phoenix Park and other conservation projects around Ireland.
The six part Europe from Above series is described as taking ''viewers on an awe-inspiring visual journey around Norway, Croatia, Portugal, Switzerland, Ireland and Iceland.
The documentary, which was made by National Geographic now owned by Disney+ focuses on nature, human stories and engineering which it says ''continue to shape these great modern nations today.''
The description by Disney+ regarding the Ireland episode states, ''spectacular aerial journey reveals Ireland as it's never been seen before. Flying cameras uncover the technology buried behind one of Europe's most high-tech sports pitches, soar above the dramatic spectacle of Dublin's Deer Rut and follow a team saving Ireland's protected grey seals. Alongside the rugged west coast and fractured islands, we'll uncover the engineering accomplishments that are updating Ireland's rural countryside.''