A FORMER BRITISH government minister who is perhaps most famous for losing his seat at the 1997 general election will present a programme on the history of Irish railways that starts tonight.

The Great British Railway Journeys series, presented by former British Defence Secretary Michael Portillo, comes to Ireland with five episodes that will take in his journey from Bray in Co Wicklow to Derry in Northern Ireland.

The BBC Two series of programmes sees Portillo take to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw’s Victorian Railway Guidebook to see how the railways changed and what remains of Bradshaw’s portrayal of Britain and its vast railway network. Bradshaw was renowned for developing the most successful and long published combined railway timetables.

Tonight’s first episode will kick off a series of five programmes which track the 19th century expansion of the railway tracks in Ireland from Dublin to Derry. The filming took place back in August of last year.

According to the BBC website, he will observe “the amazing engineering feat involved in building the railway along Dublin’s treacherous East coast, explores 19th century crime and punishment in a Victorian jail, and finds out how the lions of Dublin Zoo changed the fortunes of the railways.”

Here’s a flavour of what to expect from his time spent in Liverpool:

YouTube: GreatBritishRailway1

A former cabinet minister in the Tory governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, Portillo is perhaps most famous for his defeat at the 1997 general election where he lost a safe Conservative seat to Labour as Tony Blair’s party won a huge national majority.

The ‘Portillo moment’ has entered the political lexicon and usually relates to cabinet ministers losing their seats on live television or as Portillo himself put it: “eating a bucketload of s*** in public.”

Though he returned to parliament two years later, he has since carved out a successful media career with the BBC and other broadcasters. He also writes for the Sunday Times and makes documentaries while wearing frighteningly bad shirt and jacket combos:

Great British Railway Journeys Goes to Ireland will air on BBC Two Northern Ireland tonight and every night this week at 6.30pm