A new series on TG4 explores the people and places along theMississippi, from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. Catherine Foleyreports

What was the most memorable moment for the tiny television crew that travelled south last summer from the source of the Mississippi to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico? Aoife Ní Chonchúir, who interviewed the people they met along the way, thinks for a few seconds. "The powwow on the Indian reservation," she says finally, smiling.

Along with Traolach Ó Buachalla, the programme's director, and Zack Hudson, its production assistant, she travelled by car the full length of the river. At the start of their trip they were just 15 minutes from the Canadian border, on an Indian reservation.

"It was a bit like a regatta in Dingle," says Ní Chonchúir, who is from Co Kerry. "It was a small local festival to celebrate the coming of summer. You'd know it wasn't put on for the tourists. It was their own personal celebration. We just happened to be there."

Further south they met Gwen Harmon of the National Civil Rights Museum, in Memphis. This was another highlight for Ní Chonchúir. Harmon, the museum's marketing director, was a bit cagey at first, but gradually she opened up and told them about going to a segregated school when she was in her teens. "That was an eye-opener," says Ní Chonchúir.

"She interpreted the south for us . . . I always knew a certain amount about it, but it's different to actually see it close up from somebody's own experience of prejudice." Ó Buachalla adds: "She changed the way we saw people on the rest of our journey."

They also met 70-year-old Prof David Lausing, of the University of Mississippi in Oxford, who told them about racism "from a white person's thinking", says Ní Chonchúir. "He talked about his own family and how racist they were and about getting over his own prejudices and how his brothers and sisters have yet to get over it. He was very, very honest."

The crew marked up some 13,000 miles; their experiences will be screened over the next 13 weeks on TG4. The first episode of Imigh Le Sruth, or Go With The Flow, is on January 8th.

The journey was described by one man they met along the way as going from "the brains to the balls of America", says Ó Buachalla.

Ó Buachalla directed the first Hector series, but, he says, this is not a look at Irish-America. "We very consciously avoided the Irish in America. There's very little Irish in it. I wanted to really let the audience get to see and get to know both the place and the people of America."

Imigh Le Sruth is Ní Chonchúir's first television job, having been picked from more than 300 people. "She has a very gentle way about her, and people warm to her and come out of their shells. She was a find," says Ó Buachalla. "I wanted to find someone who wanted to learn and experience a land and allow others to do so through him or her. Most people who yearn to work in television want fame and the covers of magazines. Finding a presenter who is confident enough to allow the context of the show to be the star is no easy job.

"What you see on the movies, on TV, is so sanitised and commercialised, and what we found is that it's not this homogenised culture. There are all these different people, different cultures, languages, heritages," he says.

"Particularly with the war and a lot of people talking about America, I wondered if we really knew America. We only see them in similar terms to ourselves - big cities or hillbillies - and there's an awful lot more."

Ó Buachalla's favourite place was Clarksdale, in the Mississippi Delta, about 100 miles south of Memphis. "It's the poorest part, with the majority of people still living in shacks. It was the biggest shock of all, and also it reminded me of home and how I imagined the west of Ireland being a couple of decades ago. It's here that the culture is so strong, where gospel, Muddy Waters and Elvis Presley all came from. It was also visually the most stunning."

He particularly enjoyed a trip on the Mississippi in a double canoe just before the sun came up, with a father and his daughter, who sang gospel hymns, such as The Lord Is Blessing Me Right Now.

"We wanted to deconstruct the whole American myth. We started in Chicago, which is the quintessential city, home of the skyscraper, to chart the America which we do know. From there we went north to Lake Itasca, where the Mississippi begins."

After the trip, Ó Buachalla was struck by the notion of what holds America together. "They all unite under this flag, which stands for idealised notions of freedom - that's what keeps them together. What I learned was how huge the country is and how isolated those communities are and how different. They have very different life experiences and yet they all identify as Americans."

• Imigh Le Sruth begins on TG4 at 9.30 p.m. on Thursday, January 8th; it is repeated on Sunday, January 11th