Obscure Ireland With Peter

On the evening of Friday the 18th June 1875 as the work weary residents of The Liberties began to settle into their tenement homes on Chamber, Ardee and Cork Street the beginning of their peaceful and warm summer evening was disturbed by the alarming and panicked squeals of the pigs they kept in the yards below. They rushed to their windows and doors to search for the source of the commotion only...

The Murder of Maria Kirwan | Scandal in Victorian Dublin | Ireland in 1852 In 1852 a scandal rocked the Victorian City of Dublin when accusations of murder, adultery and bigamy were levelled against a respectable middle class artist named William Bourke Kirwan. His wife Maria had died in an apparent case of accidental drowning on the island of Ireland's Eye in September but William was about t...

In June 1961 the body of 5 year old Tommy Powell was discovered in the ruins of St. Kevin's Church on Camden Row. Tommy, who had been missing since the previous day, had suffered a severe head injury and an enormous manhunt ensued as 100 detectives frantically searched for his killer. Multiple theories were considered and 1000s of people were interviewed yet nobody could shed any light on what...

For 100 years The Foundling Hospital on Dublin's James's Street cast a dark shadow over the city. Designed to be a place of refuge and care for the poorest and most vulnerable members of Irish society it instead became a place of mass death and burial. This podcast explores the dark history of hospital, how it came into existence, the shocking treatment received by it's inmates and the...

Did This Dublin Woman Murder Her Husband? The Shocking Story & Murder Trial of Ellen Byrne. In the summer of 1842 the respectable neighbourhood of Rathmines in Dublin, Ireland was rocked by scandal when the decomposing body of Augustine Byrne was discovered in his bed. The bizarre circumstances surrounding his death and the secretive behaviour of his wife Ellen led to her being charged with hi...

In the summer of 1963 Dublin’s dark and deadly tenement past returned to torment the residents of the inner city. Exactly 50 years after the catastrophic collapse on Church Street that claimed the lives of 7 people, a neglected tenement house on Bolton Street came crashing down, catapulting an elderly couple from their beds and burying their broken bodies under a pile of rubble. Just 10 days later...

At 2:25pm on the 30th March 1835 Lucinda Sly, a 57 year old Carlow woman was taken from her cell in the county gaol to begin the short walk to the gallows that awaited outside. As the executioner placed a noose around her neck and she took her final glance of this mortal realm the events of the previous months that led to this terrifying moment raced through her mind. She thought of her young love...

Investigating The Murder of Lavena Ball in Dublin, Ireland 1936. In February 1936 a shocking crime was uncovered on Corbawn lane in Dublin when an abandoned and bloodstained car belonging to Mrs. Lavena Ball was discovered in Shankill. The thorough police investigation that followed could find only one suspect, Lavena's own son Edward. Join me as I investigate this shocking and largely forgotten c...

The Largest Mass Murder in Irish History & The Hanging of Henry McCabe | Malahide, Dublin 1926. In March 1926 the largest mass murder (excluding political violence) in the history of The Irish State was discovered at a house named La Mancha in Dublin. Six victims were found, some with brutal head wounds while others were burnt almost beyond recognition by a fire that was set to cover up the cr...

At 6:30am on the morning of the 18th April 1956 a milkman named Patrick Rigney made a shocking discovery on the steps leading to the basement of a Georgian town house on Dublin’s Hume Street. Before him lay the body of 33 year old Helen O’Reilly, her legs bound together and a silk stocking tied tightly around her neck. As Rigney tried to make sense of what he was seeing he was startled by a noise...

Welcome to Obscure Ireland With Peter the history podcast that takes a deep dive into the lesser known stories from Ireland's past and seeks to bring back to life the lives of the people whose stories of murder, defiance and bravery once gripped the nation and filled newspapers for weeks on end but have slowly faded from memory. From long forgotten murders in the 19th century to more modern cases...

The story of Thomas "Bang Bang" Dudley who became the most famous of Dublin's many street characters. Born into poverty and the tenements of early 1900s Dublin Thomas was a beloved character who travelled around the city holding mock shootouts with his famous key while hanging out of the back of trams and buses. This detailed podcast tells the story of his life from his birth in 1906, his beloved...

In 1913 Dublin was a city in turmoil. Riddled with relentless poverty and row after row of filthy and dilapidated tenement housing the formerly grand Georgian Streets that had been the playground of the Anglo Irish Ascendency became a death trap for the 1000s of working class families that now lived in overcrowded homes built for the elite landowning overlords of Ireland. Every day the residents o...

The Hanging of Kearneys | A Miscarriage of Justice? | Dublin in 1816 | Ireland In the early 1800s the peace of Glenasmole Valley was forever broken by the disappearance of a despised land steward who worked on a nearby estate belonging to the powerful Shaw family. One evening John Kinlan walked out into the darkness a mountain laneway and seemingly vanished from the face of the earth. His disappea...

The Execution of Kevin Barry | A Young Irish Rebel | Dublin, Ireland in 1920 In 1920 as Ireland fought a War of Independence to break free from the grasp of The British Empire a young Volunteer by the name of Kevin Barry was captured on the streets of Dublin and then executed by the British authorities. Kevin Barry's death shocked the nation and became one of the most poignant stories of the revol...

This is the sad story of the murder of a young woman known as Honour Bright whose body was discovered on a quiet road in South Dublin in 1925. Join me as I uncover the story of her early life, her true identity and the dramatic trial that saw two seemingly respectable men accused of her murder. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.