What Were We Like

During his short life from 1923 to 1964, Dubliner Brendan Behan achieved both fame and infamy, both at home and abroad, on the back of his writing talents and his very public battle with alcoholism. Today we want to talk about one of Ireland’s greatest writers Brendan Behan who continues to have a massive influence on Irish culture today. In November 1946, Behan, aged just 16, arrived in Liverpool...

On the 22nd of August 1922, Michael Collins was shot dead in Béal Na Bláth, County Cork. His death at just 31 ensured he would become one of Ireland’s most iconic figures, forever frozen in time. This week on What Were We Like, we explore the complicated legacy of Michael Collins. We also look at the significance of the revival of interest of Collins in recent years and the impact Neil Jordan’s fi...

Michael Collins is now one of the most powerful men in Ireland. But events that will tear Ireland apart and lead to his brutal assassination in Cork are already set in train. In 1921 he is sent by De Valera to London to negotiate with the British on what will become the Anglo-Irish Treaty. With his striking good looks and his fierce reputation, London is gripped by "Collins mania". But on December...

On the 22nd of August 1922, Michael Collins, the Commander in Chief of the National Army was shot dead. He was just 31. Almost immediately the myth making around Michael Collins began, starting with the last words he’s alleged to have uttered. But what is the real legacy of Michael Collins? He was a man who operated as a politician but was capable of ruthless violence. On this week’s What Were We...

In the early hours of February 14th 1981, a fire ripped through the Stardust Nightclub in Artane in Dublin. 48 people, aged between 16 and 27, die in the tragedy. It is one of the worst fires, in terms of loss of life and significant injury, in the State’s history. In 1982 a Tribunal controversially found that the fire was "probably caused deliberately" despite no evidence. For 43 years, the famil...

He was one of Ireland’s greatest and most controversial playwrights. Sean O’Casey’s remarkable life began in the slums of Dublin and took him to the biggest stages in the world, including the Abbey Theatre. His work caused riots in Dublin and caused protests around the world, from Texas to Berlin to London. O’Casey made enemies of the Church and the Censors, forcing him to choose self-imposed exil...

After committing one of the worst atrocities in the Irish Civil War, the State attempts to cover up its role in the massacre. As “Terror Month” in Kerry continues, further atrocities are carried out with more prisoners blown up by landmines. However, the man who gave the order at Ballyseedy, Paddy O'Daly, remains unrepentant, stating: “No one asked me to take my kid gloves to Kerry and I didn’t ta...

On the 7th of March 1923, nine anti-Treaty prisoners were taken to a field in Kerry, tied to a landmine and blown up. It was one of the most shocking events of the Irish Civil War and became known as the Ballyseedy Massacre. The State immediately tried to cover it up but incredibly, one man survived and his witness account revealed just how brutal the civil war had become. Diarmaid and Catriona re...

John Paul II, the "rock star" Pope took Ireland by storm in 1979, and millions came out to see him. (Everyone except Catriona, who went to Donegal in a sulk but kept an eye on proceedings through the television). This was an iconic moment, and everyone was swept away by his good looks, his "deep baritone" voice, and his ability to connect with young people. Yet his abilities as a showman belied a...

RTÉ's podcast intern Arran returns with the second instalment of his favourite parts of What Were We Like. This time around, grumpy Patrick Kavanagh, "airhead" Ronald Reagan, and the insertion of the Eighth Amendment into the Constitution all feature. This is Arran's last selection - he's off to Electric Picnic on Thursday where he'll be boring his pals with his newfound knowledge of history. Diar...

Diarmaid and Catriona are on holidays, so RTE's podcast intern, Arran has selected some of his favourite parts of What Were We Like so far. Bobby Sands, The Contraceptive Train, and John Charles McQuaid all feature in the first part of this "Best of" series. Part 2 of Arran's selections will be out next week, and Diarmaid and Catriona return on Monday 31 August. See omnystudio.com/listener for pri...

What Were We Like is on holidays for the next two weeks. We'll be back with a podcast about the visit of Pope John Paul II to Ireland in 1979, and that will come out on Monday the 24th of August. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ireland was gripped by a bizarre phenomenon in the summer of 1985: sightings of moving statues of the Virgin Mary. Tens of thousands of people flocked to villages in Kerry - and elsewhere - to catch a glimpse of these monuments, which eyewitnesses claimed would move, beckon and even undergo strange facial transformations. Diarmaid and Catriona chart this crazy story, look at how it challenged the...

In 1985, the body of a newborn baby washed up on a beach in Cahersiveen, Co Kerry, stabbed to death. What followed was one of the most infamous incidents in the history of An Garda Síochána. Diarmaid and Catriona trace the botched Garda investigation into the baby's death, carried out by the notorious Heavy Gang, the shocking Tribunal of Inquiry which followed, and how it became a watershed moment...

Today, Diarmaid and Catriona kick off a new series focusing on Ireland in the 1980s. This was a decade of great political instability, with three general elections alone happening between 1981 and 1982. Unemployment and emigration were high. Heroin took hold in Dublin and spread around the country. But one of the most polarising issues of all was abortion. In the first of this series, What Were We...

Monaghan born Patrick Kavanagh was a notorious presence in Dublin for much of his life. Broke, drunk and often bitter, he boozed in the bars around Grafton Street, clashing with the likes of Brendan Behan and railing against the literary establishment. Always an outsider, he nonetheless transformed Irish poetry by focusing on the ordinary aspects of rural Ireland, paving the way for the likes of S...

On 5 May 1981, 26-year-old Bobby Sands became the first of ten IRA hunger strikers to die at the Maze Prison, changing the course of history in Northern Ireland. In this episode, Diarmaid and Catriona assess his life, his status as a Republican icon, and how he impacted the career of his chief antagonist, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher among others. See omnystudio.com/listener for privac...

The Irish Women's Liberation Movement, Mary Magee and the fight for contraceptive rights in Ireland.  It was the 1970s and in many ways, things were grim for the women of Ireland. Marital rape was permitted, women had to stop working in the public service when they got married, and most relevantly for this podcast, contraception was illegal. Here, Diarmaid and Catriona tell the stories of the...

In this special recording, What Were We Like appears before a live audience at this year's Listowel Writers Week, to discuss the 1926 census. Diarmaid and Catriona talk about what the census tells us about Irish society in the early part of the 20th century - both in Kerry, and in Ireland in general. Catriona takes umbrage at the performance of Garda Daniel Rooney, who was responsible for some of...

To mark Bloomsday, Diarmaid and Catriona tell the remarkable story of how two of James Joyce's friends made false allegations of infidelity against Nora Barnacle, something which sent Joyce into a jealous rage. The impact on Joyce was severe, and caused him to question the paternity of his son, Giorgio - but it also had major literary consequences, forming the basis of one of the key chapters of U...

In the 1960s, John Charles McQuaid faced a number of serious challenges that saw his influence over Ireland wane. The advent of television and the women's movement were major problems for him - and Vatican 2 presented the biggest threat to his authority. But McQuaid still wielded considerable power, and went after people who crossed his path, including novelist John McGahern, various Protestants a...

The powerful and fearsome John Charles McQuaid was the archbishop of Dublin from 1940 to the early 1970s, and was described as the ruler of Catholic Ireland. He was obsessed with protestants, communists and "moral purity", and ran a huge spying operation on the Irish population, both at home and abroad, to keep everyone in check. In the first part of this series, Diarmaid and Catriona chart his ea...

More giants of Irish politics feature in this episode. Enda Kenny – was he lucky, was he devoid of strong convictions, was he Fine Gael's most successful Taoiseach? Probably all three. Prickly Des O’Malley won his famous uncle’s seat in a by election and went on to found the influential Progressive Democrats. And two trailblazers of Irish politics, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, the first woman to ho...

With by-elections in the air, Diarmaid and Catriona look back at some of the most significant ones in Irish history. Part one features big beasts Sean Lemass and Sean MacBride, as well as Ireland's most handsome communist. Lemass succeeded Dev and is credited with modernising Ireland, as well as smoking vast amounts of tobacco through a pipe. The more “exotic” MacBride founded Clann Na Poblachta a...

This episode charts the Tricolour's 20th Century evolution: its formal adoption in 1937; getting the Brits to return the Tricolour that flew over the GPO in 1916; all the way up to Italia '90. The gruesome digging up of Roger Casement's body features, as does John McGahern's most famous novel, Amongst Women, which came out in 1990 with a Tricolour splashed across its cover. See omnystudio.com/list...