Irish History Podcast

This week see the release of the first major movie set during the Great Famine. Starring James Frecheville, Stephen Rae, Jim Broadbent & Hugo Weaving Black '47 is one of the most eagerly awaited Irish films of 2018. Last Wednesday I got a sneak preview of the movie and in this podcast I review Black '47. Last Wednesday I got a sneak preview of the movie and in this podcast I review Black '47....

This week sees the launch of the movie Black '47 & my return to the Great Famine series. So whether you want to find out the history behind the movie or catch up on the series to date this is podcast for you. While it does summarise the series to date the show also includes lots of new information.  The episode tells the fascinating but forgotten story of Margaret Murphy. Margaret's life...

The Mulranny Police Conspiracy is a little-known story that took place in the west of Ireland at the turn of the 20th century. The setting is Mulranny – a stunning village along the Wild Atlantic Way but in 1900 it was something of a forgotten backwater. However it was here, on the shores of Clew Bay that this story of deceit unfolded. In what is at times a bizarre and tragic plot, the Royal Irish...

The Iniskea Islands are among the most remote places in Ireland. Although deserted today, throughout the 19th century the lives of the islanders were the source of bizarre rumours. Numerous outsiders accused the islanders of piracy & worshipping pagan gods into the 1870s. In this podcast I look at whether these Islanders were truly the last pagans and pirates in Ireland. The answers are supris...

In the 1830s the British politican George Lewis described the fate of an informer in ireland as a man " doomed to certain death....he would be hunted through the country like a mad dog every hand would be raised against him".  This was something of an understatement in some cases.  In 1816 Edward Lynch became an informer. A few months later this resulted in one of the worst crimes in pre...

Did the experiences of the Famine drive Irish people insane? In this episode I look at the story of the famine survivor John Thompson who ended up in the Rainhill asylum in Lancashire in the 1860s. In this Victorian institution (which treated mental illnesses) he would find himself surrounded by other Irish people. This podcast looks at why Irish peope found themsleves in British asylums in dispro...

The Great Hunger is not something we associate with war and certainly not wars in other countries. However the Famine is inextricably linked to the story of the American Civil War (1861-1865). Around 200,000 Irish people, most of them famine or post famine emigrants, fought in the conflict making it one of the largest wars in terms of Irish participation. This podcast is structured around an inter...

After Ireland, no country was more affected by the Great Famine than the USA. Millions of Irish people emigrated to the United States during and after the Great Famine. This is their story. Through this podcast you will follow them on voyages across the Atlantic before looking at several Irish communities from the Five Points Slum in New York to the Rocky Mountains. From persecuted Irish miners in...

Coffin Ships are one of the most enduring images from the Great Famine. This was the name given to the boats that carried Irish Famine emigrants to North America in 1847. This sinister title comes from the appalling death rates onboard these ships. This show opens with the hopes and fears of famine emigrants in Black '47. Then I move on to the harrowing voyages and what awaited the emirgants...

As people across the world prepare to mark St Patrick's day this podcast looks what at happened on St Patricks Day during the worst year of the Great Famine. Celebrations were not cancelled but on a day supposed to celebrat all things Irish, events in Dublin revealed there were two very different Irelands in that year.  While one half of the city starved the other half planned a party.... &nb...

This short podcast explains the Dublin Famine Tour, my new interactive historical experience which launches on St Patricks Weekend. On this walking tour I guide you through Victorian Dublin, explaining the fascinating but forgotten story of how the Great Famine transformed Ireland’s capital city. During the tour will also hear what Dublin sounded like in the 1840s along with recordings of accounts...

Emigration is arguably the greatest legacy of the Great Irish Famine. Between 1846 and 1851, 1.25 million Irish people passed through the port of Liverpool alone to escape the Great Hunger. This exodus of refugees transformed the Great Famine from an Irish catastrophe into a global phenomenon as these people established Irish communities across the world. It fitting then that the show opens with a...

Over the course of the Great Famine, hundreds of thousands of Irish people were evicted from their homes. As ruthless landlords showed no pity, eviction was a death sentence for many starving tenants who were made homeless. It was inevitable these evictions provoked resistance. On November 2nd 1847, the most famous assassination of the Great Famine took place in North Roscommon. This podcast detai...

This episode marks a return to the Great Famine Series. Coming podcasts will detail the later phase of the Famine including emigration and the bitter struggle that broke out between lanldords & tenants. This show sets the stage by focusing on the life of the most famous Irish person of the 19th century - Daniel O’Connell. Known as 'King Dan' the final years of his life provide a grea...

Isabella Cadel, Grace O Toole, Fynyna O Toohig. These are all women forgotten by history who lived intriguing and fascinating lives. The three had one thing in common - they were all rebels in medieval Ireland. In this podcast I look at their forgotten stories which took place in an Ireland ravaged by deadly conflict. These medieval female warriors played an overlooked role in the brutal and deadl...

The last podcast looked at the arrival of the one time Nazi Commando Otto Skorzeny in Ireland in 1957 and the welcome he received from some of the most influential people in Dublin. This podcast continues this bizarre story using recently released files from Ireland's intelligence agency G2. These files contain serious allegations about Skorzeny in Ireland.  Was he using Cork Harbour to...

This is the first of two podcasts which looks at the story of Otto Skorzeny, a notorious Nazi with a long but forgotten connection to Ireland. It is set in the aftermath of World War II to the intriguing backdrop of the hunt for Nazi war criminals after the war. Once labelled the most dangerous man in Europe the focus of the podcast, Otto Skorzeny, was a man plagued with rumours of war crimes, gun...

Believe it or not the first Irish person to visit China left Europe in 1318 arriving. His fascinating journey would take several years. Known only as 'James of Ireland' this a story embroiled in the rise of the Mongols, medieval papal diplomacy and the tediously slow world of medieval travel.  Hear his story in this podcast... This podcast is brought to you by Irish Newspaper Archives Become...

Over the coming weeks I am taking a break from the Great Famine Series to make a mini series entitled 'Outsiders'. These podcasts will focus on people who for one reason or another lived at the peripherary of Irish society.  First up is Ireland's last executioners. These were members of a family who included one of the most prolific hangmen of all time. This is the story of the Pierrepoi...

The crumbling ruins of workhouses are one of the last visible reminders of the horrors of the Great Hunger in the Irish landscape. During the Great Famine they became home to the unwanted in Irish society. Ultimately over 300,000 people Irish people died in these institutions during the Great Hunger.  While they may have been unwanted by the late 1840s very few of the so called 'inmates' of w...

This show opens with the fascinating story of communities in Mayo who resorted to piracy to survive in 1847. This is only a prelude however before we look at two pivotal events later in the year.  After two years of starvation, the only election held during the Great Famine took place in August 1847. In some constituencies this poll was more like a blood sport than modern elections.  Tha...

This podcast continues our journey through the summer of 1847 as we reach one of the pivotal moments in the history of the Great Famine. The British government finally realise a new policy is needed in Ireland but will it help or hinder? Decisions taken in this podcast overshadow life Ireland for years to come.  Tune in to find out more.  This episode is brought to you by Irish Newspaper...

Transportation was a particularity cruel punishment. For centuries those condemned to this fate were shipped to penal colonies on the far side of the globe to serve out their sentences. It has become synonymous with injustice during the famine when many caught stealing food suffered this fate.   For this podcast I dug deep into the archives and found the story of the Nangle family w...

Dublin is often forgotten in the story of the Great Famine. While death rates in the capital were not as severe as the west of Ireland, the city suffered nevertheless. The show follows the story of the Mulherins, a family who fled famine in their home in Co Leitrim and settled in the Smithfield - Stoneybatter area of Dublin. They quickly found life in the capital city was very different but not ne...

From January 1847 Irish people desperately trying to flee the famine began to leave the island in huge numbers.  220,000 left in that year alone and by 1853 more than one in six people who had lived in Ireland in 1845 had emigrated. While we know a lot about where they went and the horrendous conditions they faced, we know less about the lives they left behind. This show tells that story thro...