The Lyric Feature

US-born composer Jane O'Leary, who has lived in Ireland since 1972 and has made an immeasurable contribution to contemporary Irish classical music, looks back on her career.

Mary Brophy goes behind the scenes at the 71st Wexford Festival Opera as Artistic Director Rosetta Cucchi and her teams orchestrate their particular brand of alchemy.

The Lyric Feature returns for a new series opening with Building a Ballet one of the five Lyric Features shortlisted at the 2024 IMRO awards.

On this week’s Lyric Feature, we remember the poet, lecturer and regular contributor to our programmes Gerald Dawe who died last month.

Michael O’Shea was a musician from Carlingford, Co Louth who released one self-titled album in 1982 that is now regarded as a masterpiece of the Psychedelic Folk genre. Performed on oak door rescued from a skip in Munich.

‘Discovered’ by Guglielmo Marconi while singing at a fashionable soiree in London, the famous inventor subsequently brought Sheridan to Italy, to pursue her dream of becoming an opera singer.

As a child, Bairbre O'Hogan remembers her mother bringing an elderly friend to do her weekly shopping in Dún Laoghaire. Bairbre knew her as MrsVerschoyle, she only later appreciated just how successful and prolific an author she had been.

The sculptor Imogen Stuart and the poet Michael Coady died within a day of each other on the 24  and 25 th   of March this year. Each is remembered with a programme from the RTÉ archive in this evening’s Lyric Feature. 

To mark the centenary of her birth, Liz Nolan explores the life and legacy of Maria Callas, the iconic Greek soprano, widely regarded as the most significant, inspiring and provocative opera star of the modern age.

Lapwings are any of various ground-nesting birds akin to plovers and dotterels. They range from 10 to 16 inches in length, and are noted for their slow, irregular wingbeats in flight and a shrill, wailing cry.

Jays are colourful, vocal, and highly intelligent woodland birds. In this episode ecologist Anja Murray and musician Brían Mac Gloinn meet ornithologist Seán Ronayne in an autumn woodland to listen to stories these birds’ incredible capacity for mimicry.

Feather and Flock is a new six part series delving in to the ways of six iconic native Irish birds. Each episode combines ecology, folklore and history to uncover the incredible lives and journeys of these wild creatures. We begin with the Cuckoo.

Laoise O’Brien has spent the past twenty-five years championing an instrument often unfairly perceived as an instrument of torture, the recorder. Join Laoise as she embarks on a journey to tell the story of the recorder and its development during the ages.

An audio portrait of painter James Hanley, told through the eyes of his sitters, fellow artists, buyers, family and friends, a story of being creative, connecting and making a life in the uncertain world of the arts.

Micil Ned Quinn from Mullaghbawn in Co. Armagh was immersed in the folk arts from childhood and grew up to be a renowned traditional singer and songwriter. This programme celebrates and reflects upon the rural life and culture from which he came and that he himself embodied. (First tx 190323)

Ireland is on the verge of losing its population of breeding curlew, but could our songs, stories and art help us to save it?

An examination of the earliest notated music in Ireland: Medieval Monastic Chant.

We Only Want The Earth: Can music help us face the climate crisis?

We Only Want The Earth: Can music help us face the climate crisis?

The story of the women behind Dublin's forgotten National Ballet Company.

The story of Irishwoman Kate Meyrick who operated the most decadent London nightclubs of the Jazz Age