The Royal Irish Academy

In the fifth episode of ‘My Identity’ Professor Colin Graham (Maynooth) is in conversation with Claire Mitchell. Claire Mitchell is a writer and researcher from Belfast. She writes about people and everyday politics in Northern/Ireland, using interviews, memoir, archives and storytelling. Her latest book, The Ghost Limb: Alternative Protestants and the Spirit of 1798, was published in 2022. Clare...

In this month’s ARINS podcast, host Rory Montgomery discusses the recent UCL Constitution Unit report ‘Reform of Stormont: Options for Discussion’ with its authors, Conor Kelly, Alan Renwick and Alan Whysall. This is episode 44 of a podcast series that provides evidence-based research and analysis on the most significant questions of policy and public debate facing the island of Ireland, north and...

This is episode 4 of the My Identity podcast series hosted by Professor Colin Graham, Maynooth. In this series, Colin is in conversation with a range of people whose ideas, work and life experiences shed light on the topic of identity on the Island of Ireland. My Identity is part of the ARINS project. Colin Graham is Professor English and formerly Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Maynooth University...

In this month’s ARINS podcast, former Deputy First Minister and leader of the SDLP, Mark Durkan discusses his political career with host Rory Montgomery. The conversation focuses on the recent book by Professor Graham Spencer, The SDLP, Politics and Peace: the Mark Durkan interviews which was published in 2024 by Peter Lang. This is episode 43 of a podcast series that provides evidence-based resea...

In the third episode of ‘My Identity’ Professor Colin Graham (Maynooth) is in conversation with Manchán Magan. This episode is a recording of a public conversation which took place in Dublin on 4 February 2025. Manchán Magan has written books on his travels in Africa, India and South America. He writes occasionally for The Irish Times, and presents the Almanac of Ireland podcast for RTÉ. He has ma...

A Walnut Wound is set in July 1795. A young girl is brought to the Grangegorman House of Industry when her family becomes homeless following their eviction. This is the third episode of the Flighty Creatures trilogy of short stories for podcast by Wexford-based writer, Sylvia Cullen. Inspired by women who dwelt in the Grangegorman Asylum, Penitentiary and Workhouse, these stories are set in the 18...

Held on 21 January 2025, and jointly organised by the Royal Irish Academy and the Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute, this seminar looked to add impetus to the implementation of the national policy approach being advanced by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science.

In this month’s ARINS podcast, Professor Brendan O’Leary (UPenn), Professor John McGarry (QUB), Dr Dawn Walsh (UCD) and Dr James Pow (QUB) together with host Rory Montgomery MRIA discuss the recently published results of surveys conducted in 2024. The discussion covers opinions on membership of NATO and the Commonwealth, attitudes towards immigration, the role of the British-Irish Intergovernmenta...

By the Spider's Bed is the story of an older inmate of the Women’s Penitentiary, awaiting transportation to Van Diemen’s Land. This is the second episode of the Flighty Creatures trilogy of short stories for podcast by Wexford-based writer, Sylvia Cullen. Inspired by women who dwelt in the Grangegorman Asylum, Penitentiary and Workhouse, these stories are set in the 18th and 19th centuries. Listen...

The Holding Room follows Attendant Muriel Hill, facing a quandary when her patient refuses to have her image captured by the asylum photographer. This is the first episode of the Flighty Creatures trilogy of short stories for podcast by Wexford-based writer, Sylvia Cullen. Inspired by women who dwelt in the Grangegorman Asylum, Penitentiary and Workhouse, these stories are set in the 18th and 19th...

In the second episode of ‘My Identity’ Professor Colin Graham (Maynooth) is in conversation with NI Justice Minister and Leader of the Alliance Party, Naomi Long MLA. This episode is a recording of a public conversation which took place in Dublin on 6 December 2024. A lifelong resident of East Belfast, and politically active since her early twenties, Naomi first joined Belfast City Council as an A...

In this month’s ARINS podcast, Dr Ida Milne and Dr Ian d’Alton, with host Rory Montgomery, discuss the lives of Southern Irish Protestants, including their own experiences. The conversation focuses on their 2019 co-edited collection of essays, Protestant and Irish: The minority’s search for place in independent Ireland, https://bit.ly/3Cous3i and Ian d’Alton’s 2024, Southern Irish Protestants: His...

The Asylum Workshop: a performers perspective is the fourth in the Grangegorman Histories podcast series exploring the histories of the Grangegorman area of north, inner-city Dublin. Evie O’Brien is an actor and performer. As a drama student at the Grangegorman campus of TU Dublin. Evie played a central role in the Asylum Workshop play, a documentary-drama written by playwright Colin Murphy, direc...

In the first episode of ‘My Identity’ Professor Colin Graham (Maynooth University) is in conversation with Dr Gail McConnell (QUB). Gail discusses her identity, and her uneasiness around discussing identity. The conversation explores themes including queerness, parenting, religion and the murder of Gail’s father and its resultant influence on her work. Gail is the author of The Sun is Open (Penned...

In this month's ARINS podcast Stephen Roulston and Martin Brown, with host Rory Montgomery, discuss education systems in Ireland. Their recent paper is 'A Century of Growing Apart and Challenges of Coming Together: Education Across the Island of Ireland'. Read the article in full here: https://bit.ly/3BCCZyX This is episode 40 of a podcast series that provides evidence-based research and analysis...

Religion has played a huge role in the history of Ireland and Northern Ireland. There has been little comparative analysis, however, of the legal elements of this topic. Prof Oran Doyle, Prof David Kenny & Prof Christopher McCrudden discuss, with host Rory Montgomery, their recent paper on the convergence and divergence in religious law on the Island of Ireland, North and South. Read more here: ht...

This episode, Birnie Esmond, Senior Economist in the Ulster University Business School discusses his recent paper 'Trading Places: Continuity and Change in Northern Ireland's Trading Relationships' with John FitzGerald, Adjunct Professor of the Department of Economics Trinity College Dublin, and host Rory Montgomery. The paper is available to read here: https://bit.ly/3NSWCFE This is episode 38 of...

On Monday, 7 October, Nicholas Canny MRIA delivered this lecture as part of the Dublin Festival of History in the Royal Irish Academy. Spenser’s View has, for centuries, been treated variously as a trove of prejudiced antiquarian lore useful for disparaging Irish people at moments of crisis, and as a store house of evidence that the English government engaged upon an Irish genocide in Elizabethan...

In this month's ARINS podcast host Rory Montgomery discusses the paper 'Beyond unionism and nationalism: do the ‘neithers’ want a border poll and a United Ireland?' with one of its authors, Jon Tonge, Professor of Politics at the University of Liverpool. Read the article in full here: https://bit.ly/3XPHHkb This is episode 37 of a podcast series that provides evidence-based research and analysis o...

Panel discussion on the consequences of the European Parliament elections that took place on the 24th of September 2024. The members of the panel were Francis Jacobs (former head of the European Parliament Office, Dublin), Sarah Collins (Brussels correspondent, Business Post) and Professor Ben Tonra, MRIA (UCD). It was chaired by Iulia Siedschlag (ESRI). Francis Jacobs, in his analysis of the EP e...

On Wednesday 21 August 2024, ecologist and author, Richard Nairn, delivered a lunchtime lecture in the Royal Irish Academy as part of National Heritage Week 2024 entitled 'Richard J. Ussher: Chronicling the Birds of Ireland'. Richard John Ussher MRIA, 1841-1913, was a speleologist, ornithologist and the main author of Ussher & Warren, The Birds of Ireland (1900), a seminal publication in the histo...

Host Rory Montgomery is joined by Brice Dickson and Aoife O'Donoghue in this month's ARINS podcast. They discuss the topic of Dickson's recent paper (written with Tom Hickey) on how British and/or Irish nationality is currently acquired and lost, first under the law in Northern Ireland and then under the law in Ireland. This paper also looks at some of the rights that Irish citizens currently have...

Dr Evelyn Collins and Niall Crowley, along with host Rory Montgomery, explore the frameworks of equality legislation, institutions and policy mechanisms that underpin the equality agenda in Northern Ireland and in Ireland. Learn more in their recently published paper: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/423/article/912707 This is episode 35 of a podcast series that provides evidence-based research and analys...

This week, Prof Kieran McEvoy and Dr Cheryl Lawther discuss the politics of apologies within the Northern Ireland Peace Process. This is based of Kieran's recent paper 'Abject and True Remorse': Loyalism and the Politics of Regret in Northern Ireland' which is part of the Irish Studies in International Affairs journal, available at this link https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/423/article/922275 This is epis...

This episode features Vikram Pakrashi in conversation with Lorraine Hanlon and David McKeown from UCD, who share their experience of working on EIRSAT-1, Ireland’s first satellite. Burning Questions is a conversation podcast that shines a spotlight on expertise in the fields of the engineering, mechanics and computer science across the island of Ireland. Each episode is structured around an interv...