Exiled: Irish Writers in the 1930s

During the Irish War of Independence, republicans in Ireland looked far beyond Britain and America for support. In Egypt and India, they found allies. Secret meetings took place between IRA representatives and Egyptian revolutionaries, while Irish republicans also made contact wi ...  Show more

In 1939, Ireland declared itself neutral in the Second World War. But neutrality did not mean the island was safe. Indeed, both Germany and Britain developed plans to occupy the entire island.This episode focuses on Operation Green, Hitler's secret invasion plan for Ireland, and ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poet W.B. Yeats and Irish politics. Yeats lived through a period of great change in Ireland from the collapse of the home rule bill through to the Easter Rising of 1916 and the partitioning of the country. In May 1916, 15 men were shot by the B ...  Show more

Fintan O’Toole was born in Dublin in 1958, the same year that T.K. Whitaker, a member of the Irish government, published an influential report suggesting that Ireland open its doors economically and culturally to the rest of the world. O’Toole’s new book, <a href="https://www. ...

Over 10,000 years ago, many believe Ireland was a place where hunter-gatherers roamed. A place where the earliest human communities exchanged prizes of the hunt and crafted primitive tools to aid their survival. But what if their interactions with each other were more sophisti ...

“In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms.”  The proclamation of the Irish Republic, delivered by Patrick Pearse in Dublin, marked the beginning ...  Show more