The Early History of the Olympics

On this episode of Talking History, Patrick Geoghegan will be speaking to the Taoiseach Micheál Martin about the importance of history, and how it has shaped him as a politician.In part two, Patrick looks at the history of the ghost story with Darryl Jones, Professor of Modern Br ...  Show more

This week on Talking History, Patrick Geoghegan looks at two books, Historian, Colin Barr's, "The Irish Pope: Paul Cullen, 1803-1878" and Michael Barry's book called Catalpa: The epic story of the greatest prison break in Irish History. 

With the Games underway in Tokyo, Tom and Dominic look back to the Ancient Olympics. They discuss the heroic but incredibly violent stories of the Greek superstars of 2500 years ago, and why the Games were bad news for women, animals and cheats. Plus, Tom reveals how his cricketi ...  Show more

The most famous sporting event in the world is upon us, so it's only right that we consider what do we know about the ancient origins of the games in Olympia, ancient Greece?

Even back then it was absolutely central to everybody's imagination about what a sporting event ...

For nearly 12 centuries, the Ancient Greeks honoured their gods with one of the most famous sporting contests in the world: The Olympic Games. Athletes represented their city states to compete for the glory of the gods, knowing that winning or losing could change the course of th ...  Show more