Why Didn't Irish People Eat Fish During the G...

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, lions, tigers and even elephants toured towns and cities across Ireland. Long before modern zoos, travelling menageries brought wild animals from across the globe into marketplaces, fairgrounds and urban streets. For many peo ...  Show more

While the Roman Empire conquered much of western Europe and established a powerful presence in Britain, Ireland remained beyond its grasp. But why? In this episode, I am joined by Dr Jacqueline Cahill Wilson to explore how Ireland interacted with the Roman world. It is a complex ...  Show more

In the 1840s, famine hit Ireland with devastating consequences. But what were the circumstances that turned a potato blight into a catastrophe that shattered societal structures and caused around a million deaths? Padraic X Scanlan speaks to Ellie Cawthorne about the causes and i ...  Show more

How did the memory of the Great Famine shape Irish identity? Could it have been prevented? From 1845 to 1852, a disease decimated potato crops across Ireland. Farmers of small plots who relied entirely on this monoculture were launched into complete destitution. Desperate famili ...  Show more

The legacy of the Great Famine continues to shape not only Ireland, but the Irish diaspora in America, Canada, and the UK. In the mid-1800s, starving families fled the country in search of survival, gathering at the docks to board “coffins ships” sailing to Liverpool and the east ...  Show more

In the mid-19th century, British-occupied Ireland lost roughly one-third of its population during a years-long catastrophe known as “The Great Hunger” or, “The Irish Potato Famine.” In the years that followed, some have wondered if the tragedy wasn’t the result of a natural disas ...  Show more