The Penal Laws: An Irish Apartheid?

The supernatural is viewed with healthy scepticism today but not so in the past. This episode looks at what our ancestors really believe about ghosts and the supernatural? Historian Dr Clodagh Tait joins me to explore why the supernatural was so important to Irish society and how ...  Show more

Every November, the Royal British Legion organises remembrance ceremonies and millions of people wear red poppies. Often portrayed as a way to remember the dead of the World Wars, these commemorations have a far more complicated history in Ireland and Britain. They have been cont ...  Show more

In 1607, after launching a failed rebellion in Ulster against the English, Hugh O’Neill and other Irish nobles are forced to flee Ireland, and their lands are confiscated. In response to the revolt, an insidious narrative about Irish people emerges in Tudor England, describing th ...  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 Irish republicans who led the Easter Rising of 1916 are tried for treason by the British government, and sentenced to death. Some are so unwell they have to be tied to a chair to be killed, and the brutality of these executions turns the tide of public opinion in Ireland, inc ...  Show more