The Treaty—good deal or bad deal?
Was the Treaty ‘Home Rule for slow learners’? Why was Eamon de Valera not part of the Irish delegation? Was the subsequent Civil War inevitable? Was it a good deal or a bad deal? To address these and ...
6 Dec 20211h 1min
Colmcille 1500—man, myth and memory
Columba or Colmcille was born 1500 years ago in Gartan, Co. Donegal, and claimed descent from the legendary High King of Ireland, Niall of the Nine Hostages. He entered the church, became a missionary...
12 Nov 20211h 1min
Ireland and the ‘Greater War’ in Europe—compare and contrast
While there were optimistic hopes that the First World War or ‘Great War’ would be ‘the war to end all wars’, post-1918 Europe, including Ireland, instead experienced a ‘Greater War’—a series of civil...
5 Nov 20211h 10min
‘Grand and Royal’—a history of Irish canals
One of the unsung successes of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement was the establishment of the all-island body, Waterways Ireland, with responsibility for canals and waterways. But what drove the construc...
29 Okt 202158min
Crowd-funding the revolution—the underground administration
Dáil Éireann sought not only to take back the political control lost in the 1800 Act of Union, but also the fiscal and monetary powers lost with the merger of the Irish and British exchequers in 1817....
24 Sep 20211h 11min
Prisons and prisoners during the War of Independence
On 9 September 1921 over fifty IRA prisoners staged a break-out—one of several during the War of Independence—from Rath internment camp in the Curragh, Co. Kildare. To mark its centenary, and to discu...
9 Sep 20211h 12min
Kenmare: History and survival—Fr John O’Sullivan and the Famine Poor
Listen to author Colum Kenny in conversation with History Ireland editor, Tommy Graham, as he discusses the story of a remarkable man’s efforts to help starving people during the Irish Great Famine. H...
3 Sep 202127min
Fingal in the revolutionary decade
To what extent did the military tactics of Thomas Ashe's (5th) Fingal battalion of the Irish Volunteers in 1916 prefigure those of the IRA in the War of Independence, 1919-21? To what extent did the s...
27 Aug 202154min
