In this episode from the Dublin Festival of History 2023, Peter Sheridan marks the centenary of the birth of the writer Brendan Behan. Raised in Dublin’s north inner city and with strong connections to Dublin’s tenements, Behan is regarded as one of the greatest Irish writers and poets of all time. Sheridan discusses his engagement with the work of Behan and his career more broadly. Peter Sheridan, is a playwright, screenwriter and director. This episode was recorded at 14 Henrietta Street, on October 11, 2023. Please note: This broadcast contains strong language and themes throughout. Th ..read more

In this episode from the Dublin Festival of History 2023, Dublin City Council Historian in Residence, Dr Mary Muldowney, will discuss the 40th anniversary of the 8th Amendment to the Constitution, including a comparison with the successful campaign for Repeal of the 8th.  The fifth anniversary of that Referendum was on May 25 and the signing of Repeal into law took place on September 18, 2018. This episode was recorded at Central Library on September 28, 2023. The Dublin Festival of History is brought to you by Dublin City Council, and organised by Dublin City Libraries, in partnership ..read more

In this episode, from the Dublin Festival of History 2023, Enda Finnan examines the Navan Road parish area and the transformation of the rural community and landscapes of the townlands of Greater Cabragh, Ashtown and Pelletstown from the 1920s to the 1960s. He connects the dots between migration and change of land ownership and development. Enda Finnan is a local resident and historian. This episode was recorded at Cabra Library, on October 12, 2023. The Dublin Festival of History is brought to you by Dublin City Council, and organised by Dublin City Libraries, in partnership with Dubl ..read more

In this episode, from the Dublin Festival of History 2023, Francis Thackaberry explores the  attitudes and responses to poverty in eighteenth-century Dublin. The citizens of prosperous Georgian Dublin, associated poverty with idleness, disease and moral decay and sought ways to prevent ‘foreign’ vagrants from ‘infesting’ the city. One response was to found Dublin’s first tax-funded workhouse in James’s Street in 1703.  Francis Thackaberry is a former teacher, journalist, and arts administrator.   This episode was recorded at 14 Henrietta Street, on October 9, 2023. The D ..read more

In this episode, from the Dublin Festival of History 2023, Fergus Whelan remembers the revolutionary and poet Dr William Drennan (1754-1820). Dr Drennan, a onetime elder of the Dublin Unitarian Church congregation, was born the son of a unitarian minister and made his life’s work the building of ‘a Brotherhood of Affection to Break Down the Brazen Walls of Separation’ which had been erected between ‘Irishmen by Distinctions of Rank, Property and Religious Persuasion’. Fergus Whelan is the author of ‘May Tyrants Tremble’. This episode was recorded at the Dublin Unitarian Church, on September ..read more

In this episode, from the Dublin Festival of History 2023, Aodh Quinlivan illustrates the strained relationship between the Irish Free State and Dublin Corporation, which was central to his recent study. He examines how after the Civil War, the Corporation continued to irritate the central Government and how the dissolution of Dublin Corporation came to be. Aodh Quinlivan is an author and senior lecturer. This episode was recorded at the Mansion House on September 27, 2023. The Dublin Festival of History is brought to you by Dublin City Council, and organised by Dublin City Libraries, in par ..read more

In this episode, from the Dublin Festival of History 2023, Anne Chambers tells us about Lord Sligo - from a youth of hedonistic self-indulgence in Regency England, to a reforming, responsible legislator and landlord, Sligo became enshrined in the history of Jamaica as ‘Emancipator of the Slaves’ and in Ireland as ‘The Poor Man’s Friend’. Anne Chambers is a biographer, novelist, and screenwriter.  This episode was recorded at the Central Library, on October 4, 2023. The Dublin Festival of History is brought to you by Dublin City Council, and organised by Dublin City Libraries, in partner ..read more

In this episode, from the Dublin Festival of History 2023, Ann Marie Durkan will introduce the maps she prepared, which locate animals and animal-related businesses in Dublin City in 1911. It provides an insight into how in 1901, 803 Dubliners worked as cattle dealers, drovers, farriers and vets, yet over the course of the 20th century most of these animals, and most of these jobs, disappeared. Ann Marie Durkan is an Irish Research Council funded PhD candidate in Dublin City University. This episode was recorded at the Central Library, on October 3, 2023. The Dublin Festival of History is br ..read more

In Beyond the Wall, acclaimed historian Katja Hoyer offers a kaleidoscopic new vision of this vanished country. Beginning with the bitter experience of German Marxists exiled by Hitler, she traces the arc of the state they would go on to create, first under the watchful eye of Stalin, and then in an increasingly distinctive German fashion. From the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, to the relative prosperity of the 1970s, and on to the creaking foundations of socialism in the mid-1980s, Hoyer argues that amid oppression and frequent hardship, East Germany was yet home to a rich political, s ..read more

The large influx of fugitive Nazis and collaborators in post-WWII Argentina created an environment that normalised the presence of such heinous criminals in society and by doing so facilitated the crimes of Argentina’s own genocidal dictatorship in 1976-83. During the research for his book ‘The Real Odessa’ on the escape of Nazi war criminals, author Uki Goñi was surprised to discover that some escaped first to Ireland from where they made their way to Argentina. The Dublin Festival of History is brought to you by Dublin City Council, and organised by Dublin City Libraries, in partnershi ..read more