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From the Norman Invasion to the War of Independence, the Great Famine to the Troubles, the Irish History Podcast takes you on a journey through the most fascinating stories in Ireland's past. Whether it’s the siege of Dublin in 1171 or gun battles in the 1920s, the podcast vividly recreates a sense of time and place. Each episode is meticulously researched, creating character-driven narratives that are engaging and accessible for all.Since the first episode was released back in 2010, the podcast has covered scores of captivating stories. Major multi-part series have explored the Great Famine, the Norman Invasion, and Irish in...
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · June 2026
A patient Irish history show about rebellion, migration, politics, and contested memory, told with clear chronology and hard edges.
Irish History Podcast gives the History shelf a strong Irish center, with long narrative runs on the 1798 rebellion alongside episodes on Eamon de Valera, the Ulster Special Constabulary, Hugh O'Flaherty and the Vatican escape line, and Irish immigrants in America's Indian Wars.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A tightly argued account of how espionage, raids, and faction split turned Dublin toward rebellion.
The spring of 1798 in Dublin is a tense backdrop for a history episode, with spies, informers, coded messages, and a British state trying to uncover the United Irishmen's plans before open rebellion.
A focused guide to the penal-law world that shaped the road to 1798.
The episode begins a series on the 1798 rebellion by setting out the decades that led to it, using the penal laws as the main lens and Emily Lennox as a human anchor.
A murder case that opens into rural life, memory, and the silence that followed.
Mary Doherty's murder in March 1844 gives the episode its hard center, but it does better work when it steps back into rural North Donegal. Angela Byrne sketches a district shaped by customs officers, police attention over illicit distilling, and the ordinary labor that kept…
A sober account of June 5, 1798, linking New Ross, a massacre at School of Oag, and the panic in Dublin.
June 5, 1798 is presented as one of the most harrowing days of the rebellion and of Irish history more broadly, moving from the reign of terror in Dublin after the capital revolt failed to the fighting at New Ross and a massacre at a place called School of Oag.
A Wexford life opens onto migration, revolution, letters, and Soviet power.
Mayo Callaghan's life opens into a wider history without feeling forced: an Irish emigrant from County Wexford, a lonely funeral in North London in 1973, and a path that runs through London, New York, and the Soviet Union before landing near power.
Church court records make sex, shame, and romance visible in 18th-century Ulster.
Church court records turn sex, shame, and romance into a sharp view of 18th-century Ulster. The Irish Presbyterian Churchs Kirk Sessions kept careful records of behavior they judged sinful, and those records let Finn de Ware and Leanne Calvert recover ordinary men and women…
A careful look at the Ulster Special Constabulary and the disputed memory around it.
The Ulster Special Constabulary comes across as a hard, contested part of Irish history, and the discussion does not pretend otherwise. It traces why the force was created, how it became tied to some of the worst violence in Ireland in the 1920s, and why one community could see…
A sober, tightly paced account of Vinegar Hill and the pressure around it.
The Battle of Vinegar Hill closes the 1798 rebellion series with a clear shift from Dublin's strain to the rebel camp above Enniscorthy, where the British army closes in and the scale of the fighting comes into view.
Black Hills history, told on location.
Vegas history with a barstool pulse.
Connecticut history with national echoes.
Texas history, sourced and road-tested.
Maine history, widened through public talks.
This episode explores the life and legacy of Eamon de Valera, from his mysterious birth in New York and rural upbringing in Limerick to his role in the 1916 Rising, the Anglo-Irish Treaty split, and his founding of Fianna Fáil.
Irish History Podcast examines how the NHS, founded in 1948, relied on Irish-born women at a scale that reached about 30,000 nurses and roughly 11% of the workforce by the late 1960s.
Irish History Podcast turns to menageries in Ireland, with historian Carina Holton tracing travelling wild-animal exhibitions from the 1790s to the 1830s.
Benjamin Franklin arrived in Dublin on September 5th, 1771, ate a fish supper, and then spent weeks suffering vomiting and diarrhoea in Dublin and Belfast.
Mayo Callaghan's life begins in County Wexford and ends, improbably, in the orbit of Soviet power.
Historian Damien Shields discusses his 'Yankee Pensioners in Ireland' story map with host Finn Dewar, revealing how US military pension files from 1845–1905 document Irish immigrant soldiers who fought in the frontier wars against Native Americans and sent letters home describing those conflicts.
Mary Doherty was murdered in March 1844 in Cooldaff, North Donegal.
Fionn Duar closes the 1798 series with the battle of Vinegar Hill.
Dublin is on edge.
June 5, 1798 is framed as one of the rebellion's most harrowing days.
Sex leaves a thin paper trail in the past.
Finn DeWire opens the year at Barry's Court Castle in East Cork.
Rome is the starting point.
The episode takes on the Ulster Special Constabulary as a disputed chapter in Irish history.
Finn opens with Dublin's huge St.
This episode kicks off the series on the 1798 rebellion by looking back at the decades that made it possible.
Irish History Podcast’s “The Mystery of St Brigid” asks whether St.
Irish History Podcast's "The IRA & the Battle for America" follows how Irish republicans treated the United States as a second front during the War of Independence.
100,000 IRA volunteers—but only 3,000 rifles. An army almost without weapons.
The Irish History Podcast returns to the 1798 rebellion as the south-east of Ireland erupts into rebellion.
Fergus Kennedy describes how his father Don, an Irish accountant from Dublin, ended up in Singapore in 1940 and later refused British conscription by saying he was from "an independent neutral country".
Finn de Ware says William the Conqueror, who was born in 1027 or 1028 and never visited Ireland, became the focus of a 2025 Irish culture war because Normandy planned a 2027 celebration around his 1000th birthday.
Finn Dwyer speaks with Dr.
Irish History Podcast focuses on World War II in Ireland through Waterford Treasures Museum's oral history project, led by Donegha O'Hallocon.
The Irish History Podcast episode connects the French Revolution of 1789 to Ireland by tracing how Louis XVI's execution in Paris on 21 January 1793 reached Dublin and reshaped Irish politics.
Irish History Podcast’s “The French Invasion: Ireland’s Year of Terror?” follows the late-1796 panic that spread from Belfast to Bantry Bay, where 43 French ships carrying nearly 15,000 soldiers sailed toward Ireland.
The Irish History Podcast episode on the Jackson Spy Affair traces how William Jackson arrived from revolutionary France in 1794, met Dublin radicals like Leonard McNally, Simon Butler, and Archibald Hamilton Rowan, and triggered the arrest that banned the Society of United Irishmen.
This episode explores the complex relationship between Irish and black radicals during the War of Independence, set against the backdrop of global racial violence.
This episode explores the evolution of Irish funeral customs from the mid-19th century to the 20th century using eyewitness accounts and folklore.
This episode introduces a new series on the 1798 Rebellion, exploring its significance in understanding modern Ireland and its connections to global events like the American and French Revolutions.
This episode explores the life and legacy of Daniel O'Connell, the 'Liberator' of Ireland, on the 250th anniversary of his birth.
An interview with historian Eoin Kinsler about the Dictionary of Irish Biography and the challenges of telling Irish history through individual lives.
This episode explores the history of Yola, a lost English dialect spoken in South Wexford, Ireland, from the Norman invasion to its disappearance.
This episode explores the controversial role of Irish America in supporting the Republican cause during the Troubles.
A bonus episode where host Finn interviews Blind Boy about the intersection of history and mythology, discussing ancient floods, Greek myths, and modern conspiracy theories.
This episode investigates the mysterious 1928 disappearance of photographer Arthur Poole in Waterford, Ireland.
Professor Eileen Murphy discusses groundbreaking insights into medieval life based on excavated bodies from a cemetery in County Roscommon.