Dublin City Libraries & Archives

Dr. Brian Hanley talks about the IRA and Nazi Germany. Brian Hanley is a historian and author. He has written widely on Irish republicanism and radicalism, including ‘The IRA, 1926-36’ and (with Scott Millar ‘The Lost Revolution: the Story of the Official IRA and the Workers Party. Brian Hanley is Historian in Residence at Dublin City Library and Archives, 2017. His areas of expertise include society, politics and culture of 19th and 20th century Ireland, on the Irish Revolution and Civil War, on the IRA from 1923-2005.

Recorded at Raheny Library on 3 April 2017 as part of Dublin: One City, One Book programme.

Dublin: One City, One Book is an award-winning Dublin City Council initiative, led by Dublin City Public Libraries, which encourages everyone to read a book connected with the capital city during the month of April every year. The chosen book for 2017 was Echoland by Joe Joyce.

Our modern conception of childhood as a time of education and innocence began to emerge in the eighteenth century, but it wasn’t until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that such ideas influenced the lives of children of all classes in the western world. How and why did this happen?

Marnie Hay is a historian and the author of Bulmer Hobson and the Nationalist Movement in Twentieth-Century Ireland (2009). Her current research relates to the history of Irish nationalist children and youth in the early twentieth century

On the evening of Thursday, 22 June, literary award winners José Eduardo Agualusa and Daniel Hahn gave a reading, followed by a Q&A session, introduced and moderated by Sinéad Crowley, in Dublin City Library & Archive, Pearse Street. Author José Eduardo Agualusa and translator Daniel Hahn were announced as winners of the 2017 International DUBLIN Literary Award for Agulusa's novel A General Theory of Oblivion at a ceremony in Dublin’s Mansion House on Wednesday, 21 June 2017.

Allan Mallinson & Hugh Sebag-Montefiore in conversation with Jennifer Wellington

Historical debate about World War I now boils down to views: the “Blackadder”, Lions-led-by-Donkeys view of senseless carnage orchestrated by blimpish generals; or the view that the generals have been much maligned and actually achieved a stunning victory despite the enormous human cost. Here, in the Centenary year of The Somme, two eminent military historians offer their interpretations of the “war to end all wars”

Hugh Sebag-Montefiore is a journalist and historian. His best-selling books include Enigma: The Battle for the Code and Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man. Published on the centenary of the battle, his new book, Somme: Into the Breach, has received unanimously laudatory reviews.

Allan Mallinson is a former infantry and cavalry officer. He is the author of the Matthew Hervey series of novels and writes on defence matters for The Times and the Daily Telegraph. His latest offering, Too Important for the Generals, has been praised as powerfully-argued and polemical in its analysis of WW1.

Dr Jennifer Wellington is a lecturer in modern global history at UCD.

Recorded at Printworks, Dublin Castle on 25 September 2016.

Alex Von Tunzelmann in conversation with Dr Balázs Apor

Blood and Sand is essential to our understanding of the modern Middle East, and the problems of oil, religious fundamentalism and international unity that still face the world today. It is a tale of conspiracy and revolutions, spies and terrorists, kidnappings and assassination plots, the fall of the British Empire and the rise of American hegemony. The fascinating cast of characters includes Nasser, Anthony Eden, Eisenhower, Khrushchev and Ben-Gurion.

Alex von Tunzelmann is the author of Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End; Red Heat and most recently Blood and Sand. She also writes Reel History, a weekly column about historical movies for The Guardian Film Online.

Dr Balázs Apor is Assistant Professor in the Centre for European Studies at Trinity College Dublin.

Recorded at Printworks, Dublin Castle on 25 September 2016.

John Bowman in conversation with Patrick Geoghegan

Ireland: The Autobiography offers a fresh, vivid take on the last century of Irish life through a brilliant collection of eyewitness accounts and recollections. Broadcaster and historian John Bowman has spent years mining archives, diaries and memoirs to create a remarkably varied and intense mosaic of voices and perspectives. Collectively, they give us an image of Ireland unlike anything we’ve read before.

Dr John Bowman is a historian and broadcaster. Ireland: The Autobiography: Eyewitness accounts of Irish Life since 1916 is his third book.

Patrick Geoghegan is Professor of Modern History at Trinity College Dublin.

Geoffrey Roberts in conversation with Judith Devlin

Joseph Stalin was a voracious reader. Mostly he read government documents and the revolutionary classics but he also read Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Chekhov, Shakespeare, Cervantes and Balzac. By the time he died his library contained some 20,000 volumes. The books in Stalin’s personal library provide vital clues to what motivated his thoughts and actions. Geoffrey Roberts discusses the intellectual range behind the legendary monster.

Geoffrey Roberts is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a member of the Royal Irish Academy and Professor of History and International Relations at University College Cork.

Judith Devlin is a senior lecturer in the School of History, UCD.

Recorded at Printworks, Dublin Castle on 25 September 2016.

Listen back to authors Danielle McLaughlin and Roisín O'Donnell reading from their collections and discussing their creative writing process. Recorded in the Central Library on 7 April 2017 as part of their Contemporary Irish Literature Series which took place during March and April 2017.

Danielle’s debut collection of short stories Dinosaurs On Other Planets, was published in Ireland in 2015 by The Stinging Fly Press and in the UK, US & Canada by John Murray and Random House in 2016. She has won various awards for her short fiction, including the William Trevor/Elizabeth Bowen International Short Story Competition, The Merriman Short Story Competition in memory of Maeve Binchy, and the Dromineer Literary Festival Short Story Competition.

Roisín’s debut short story collection Wild Quiet was published in 2016 by New Island Books. It was listed as one of The Irish Times' Favourite Books of 2016 and shortlisted for the Kate O'Brien Award 2017. Roisín’s short stories appear in Young Irelanders (2015), and in the award-winning anthologies of Irish women's writing The Long Gaze Back (2015) and The Glass Shore (2016).

The Contemporary Irish Literature Series also featured award winning writers Donal Ryan, Martin Dyar and Sara Baume http://www.dublincity.ie/recommended-tags/podcasts

Phil Scraton and Adrian Tempany in conversation with Paul Howard

On 15th April 1989, 96 men, women and children who attended an FA Cup match in Sheffield never came home. Victims of criminal negligence and complacency, they died needlessly and what followed would compound the agony of their loved ones for decades. In April 2016, an inquest jury finally ruled that the victims were unlawfully killed. Hillsborough illustrated how the interests of ordinary people are marginalised when those in authority sacrifice truth and accountability to protect their reputations.

Phil Scraton is a criminologist, academic and author known particularly for his investigative workinto the Hillsborough disaster. He is Professor of Criminology in the School of Law at Queen’s University Belfast.

Adrian Tempany is a journalist, Hillsborough survivor and campaigner. He is the author of And the Sun Shines Now: How Hillsborough and the Premier League Changed Britain.

Paul Howard is a former sportswriter best known for his fictional creation, Ross O’Carroll-Kelly. Paul is a lifelong Liverpool supporter.

Recorded at Printworks, Dublin Castle on 24 September 2016.

Frank Dikötter in conversation with Isabella Jackson

After the economic disaster of the Great Leap Forward, Chairman Mao launched an ambitious scheme to shore up his reputation and eliminate his enemies. The stated goal of the Cultural Revolution was to purge China of bourgeois, capitalist elements by subjecting them to public humiliation, imprisonment and torture. This third volume in Frank Dikötter’s ground-breaking ‘People’s Trilogy’ is a devastating reassessment of the history of the People’s Republic of China.

Frank Dikötter is a Dutch historian and the author of ten books that have changed the way historians view modern China. He has been Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong since 2006.

Dr Isabella Jackson is Assistant Professor in Chinese History at Trinity College Dublin.

Recorded at Printworks, Dublin Castle on 24 September 2016.