The Boyne Cable bridge on the M1 motorway was renamed the Mary McAleese Boyne Valley Bridge on Saturday 8th June 2013. Building bridges was a theme of former president of Ireland Mary McAleese during her two terms of office.

Mary McAleese, an Irish politician who served as the eighth President of Ireland from November 1997 to November 2011. She was the second female president of Ireland. McAleese was first elected in 1997, succeeding Mary Robinson, making her the first woman in the world to succeed another woman as president.  She was reelected unopposed for a second term in office in 2004. McAleese is also the first president of Ireland to have come from either Northern Ireland or Ulster.

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'Digging' is the first poem in ‘Death of A Naturalist’ 1966. 

It operates as a kind of mission statement. He is telling us right from the very off what kind of poet is going to be. It's all their everything in his whole career is there first time out in such a wonderful piece. He, in many ways is deceptively simplistic, but there’s more there than meets the eye if you wish to look for it and if you want to see it.

It is seen as Heaney’s ‘Statement of Intent’ through a celebration and reverence for his rural roots.

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Dark Tourism, in case you didn't know, is essentially tourism closely associated with death, suffering and the macabre! 

With its myriad of sites associated with incarceration, emigration and famine Ireland has plenty of that on offer.

Our rich Bardic tradition has been steeped in stories, poems, songs and plays associated with tales of suffering, oppression, misery, failed rebellions, famine, civil wars and emigration.

In this episode we look at how there is now a thriving tourist industry based around our fascination with death, suffering and the macabre!

Although our Halloween is now less about dead spirits and more about having fun and dressing up there are some aspects of a rural and typically Irish Halloween that lots of us have kept alive! Pardon the pun.

In this episode we explore the links between modern Halloween traditions and the Halloween practices and traditions of our ancestors.

In particular we look at the links to Bonfires, Jack O' Lantern, Halloween Costumes, Trick or Treating, Halloween Pranks, Colcannon, Barmbrack, Snap Apple, Shaving The Friar, and the taking of Anti-Fairy Measures!