Crowds create atmospheres. Police try to control those atmospheres. From the interaction between them, says Illan Rua Wall, emerges power. And that power can take the form of political upheaval and unrest, or the consolidation of pre-existing sovereignty. A lecturer in law at the University of Warwick, Illan Rua Wall pursues questions of police and […]
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Episode #23: Seamus Deane on the Right to Have Rights
Hannah Arendt coined the phrase ‘the right to have rights’ in her 1958 book The Human Condition. In this lecture, literary critic Seamus Deane links Arendt’s phrase with the Irish immigration system, in particular the ‘Direct Provision’ centres. Since the first half of the the twentieth century, the condition of being stateless, of being a […]
Continue readingEpisode #22: Mark Dearey on Nuclear Power in Ireland and Britain
How has the Irish Sea become the most polluted sea in the world? The answer lies in the north west of England, where the Sellafield site has poured millions of tonnes of nuclear waste into the sea since the 1950s. Like the history of nuclear power plants around the world, its history is one of […]
Continue readingEpisode #21: Bernadette Devlin McAliskey – “A Terrible State o’ Chassis”
We are seeing Ireland north and south being sold to corporate powers Bernadette Devlin McAliskey is Ireland’s finest political orator, and a key figure in recent political history. In this lecture she takes as her theme a line from playwright Sean O’Casey, ‘A Terrible State o’ Chassis’, where chassis means ‘crisis’. While still a student […]
Continue readingEpisode #19: Ciara Chambers on Irish Newsreels
From the 1910s to the 1950s, newsreels were the only source of non-fictional moving images available to the public. Many samples of this forgotten genre survive. Now researchers are uncovering a whole new set of archival sources that nuance and illustrate the history of Ireland in the first half of the 20th century. Ciara Chambers […]
Continue readingEpisode #07 Seamus Deane on the conservatism of Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke lived from 1729 to 1797, a period of great expansion of the British Empire and of revolutions in America and France. More a working politician than a systematic philosopher, Burke responded to the turmoil of his times by formulating a unique brand of political conservatism that has been interpreted in many ways down […]
Continue readingEpisode #06 Maurice Fitzpatrick on the Life and Times of John Hume
Would there have been a Good Friday Agreement without John Hume? Maurice Fitzpatrick tackles this question in our second episode to mark the 20th anniversary of the historic agreement that marked an end to the Troubles. From his early involvement as an activist in 1960s Derry, Hume the pacifist schoolteacher transformed the corrupt state that […]
Continue readingEpisode #05 Seán Ó hUiginn on the Good Friday Agreement
Seán Ó hUiginn was probably the most important voice speaking on behalf of the Irish state through the years leading up to the Good Friday Agreement. Here the former ambassador gives his unique view of the long run-up to the negotiations that led to the final peace agreement that was signed in 1998. This fascinating […]
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