On Sunday, April 10th I am organising a walking tour of Viking Dublin where you can retrace the steps of Dublin’s earliest inhabitants in the modern city today. This tour will journey through early medieval Dublin looking at the first few centuries of the city’s history during its days as a Viking stronghold.
The tour will bring you through the remains of the Viking Town that lie within modern Dublin’s buildings, streets, lanes and alleys.
In the film adaptation of “The Field”, the parish priest proclaims Christianity to be a “thin veneer” over Irish people, in a derogatory reference both the people and pre-Christian Paganism alike. This idea of Christianity being a thin veneer runs contrary to the notion of medieval Ireland being an “island of saints and scholars” but is there any truth to this idea? Exactly how Christian was early Irish Christianity?
Episode 7: Around the world on March 17th, millions of people will attend St Patrick’s day parades in memory of the man who supposedly “converted the Irish to Christianity”. He is a figure shrouded in mystery and myth but in this podcast we examine the truth behind the one time slave and famous bishop Patrick. Tune in to hear the real history behind Ireland’s conversion, who St. Patrick really was and how he become associated with snakes and shamrocks….
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Have you ever been puzzled by history? Did people really only live to 40? What was it like to go to a medieval dentist? Maybe you’ve been puzzled how people survived before email, phones, cars or even proper roads? Well if you have the Irish history podcast is for you! The series tracks Irish history and archaeology trying to understand what daily life was like for normal people whilst also tracking the big picture of war, politics and needless to say invasions.
The first episode looks at early medieval Ireland, a world called Barbarian by the Romans. What did Ireland look like to the first missionaries from Rome and see how the Gaelic Irish lived. It also examines how people dealt with low life expectancy and constant death.
The first episode of the series picks up the story of Irish history around the end of the Roman Empire. This article looks at Ireland and its interaction with Roman Europe to set the stage.
What did the Romans do for us ?
It’s one of those questions that’s relevant to nearly every country in North Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Most of these countries though should really ask “what did the Romans do to us”. The answer is given by the Roman historian Tacitus, quoting a Britannic chieftain
I am currently working on an article about Irish Involvement in the Boer War (1899-1902) and episode 9 of the podcast which will focus on the battle of Clontarf (1014).
My current longterm project at the moment is an audiobook about the Black Death in Ireland focusing on the lives of 5 people from the time.
Fin, for his sins, completed a degree in Greek and Roman Civilisation and Archaeology. After this he took a Masters in Archaeology. Miraculously he still likes history and archaeology, despite the best intentions of the education system. He spent a few years being used by shady developers in what is often called the 'archaeology industry' in Ireland. Now, not surprisingly given his qualifications he is among the 500,000 unemployed in Ireland. He recently was disappointed when the Irish government decided against hiring him as a adviser on the fall of the Roman republic but this music http://www.myspace.com/racketsquad cheers him up no end......