Podcast Corner: Three podcasts on the Civil War
Free State soldiers at Albert Street Railway Station, Cork, during the Irish Civil War. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive
A five-part documentary chronicling some of the worst atrocities of the Civil War, both around the capital and further afield in Kerry, this series was produced by Kevin Brannigan (Second Captains/Codebreaker - the latter of which is a brilliant look at footballer Kevin Moran) and presented by Trinity College historian Brian Hanley.
It’s dense with information, and with so many names and incidents being described across the 33- to 45-minute episodes, you won’t want to rush things.
There’s a very low backing track underneath and some talking heads, including John Borgonovo, who co-edited the Atlas of the Irish Revolution, but there are few sound effects or the like to distract the listener.
The content itself is vivid and gruesome enough, with murders in plain sight, due to an alleyway being locked, to effective hair cropping with axle grease, to the usual war of words between both sides of the Civil War.
It’s also enlightening for us lay consumers of history.
For example, Hanley says: “Bloody Sunday has become legendary as a masterstroke by [Michael] Collins that decapitated British intelligence in Dublin. The reality was that its political impact was more important.”
Once you’re finished listening to Dirty War in Dublin, you might want to hear more from Hanley about why the series was made.
While he’s written about the Dirty War for the current issue of History Ireland magazine, he was also recently on the Irish Left Archive Podcast for an hour-long interview.
On the merits of making such a dense historical podcast series, he discusses the difference with a given appearance on certain TV documentaries, explaining that “you have no control over what’s used”.
He adds: “With a podcast, you can bring a degree of nuance and complexity, you can say quite a bit. And you can allow for a few different opinions to be expressed in the course of that.”
You just have to search for Michael Collins in your podcast app of choice to find an endless array of shows and opinions on the Big Fella.
At Cork Podcast Festival over the weekend, Paddy Cullivan performed his show, The Murder of Michael Collins, at Cork Arts Theatre.
Along with The Murder of Wolfe Tone, he’s got plenty more outings lined up for the rest of 2023, performing them variably at Electric Picnic this weekend, in London, in the North and across the country.
- See paddycullivan.com for full dates.
