For decades, Ireland was synonymous with Catholic control – but the last 30 years have seen a new cultural climate take hold in the country, and a furious backlash has broken out against the legacies of the Church’s institutional stranglehold. Naomi O’Leary and Tim Mc Inerney look at how the Church became so powerful in the Irish Republic in the first place, and the reasons behind its dramatic fall from grace in recent times. We’ll be talking to the formidable local historian Catherine Corless, who exposed institutional abuse and cover-ups on a massive scale in 2014, and we’ll also interview journalists and doctors at the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin, which inspired public outrage when the state almost gave it over to an order of nuns with a questionable past.
For bonus episodes, support us on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/theirishpassport.
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook: @PassportIrish.
A transcript of this episode is available here: https://www.theirishpassport.com/transcripts/transcription-the-catholic-church/
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Recent politics have revealed a common lack of knowledge about Ireland and Northern Ireland in the Britain at a time when it is of vital strategic importance. What is behind the blind spot? We call this phenomenon ‘The Knowledge Gap’, and investigate how it came to be by comparing the history courses taught in Ireland and the UK, with some striking results. Naomi O’Leary and Tim Mc Inerney hear from experts on Northern Ireland who found themselves in the eye of the storm following the recent election which brought the Democratic Unionist Party unexpectedly close to power in Westminster and unleashed huge demand for crash courses on Northern Ireland. This episode reveals that uncertainty about where the UK begins and ends is widespread — including among those whose job is to know.
For bonus episodes, support us on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/theirishpassport.
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook: @PassportIrish.
Support this podcast
After listening to our Irish language episode of the podcast, those of you who are interested in hearing more music in the Sean nós style can find a digitalised collection of Joe Heaney’s songs and stories here, at www.joeheaney.org. Digitalised by Dr Lillis O’Laoire of NUI Galway.
Irish: a rare and ancient language that is spoken from the streets of Canada to the corridors of power in the European Union. Naomi O’Leary and Tim Mc Inerney delve into why the language is such a powerful national symbol for Ireland, its fraught history, and how it’s still a point of political strife today.
For bonus episodes, support us on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/theirishpassport.
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook: @PassportIrish.
A transcript of this episode is available here: https://www.theirishpassport.com/transcripts/transcript-the-irish-language/
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The dramatic UK election result has suddenly made Northern Irish politics more pressing than ever. Are you trying to figure out what the DUP is anyway and what all this means for Brexit? Naomi O’Leary and Tim Mc Inerney answer all these questions and more in this special UK election edition of The Irish Passport. It includes a report from a loyalist pipe band event where we asked marchers what they thought of Brexit, and got some surprising answers….
For bonus episodes, support us on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/theirishpassport.
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook: @PassportIrish.
A transcript of this episode is available here: https://www.theirishpassport.com/transcripts/transcript-unionism-election-special/
Support this podcast
For decades, Ireland was synonymous with Catholic control – but the last 30 years have seen a new cultural climate take hold in the country, and a furious backlash has broken out against the legacies of the Church’s institutional stranglehold. Naomi O’Leary and Tim Mc Inerney look at how the Church became so powerful in the Irish Republic in the first place, and the reasons behind its dramatic fall from grace in recent times. We’ll be talking to the formidable local historian Catherine Corless, who exposed institutional abuse and cover-ups on a massive scale in 2014, and we’ll also interview journalists and doctors at the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin, which inspired public outrage when the state almost gave it over to an order of nuns with a questionable past.
For bonus episodes, support us on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/theirishpassport.
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook: @PassportIrish.
A transcript of this episode is available here: https://www.theirishpassport.com/transcripts/transcription-the-catholic-church/
Support this podcast 
After listening to our