Since our last episode, Europe’s political landscape has been transformed – and that of Ireland along with it. Naomi lays out the facts about Ireland’s unique position in the international response to the Ukraine crisis. We find out why debates about military neutrality and NATO membership might once again be coming to the fore, and discuss why Ukraine’s president gave Ireland a less-than-glowing appraisal when it came to supporting his country. We also check back in with Nadia Dobrianska, whose life has been turned upside down in the weeks since the Russian invasion. Now safe in Co. Cork, she tells us what it was like to suddenly flee her home city of Kyiv, and how she managed to make it back to Ireland.
This episode is our Season 5 finale. We’ll be back in a few weeks with plenty more topics about Irish culture, history, and politics in a brand new Season 6!
If you want to hear more Irish Passport content and help support the show along the way, you can sign up to our Patreon account at www.patreon.com/theirishpassport. We’ll shortly publish a bonus episode featuring more of Nadia’s story.
You can follow us on Twitter at @PassportIrish and Nadia at @NadiaDobryanska
This weekend, a group of musicians gathered in O’Briens Irish pub in the Ukranian capital and belted out traditional Irish tunes as a distraction from the threat of war.
In this episode we uncover the surprisingly rich common history shared by Ireland and Ukraine, as told by a woman living through the dramatic recent events that have drawn the world’s attention to Kyiv as Russian troops advance.
Joining us is listener Nadia Dobrianska, who works in a human rights organisation in her native Kyiv and happens to be an afficionado in Irish culture and history. She unveils a hidden world of historical commonalities between the two countries, who both began asserting their nationhood in the same era, suffered domination from neighbouring power, and still bear the deep scars of famine from that experience.
Nadia also has a fascinating personal story to share. She experienced two revolutions in Kyiv before moving to Belfast in 2019 to pursue her love of Irish studies. There, she managed to pick up fluent Gaeilge through lessons on the Falls Road. Now back in Ukraine, those language skills have come in handy: with the world’s attention turned onto her country due to fears of a Russian invasion, Nadia has begun reporting on the situation in Irish for a range of Irish-language media outlets.
With her experience of living in Ireland, love for and deep knowledge of Irish culture and history, there’s hardly a better person to explain the Ukranian perspective on the current situation and the country’s unexpected but profound common heritage with Ireland.
Bonus episodes are published for our supporters over at www.patreon.com/theirishpassport
You can follow us on Twitter at @PassportIrish and Nadia at @NadiaDobryanska
Huge thanks to our sponsors, Irish at Heart, for backing this episode. Sign up to receive surprise boxes of artisan Irish goods at irish-at-heart.com, and get a special 15% discount off your first box with the discount code IRISHPASSPORT. Here’s the link: https://irish-at-heart.com/
Music in this episode:
Maidan sings the anthem of Ukraine, 2013 https://youtu.be/lItPEbc6e-I
From the streets of Brussels, to an office block in Greece, to a bus ride in San Francisco, the Irish language can pop up in some unexpected places. In this episode, we explore some of the new international frontiers of Irish. We speak to people whose knowledge of the language has launched them down far-flung career paths, ask why Irish-speaking mortgage experts are in demand in the Netherlands, and celebrate some of the people who have begun learning the language thousands of miles away from the island.
Huge thanks to our sponsors, Irish at Heart, for backing this episode. Sign up to receive surprise boxes of artisan Irish goods at irish-at-heart.com, and get a special 15% discount off your first box with the discount code IRISHPASSPORT. Here’s the link: https://irish-at-heart.com/
Bonus episodes are published for our supporters over at www.patreon.com/theirishpassport
Did you ever hear the one about the bishop and the airport? Or the unlikely group of Irish revolutionaries who ended up changing history through an ill-fated trip to Belgium on a yacht?
Naomi and Tim tell some of their favourite, quirkiest stories from Irish history in this special seasonal story-time episode.
Huge thanks to our sponsors, Irish at Heart, for backing this episode. Sign up to receive surprise boxes of artisan Irish goods at irish-at-heart.com, and get a special 15% discount off your first box with the discount code IRISHPASSPORT. Here’s the link: https://irish-at-heart.com/
The music you heard in this episode is X-mas Carol by Jahazzar, from their album Sele
Bonus episodes are published for our supporters over at www.patreon.com/theirishpassport
This summer, the chaotic fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban left Irish citizens stranded, exposing the state’s lack of aircraft large enough to conduct an evacuation. It also highlighted the issue of Ireland’s tiny and under-funded defence forces, which force the state to rely on outside forces like Britain and the European Union for day-to-day security in areas like air and maritime patrols and cyber security. From this weak position, Ireland has increasingly been drawn into participating in international defence arrangements over the last two decades, which arguably blur the lines of its neutral status. Naomi and Tim lay out what’s at stake in an increasingly unstable global order and as the EU debates a shift in defence policy in response. Guest Tom Clonan shares his experience as a soldier and lays out the profound risks to Irish interests posed by gaping holes in national defence. Conor Gallagher of the Irish Times tells us the backstory of how Irish officials worked behind the scenes, leaning on old relationships with allies this summer to get Irish citizens out of Kabul.
This is part two of a two-part episode on Irish neutrality. In part one, we explained how Irelands’ neutrality policy was born in the 20th century, at a time when the leadership feared that involvement in the Second World War could crush the fragile new Irish state. You can listen to the episode here: https://www.theirishpassport.com/podcast/neutrality-part-1-escaping-dominion/
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter at @PassportIrish.
We’ll post the full version of our interview with Tom Clonan for our supporters over at www.patreon.com/theirishpassport
Huge thanks to our sponsors, Irish at Heart, for backing this episode. Sign up to receive surprise boxes of artisan Irish goods at irish-at-heart.com, and get a special 15% discount off your first box with the discount code IRISHPASSPORT. Here’s the link: https://irish-at-heart.com/
