RTÉ1, 3 & 10 May 2026, and RTÉ Player By Sylvie Kleinman ‘They had to shed people, and they shed them all over the world.’ Typifying Ireland’s twentieth-century diaspora, the London-born trade unionist Mick Lynch was one of six ‘well-known’ Irish faces in this two-part series, reflecting on family enumerated in the 1926 census. The … Read more
TG4, 4 March 2026 By Sylvie Kleinman It is safe to say that until this deftly constructed documentary few of us had heard of the so-called ‘Blue Blouses’. Supporters of Cumann na nGaedheal and then Fine Gael (1933), they have remained hidden from history, and not only behind their infamous male counterparts. Their story is … Read more
RTÉ1, 29 December 2025, and RTÉ Player By Sylvie Kleinman ‘Daniel O’Connell almost single-handedly raised a nation from its knees, and forced Britain, the most powerful empire in the world … to grant the Irish people their democratic rights’ (our emphasis, as are all italics in quotations below). An arty map shows this empire—in 1886. … Read more
Netflix, autumn 2025 By Sylvie Kleinman ‘The profits flowing from New York are being used to serve God’s purpose. The secret deal which you struck with our friends [Fenians] is therefore the disreputable means to a virtuous end. In this work I am supported by the women of the Guinness Housing Trust.’ So wrote Edward … Read more
RTÉ1, 3 & 10 September 2025 By Brian Hanley I am, just about, a child of de Valera’s Ireland, but I have a more vivid memory of the death of Sinéad de Valera in January 1975, eight months before her husband, than I do of the passing of Éamon de Valera himself. Sinead was the … Read more