The King’s Tree
The history of a tree in an ancient Irish place.
Unruly Ireland
Unruly Ireland explores the strange, unsettled, and deeply human sides of Irish history and folklore, from the medieval period to the modern world.
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The making of a modern Irish vampire myth
How an undead Derry chieftain who battled Fionn MacCumhaill, and was buried three times but still wouldn't stay dead was made into a vampire.
The Unruly Dead
A journey through Ireland’s restless dead, from medieval burials designed to keep corpses in their graves to blood-drinking spirits, revenants and an immortal abbess. What these strange stories reveal about fear, memory, hunger and the people communities decided were dangerous, even after death.
“The Wildest Man in all Connaught”
Murrough na dTuadh O’Flaherty and the story of his rise and fall.
The man who went from Dundalk to Jaffa (but not back again).
The many wanderings of a medieval lord in difficult times
Blood in the Castle Yard
The last recorded trial by combat in Ireland took place in Dublin Castle between two O’ Connors of Offaly. What does it tell us about the Tudor conquest of Ireland?
Six Weddings and a Fortune
How Jenet Sarsfield turned marriage into a fortune in Tudor Ireland
Using magic to manufacture consent
Medieval Ireland and the legal complexities over using magic to get what you want
Five Ways to Curse Your Enemies
A field guide to malediction in Ireland, from the hand-bell to the bended knee
The Irish lord who accused his stepmother of hiring witches to kill him
Black magic, family breakdown, politics and ambition in early modern Ireland
When it was just too hot before
A short look at heatwaves in Irish history