Dublin’s Hidden Histories

The new series of talks, which will be recorded for radio in front of a live public audience at the Trinity Long Room Hub and subsequently broadcast on Near FM, will feature a number of lesser-known histories of Dublin.

This ‘site-specific’ exploration of Dublin’s history will also be complemented by live performances from An Góilín Traditional singing club.

8 April 2025: Mountjoy prison and female prisoners of the Free State

Kicking off the series Dr Susan Byrne (School of Histories and Humanities, TCD) will speak with Near FM’s Ciarán Murray to illuminate the stories of women who, for crimes ranging from murder to drunkenness, ended up in prison in the early years of the Free State.

15 April 2025: Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry: if walls could talk

The memory of the Magdalene Laundries plays on the Irish consciousness today and in this interview with Trinity's Professor of Contemporary Irish History Lindsey Earner-Byrne, the discussion will turn to the Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry and the myriad reasons women were sent there, along with the relationship it had with its neighbours in the south Dublin community.

29 April 2025: The Monto: site specific performances of history in Dublin’s inner city by ANU Productions

On the 100th anniversary of the closure of Dublin’s infamous 19th Century red light district ‘The Monto’, Near FM’s Ciarán Murray will be joined by Brian Singleton, Samuel Beckett Chair of Drama and Theatre in Trinity’s School of Creative Arts, to discuss how and why sites across this area in Dublin’s inner-city became the inspiration for interactive theatrical performances from companies like ANU Productions.

15 May 2025: Suicide in Dublin during the Great Famine

This discussion (which will include references to topics such as self-harm and suicide) will focus on the lesser-known deaths by suicide during the Great Famine. Georgina Laragy, Dublin Cemeteries Trust Assistant Professor in Public History and Cultural Heritage at TCD will show how, through desperation and despair, many were driven to end their own lives.

20 May 2025: The Dublin workhouses in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

The horror of being left with no choice but the poorhouse lingered long in the Irish psyche and in this live recording, we will hear about the reality of death and dying in the south Dublin Union. To discuss this, we welcome Dr Shelby Zimmerman, a social historian of Medicine, Institutions and Death.

27 May 2025: Dublin’s Slavery Mansions

Dublin’s connection to slavery, though complex, remains largely absent from its public memory, according to Ciaran O’Neill, Ussher Associate Professor in Nineteenth-Century History, TCD, who in this live recording with Ciarán Murray of Near FM will reveal how Dubliners played a more extensive role than often acknowledged in the slave economy.