Show Notes
This week we interview the author of the Joe Swallow detective books, a series of 4 books about an investigator with the Dublin Metropolitan Police in 1880s Dublin. Swallow solves the most grizzly murders using scientific reasoning and his street wit. Along the way he meets interesting characters along the way, including some of the fiercest street gangs Dublin has ever had to offer, as well as a young poet by the name of Yeats and he also comes to be embroiled in a brewing political scandal involving Charles Stewart Parnell. Crucially for the purpose of this podcast, Swallow lived above a pub on Dublin's Thomas Street.
I met up with author Conor Brady in that very pub to discuss recreating Victorian Dublin, the history of policing, and the role of the pub in Dublin society of the time. Conor Brady is a novelist, journalist, and academic. He was editor of the Irish Times for 16 years and has written extensively about the history of policing in Ireland. Enjoy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Publin
In this bonus episode of the Publin podcast, I speak with a few people who tell stories and experiences of working the docks of Dublin port and their lives growing up in the East Wall and Ringsend. This episode was recorded after a live event in December to celebrate a new exhibition called 'Solidarity, the dockers of Dublin port'.
This year I joined a small crowd of people outside the Thomas Street entrance to the Guinness brewery who wait patiently for the changing of the years on the signage. On the left side is 1759 for the year that Arthur Guinness began brewing here and on the right, the new year. This is the story of where the tradition came from and how people celebrate the ringing in of the New Year in this very Dublin fashion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This week I was joined by Dublin Port’s Charlie Murphy and Daryl Hendley Rooney of The Little Museum of Dublin for this special live edition of the Publin Podcast. Recorded in front of an audience at Cleary’s Pub on Amiens Street, we chatted about the Solidarity exhibition at the Port’s Substation, Dublin social history, pubs and so much more.
"I'm the only a man in the history of music promotors to have lost money on a Radiohead gig." In 1993 Radiohead were on a tour of 149 venues across 2 continents to promote their debut album Pablo Honey. It was on that tour that they played their first ever Irish gig in a Temple Bar venue called 'The Rock Garden'. Years later they would be playing to sold out crowds in huge venues. But first, they were at a basement bar playing to a crowd of less than 100. Here's the story of that gig. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Now in a state of total dereliction, The Plough on Abbey Street was once THE theatre pub in the city, drawing crowds of patrons before and after shows in the Abbey Theatre across the road. Some of the most famous faces in Irish film and theatre have had a drink here, including Peter O'Toole, Liam Neeson, and Gabriel Byrne.