This week: Great Irish Wives; The Irish Priest Who Unearthed Rome's Past; and Irish links to professional American football

Great Irish Wives

History has long been dominated by the names of "great men" - revolutionaries, politicians, poets, explorers, and artists. But beside them stood women whose own lives, though often hidden from view, reveal resilience, sacrifice, and influence in ways that shaped both their families and the memory of Irish history itself.

A new book turns the spotlight on ten of these women from Irish history – women like Matilda Tone and Mary O'Connell, Sinéad de Valera and Constance Wilde. What emerges is a set of strikingly similar stories. Women who supported their husbands through ambition, struggle, and sometimes reckless pursuit of fame or freedom. Women who endured loneliness, upheaval, and loss. And women who, in widowhood, often became the guardians of their husband’s memory, ensuring that their names and legacies survived.

The book is called Great Irish Wives: Remarkable Lives from History. It's published by O'Brien Press. The author is Nicola Pierce, who joins Myles in studio.

Joseph Mullooly: The Irish Priest Who Unearthed Rome's Past

In the heart of Rome, a short walk from the Colosseum, there's a church called the Basilica of San Clemente. It was built around the year 1100 – which is actually not very old by Roman standards. But what makes this particular church remarkable is what lies beneath it.

Below it, there’s an earlier church from the 4th century – which you can access and walk around. And beneath that, there’s a Roman house which was used by the first Christians, almost 2,000 years ago.

These layers of history were discovered in the 19th century by the Dominican priest and archaeologist, Father Joseph Mullooly, from Lanesborough, County Longford. His excavations, starting in the 1850s, revealed the structure of the earlier building, decorated with frescoes – and deeper still, evidence of the earliest Christian worship in Rome.

Our reporter Colm Flynn went to the Basilica of San Clemente to find out more – there, he met the Prior of San Clemente, Father Paul Lawlor. He also speaks to Gabrielle Allen, the Great Grand Niece of Joseph Mullooly.

Ireland and the NFL

Today marks a milestone for American football in Ireland, as the National Football League staged its first ever regular season fixture in Dublin. It's a significant moment in a relationship that stretches back more than a century – to the founding of the NFL in 1920.

One of the most influential figures in the early NFL was Joseph Carr, the American-born son of Irish immigrants, who shaped the league as its president during the 1920s and 1930s. A handful of Irish-born players also made it to the league during those decades – including Bob Nash, who captained the New York Giants, and, much later, Neil O’Donoghue, who became the league’s longest-serving Irish-born player.

To learn more about such Irish links to the NFL and professional American Football, Myles is joined by historian and History Show researcher Ian Kenneally.