Dialogue 2007

Click on a date to listen to the show.

Programme 14: 27th October 2007
Joy Melville talks to Andy O'Mahony about Ellen Terry

Ellen Terry (1847-1928) rose to fame as an actress in the 19th century, when her stage partnership with Henry Irving at London's Lyceum Theatre drew capacity crowds. She was notorious for flouting the moral code of her day, marrying three times - first, at 17, to the painter G F Watts (who sent her back to her parents after a few months with a sum of GBP 300 a year 'so long as she shall lead a chaste life') - and then living with her lover, Edward Godwin by whom she had two illegitimate children. A perfectionist on stage, she was cruelly forced to continue to act beyond a point she found appropriate in order to earn enough money to support her children: 'Look at me, 61 and still doing one-night stands', she said to a friend. As her sight and memory worsened, and her partnership with Irving ended, her acting career closed. She reinvented herself as a lecturer, touring Britain and America speaking on Shakespeare's heroines.

Programme 13: 20th October 2007
Bernard Porter talks to Andy O'Mahony about American imperialism.

The present American 'empire' is often compared with the British one of yore - not surprising in view of the fact that Afghanistan and Iraq were once British imperial stamping grounds, too. But how alike are the two empires really? What are the connections between them?  In his book Empire and superempire:  Britain, America and the World, Bernard Porter finds that Britain and America had uncannily similar imperial histories before the present day, but that now considerable differences exist. He argues that post-2001 American imperialism is an imperialism of a different sort - a 'super-imperialism' that no longer repeats British imperialism but now transcends it. Porter's comparison illuminates British imperialism, including Tony Blair's; the American version of imperialism administered under George W Bush; and the relation of imperialism to such phenomena as capitalism, globalisation, free trade and international security.

Programme 13: 6th October 2007
Margaret McCurtain talks to Andy O'Mahony about being a historian.

Margaret McCurtain is a distinguished historian with an internationally acclaimed academic career. Her scholarship and inspirational teaching have been recognised with many honours and awards, including Honorary Research Fellowship in University College Dublin, Chair of the National Archives Advisory Council, co-publisher of the monumental Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (4 & 5). Margaret, a Dominican nun, known in Ireland as "Sister Ben" is a leading independent thinker and leader of the resurgent Irish women's movement in the 1970's and 1980's and is respected today for her continuing input to Irish social development.

Programme 12: 29th September 2007
Sean McDonagh is a Columbian missionary priest who worked with the T'boli people in the Philippines in the 1970s. In recent times he has been the central coordinator for Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation for the Columbian missionaries and also chairperson of Greenpeace, Ireland. He is the author of several books.
 
He talks to Andy O'Mahony about how the threat of climate change comes about and of the consequences of global warming. He examines various responses to global warming and faces the question of whether Nuclear Power is the solution. He also discusses how the churches have responded to this threat to date.

Programme 11: 22nd September 2007
That Neutral Island: A Cultural History of Ireland During the Second World War by Clair Wills

Clair Wills talks to Andy O'Mahony about war-time Ireland.   Previous histories of Ireland in the war years have focused on high politics, but in her book That Neutral Island: A Cultural History of Ireland During the Second World War, Clair Wills mines deeper layers of experience. Sean O'Faolain, Kate O'Brien, Elizabeth Bowen, Flann O'Brien and Louis MacNeice are a few of the writers whose stories, letters and diaries are used to illuminate the situation in Ireland under rationing, heavy censorship, the threat of invasion and a strange state of detachment from the real world of the war.

Programme 10: 15th September 2007
Lonergan's Quest by William Matthews

William Mathews, associate Professor of Philosophy in the Milltown Institute, has written an intellectual biography of Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984), Jesuit Canadian philosopher, theologian and priest.

 In Lonergan's Quest, William A. Mathews details the genesis, researching, composition, and question structure of Lonergan's masterwork, Insight. The path to Insight began for Lonergan in the 1920s with his studies in philosophy at Heythrop College. Questioning many of the accepted truths of those studies, Lonergan's interests moved to economics while teaching in Depression-era Montreal, and later to theology and the philosophy of history while studying in Rome. The writing of Insight began in earnest in 1949 and soon evolved into Lonergan's masterpiece.

15th September 2007
No programme

Programme 9: 1st September 2007
Barbara Reynolds talks to Andy O'Mahony about Dante.

Dante is one of the towering figures of medieval European literature. Yet many riddles and questions about him persist. By re-reading Dante with an open mind, Barbara Reynolds made remarkable discoveries and unlocked previously hidden secrets about this greatest of Florentine poets.

Dr Reynolds' research indicates that Dante may have smoked cannabis to reach new heights of creativity. That Beatrice, Dante's great love, was not who most scholars think she was. That Dante was a talented public speaker, who created a quite new form of poetic art, holding audiences spellbound. Dante is portrayed by her as irate, opinionated, settling scores - a man of multifaceted gifts and extraordinary genius.

Programme 8: 25th August 2007
In this week's programme Chris Wrigley talks to Andy O'Mahony about A.J.P. Taylor. 

A scholar gentleman in the old style; a northern non-conforming radical; an academic steeped in Oxford traditions; a late 20th-century media personality; one of the most outstanding historians of his age: A.J.P. Taylor was all of these. Chris Wrigley has written a biographical study of A.J.P. Taylor which includes details of Taylor's privileged and cosseted childhood, the effect of his close but combative and stimulating family, the dissenting and nonconformist tradition, and his time as teacher, broadcaster journalist and historian.

Programme 7: 18th August 2007
On the programme this week William J. Smyth talks to Andy O'Mahony about the English conquest of Ireland.
 
In his book Map-Making, Landscapes and Memory: A Geography of Colonial and Early Modern Ireland, C.1530-1750, William J. Smyth examines this most formative and revolutionary period in Ireland's history. Using the twin concepts of 'colonialism' and 'early modernity', the book comprises a geographical analysis of the conquest and settlement of Ireland by the New English (and Scottish) and the consequences of this often violent and deep-seated intrusion upon the cultures and landscapes of pre-existing Irish societies.  The book contains over 100 original colour and black and white maps, which point up the nuanced and regionally varied character of the engagement between local peoples and incomers. Uniquely, the book uses Irish language (as well as English) sources to illuminate Irish ways of understanding and using territories and resources, understandings and practices which were often undermined and eroded under New English rule.

Programme 6: 11th August 2007
This week Anne Karpf talks to Andy O'Mahony about the human voice.

Anne Karpf is a writer, journalist, broadcaster and sociologist  whose book The Human Voice is the culmination of years of research.   Why has the female voice deepened over the last fifty years? Who talks more, men or women? How can a baby in the womb distinguish between different voices? The human voice is the personal and social glue that binds us, and the most important sound in our lives. The moment we open our mouth we leak information about our biological, psychological and social status. Babies use it to establish emotional ties and acquire language, adults to decode mood and meaning in intimate and professional relationships. Far from being rendered redundant by modern technology, the human voice has enormous and enduring significance.

Programme 5: 4th August 2007
Carne Ross, who resigned from the British Foreign Office in 2004,  talks to Andy O'Mahony about diplomacy.
 
Ross was a British diplomat on the front line of many of today's most pressing issues - Israel/Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq, over which he eventually resigned from the Foreign Office.  In his book Independent Diplomat: Dispatches from an Unaccountable Elite, he shows what's wrong with contemporary diplomacy today, and how it might be put right.

He argues persuasively that the institutions of contemporary diplomacy - foreign ministries, the UN or EU - often exclude those most affected by the discussions within. As a diplomat, Ross was encouraged and taught to see the world in a narrow and singular way: as one of states and interests, excluding more complex, sophisticated - and human - ways of understanding. Along the way, Ross demonstrates how the reality of negotiation at the UN - or with warlords in Afghanistan - shows very different forces at play, factors ignored in contemporary and reductionist descriptions or academic theories of "international relations". To cope with the complexities of today's world, diplomats must open their doors - and minds.

Programme 4: 28th July 2007
John Devitt talks to Andy O'Mahony about his life in education and his love of film and literature.  

First broadcast on 29th July 2006, the programme is being repeated as a tribute to John Devitt, who died in June.  He was Head of English at Mater Dei Institute of Education, and was recognised as one of the outstanding educators in Ireland. He was also an exceptionally perceptive critic of poetry, drama and film.  A frequent and much-loved contributor to Andy O'Mahony's books programme "Off the Shelf", he recorded this one-to-one interview about his life and work last year. 

Programme 3: 21st July 2007
On the programme this week John Sutherland in conversation with Andy O'Mahony. John Sutherland is Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London, a newspaper columnist and author.
Apart from writing a regular column in the Guardian newspaper, Sutherland has published umpteen books.  The series of books which starts with Was Heathcliff a murderer? has brought him a wide readership. In 2005, he was involved in Dot Mobile's project to translate summaries and quotes of classic literature into text messaging shorthand. In the same year he was also Chair of Judges for the Booker Prize.
In June 2007 he published an autobiography: The boy who loved books: a memoir.

Programme 2: 14th July 2007
 This week, Andy O'Mahony meets Canadian historian Margaret MacMillan, who has just taken over the Wardenship of St Antony's College Oxford.
 
In her book  Seize the Hour: When Nixon Met Mao, Professor MacMillan describes the events of February 1972, when Richard Nixon amazed the world with a trip to China. He was the first US President to go there - in fact officially the first American since the Communist takeover. It was like a visit to the far side of the moon, but also a brilliant stroke of policy. With China on side Nixon could get out of Vietnam; US technology could help Mao recover from his disastrous Cultural Revolution; most of all, both needed a buttress against Soviet Russia in aggressive mood.

Programme 1: 7th July 2007
The series begins with a tribute to John Moriarty, writer and philosopher, who died at the beginning of June this year.  He taught English literature at Manitoba University in Canada for six years, before returning to Ireland in 1971. Sometime gardener, lecturer and broadcaster, in 1997 he hosted a major RTÉ television series, 'The Blackbird and the Bell'. He is author of Dreamtime (1994/99), and the two other volumes of Turtle Was Gone a Long Time: Crossing the Kedron (1996) and Anaconda Canoe (1998). He lived at the Horse's Glen near Mangerton Mountain in Co. Kerry.

In this programme, first broadcast in 1998, John Moriarty is in conversation with Andy O'Mahony about philosophy and his own pilgrim journey.