Barry Houlihan

RTÉ Brainstorm

Dr Barry Houlihan is an Archivist at the James Hardiman Library at the University of Galway

The cast of Patrick. Photo: RTÉ Stills Library

The 1965 opera with St Patrick as a labourer on a building site

The ambitious TV opera Patrick portrayed the saint as an Irish navvy in contemporary 1960s England rather than a bearded man in robes

st patricks day • 15 Mar 22

Dún Aonghasa on Inis Mór. Photo: Etienne Rynne Archive, Hardiman Library, NUI Galway

A new view of an old country: heritage tourism in Ireland

How the changing face of heritage tourism since the 1950s has allowed us to see Ireland in new ways

Heritage • 13 Aug 21

Thomas Kilroy's play, Christ, Deliver Us! dramatised the experiences of teenage boys in a boarding school in the midlands in 1950s Ireland.

The cultural responses to Ireland's institutional past

The Abbey Theatre, and other theatres, have created cultural responses to Ireland's institutional past (and present) by drawing on testimony and archival records, as well as contemporary experiences.

Theatre • 22 Apr 21

Genevieve Lyons: "audiences prefered to go to Dun Laoghaire to see Lyons as Sally Bowles than go to see Harris in the same role on the big screen". Photo: NUI Galway Archives

How one of the world's biggest musicals found its star in Dublin

Genevieve Lyons played a central role in Irish theatre in the 1950s at a time the country was undergoing much cultural change

Brainstorm • 08 Jan 21

The Galway team take the pitch for The Big Game in Castlebar in 1987. Photo: Macnas Archives

A game of two halves: when Irish sport meets theatre

How has Irish identity and culture been represented by performances involving sport onstage?

Culture • 21 Aug 20

"No-one has ever captured the Irish better than James Joyce"

What James Joyce's bones and house tell us about Irish culture

Cultural heritage in Ireland is often only equated with income from tourism, hotel bed nights and profit

James Joyce • 06 Dec 19

Professor Kevin Boyle: "Boyle's archive contains records of human rights cases from 1960s Northern Ireland to the plight of Kurds in the early 2000s"

'Archives can give voice to victims of past violence'

Archives provide a forum for transparency as well as for deconstructing myth-making within a nation's history

Archives • 22 May 19

Ollie West in Dead Centre's performance of Hamnet

When theatre goes digital...

How does contemporary theatre function when it no longer entirely "human"?

Theatre • 02 May 19

A fire at the museum. Photo: Buda Mendes/Getty Images

What we lose when culture and heritage are destroyed

Museums, galleries and libraries are irreplaceable places of discovery so the loss of Rio's National Museum will be felt for generations

Culture • 06 Sep 18

"The idea of home is growing more complex to define"

"Home for a while in the old country"

Archives of where we have called home provide stories and memories of what has transpired across generations

Culture • 19 Jul 18