On this week's programme: The rediscovery of a field gun used to shell the Four Courts; court battles over military charity assets in 1920s Ireland; women who applied for Military Service Pensions in the 1920s and '30s; and the 'Library of Voices' at Harvard University.

Rediscovery of a Four Courts Field Gun

We begin this evening with an extraordinary tale of coincidence and chance, involving an important artefact from the Irish Civil War. Our reporter, Conor Sweetman has the story. He talks to Kenneth L.Smith-Christmas, Lar Joye and Brenda Malone from the National Museum of Ireland.

Fighting over the scraps of the Union

One hundred years ago, the new Irish Free State was forging a new path of independence from Britain.

During the War of Independence, new institutions were set up to replace the Empire's – institutions like the Dáil Courts for example. But nonetheless, the legal and economic complexity of dissolving a union – knotty questions of currency, borders, and resources, were not entirely resolved by the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

They’re the sort of questions we see play out in a modern context - in the Scottish Independence referendum campaign, or of course in the years since the Brexit vote.

Myles is joined by Dr Paul Huddie, executive member of the Irish Association of Professional Historians, and the co-ordinator of the Military Welfare History Network. He’s been looking into two court battles that took place in the 1920s – fought by the Irish, British, and Northern Irish governments, over the legacies of two Irish military charities. The cases are a microcosm of the challenges involved in dissolving a union.

Women and Military Service Pensions

The recent Independent Review Group report into the Irish Defence Forces gives stark detail of the misogyny and abuse women have endured in the Defence Forces. We're going to look now at the historical context of paternalism and hostility, revealed in the Military Service Pensions Files at the Military Archives. They give us a great insight into the role of women in the Irish revolutionary period – a role that was ignored for decades.

The first Military Service Pension Act (1924) effectively excluded women, by not including Cumann na mBan in the list of organisations covered by the Act.

To talk about this, Myles is joined by Historian Dr Mary McAuliffe, Director of Gender Studies at University College Dublin.

Harvard's Library of Voices

Jonathan C. Creasy reports from Harvard on the history behind the Woodberry Poetry Room at the University. The Poetry Room is home to the 'Library of Voices', one of the world's most comprehensive collections of literary voice recordings. The landmark audio collection includes many recordings of Seamus Heaney. Jonathan finds out more about the life of Irish-American John 'Jack' Lincoln Sweeney, a curator of the Poetry Room.

In this report we hear from Lucy Collins, Associate Professor of Modern Poetry at University College Dublin; Aoibhinn Sweeney, a novelist and Jack Sweeney's Grand-Niece; and current poetry room curator Christina Davis.

Researchers can find the Jack Sweeney papers in University College Dublin's Special Collections.