This week: The Tailteann Games; The Quest for the Irish Celt; The Avignon Papacy; and Ronan Kelly's essay 'Two Wives’

The Tailteann Games

One hundred years ago, in the summer of 1924, Ireland hosted an extraordinary sporting and cultural event: a gathering of athletes and artists from across the world. That event, the Tailteann Games, saw more than 5,000 competitors engage in an array of sporting and artistic endeavours.

In terms of scale, it was bigger than that year's Paris Olympic Game, earning much acclaim in the international media. Indeed, the Tailteann Games of 1924 were so successful that they were repeated in both 1928 and 1932.

To learn more about the Tailteann Games, including their rise and their eventual demise, Ian Kenneally travelled to Dublin’s Collins Barracks, where he met with Dr Siobhán Doyle: historian, author and Curatorial Researcher at the National Museum of Ireland.

The Quest for the Irish Celt

In 1932, a team of academics from Harvard University arrived in the Irish Free State to begin a major archaeological and anthropological investigation. Welcomed and supported by the government, the Harvard team had a remarkable objective: it sought to determine the racial and cultural heritage of the Irish people.

The Harvard research project had many strands: it involved country-wide excavations and the examination of prehistoric skulls, along with the physical examinations of thousands of Irish people; measuring skulls, nose-shape and grade of hair colour.

Though the Harvard project proved to be hugely influential, it was a product of its time: a particularly dangerous time in European and world history. Underpinning the project were theories of eugenics that would subsequently be exposed as racist and pseudo-scientific.

To talk about this, Myles is joined by Dr Mairéad Carew, archaeologist and author, whose 2018 book contextualises the extraordinary story of Harvard University's five-year mission to Ireland during the 1930s. Mairéad's book is called The Quest for The Irish Celt: The Harvard Archaeological Mission to Ireland, 1932 - 1936. It's published by Irish Academic Press.

The Avignon Papacy

The Pope wasn't always based in Rome – at one time, in the 14th century, the Pontiff lived and operated out of the South of France. Seven successive popes lived there – all of them French. It was called the Avignon Papacy, and lasted for almost 70 years.

Colm Flynn reports from the South of France and finds out more. He visits The Abbey of Sainte-Madeleine in Le Barroux (about an hour from Avignon) - the monastery at the site of the oldest papal vineyard in the world.

In this report we hear from Dr Jessica Wärnberg, a historian of religious and political history in Europe, and author of the 2023 book City of Echoes: A New History of Rome, its Popes and its People.

We also hear from Father Père Basile, one of the monks who has been living in the Abbey - mainly in silence - for forty-five years; Gabriel Teissier, who works at the Abbey; and a Brother Winemaker, one of the monks in the monastery.

Two Wives

Ronan Kelly has written a few history scripts for us this season – all, curiously, featuring pairs. The first was about two bishops, the next about two islands - and this week, it's about two wives. Jane Daly and Mary Crowley. If you were going to run into trouble with your business, they were the ideal women to be married to. Because that’s what they did: they gave their husband’s endeavours a leg-up at a crucial time.