A Walnut Wound is set in July 1795. A young girl is brought to the Grangegorman House of Industry when her family becomes homeless following their eviction.

This is the third episode of the Flighty Creatures trilogy of short stories for podcast by Wexford-based writer, Sylvia Cullen. Inspired by women who dwelt in the Grangegorman Asylum, Penitentiary and Workhouse, these stories are set in the 18th and 19th centuries. Listen back to episode one, The Holding Room, which follows Asylum Attendant Muriel Hill facing a quandary when her patient refuses to have her image captured by the asylum photographer. Episode two, By the Spider's Bed, tells the story of an older inmate of the Women’s Penitentiary, awaiting transportation to Van Diemen’s Land.

Flighty Creatures is a project of Grangegorman Histories' ⁠public call⁠.
Find out more about Grangegorman Histories on grangegormanhistories.ie
Illustration by Fidelma Slattery.

A Walnut Wound

In the third episode of ‘My Identity’ Professor Colin Graham (Maynooth) is in conversation with Manchán Magan. This episode is a recording of a public conversation which took place in Dublin on 4 February 2025.

Manchán Magan has written books on his travels in Africa, India and South America. He writes occasionally for The Irish Times, and presents the Almanac of Ireland podcast for RTÉ. He has made dozens of documentaries on issues of world culture for TG4, RTÉ, & Travel Channel. His books include Thirty-Two Words For Field, Listen to the Land Speak, Tree Dogs, Banshee Fingers and Other Words For Nature, and Wolf-Men and Water Hounds. With Antic-Ham, he’s collaborated on two art books for Redfoxpress. www.manchan.com

In this episode he discusses his identity and background as well as his work.
Read more about this public event: https://www.ria.ie/blog/you-need-to-walk-the-land-to-feel-the-stories/

About the Series

This is episode 3 of the My Identity podcast series hosted by Professor Colin Graham, Maynooth. In this series, Colin is in conversation with a range of people whose ideas, work and life experiences shed light on the topic of identity on the Island of Ireland. My Identity is part of the ARINS project. 

Colin Graham is Professor English and formerly Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Maynooth University. His books include Northern Ireland: Thirty Years of Photography, Deconstructing Ireland and Ideologies of Epic. He was editor of The Irish Review from 2004 to 2020. During the Brexit negotiations he created the Twitter account @borderirish and wrote the book I am the Border, so I am, published by HarperCollins.

ARINS: Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South brings together experts to provide evidence-based research and analysis on the most significant questions of policy and public debate facing the island of Ireland, north and south. The project publishes, facilitates and disseminates research on the challenges and opportunities presented to the island in a post-Brexit context, with the intention of contributing to an informed public discourse. More information can be found at WWW.ARINSPROJECT.COM

ARINS is a joint project of The Royal Irish Academy, an all-island body, and the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at Notre Dame's Keough School of Global Affairs.

My Identity is hosted by Professor Colin Graham. Podcast management and production by Dr Susie Deedigan. Audio design and editing by Conor Patterson and Morgan Blain-Crehan, The Spinner’s Mill, Belfast.

ARINS My Identity: Episode 3 with Manchán Magan

In this month’s ARINS podcast, former Deputy First Minister and leader of the SDLP, Mark Durkan discusses his political career with host Rory Montgomery. The conversation focuses on the recent book by Professor Graham Spencer, The SDLP, Politics and Peace: the Mark Durkan interviews which was published in 2024 by Peter Lang.


This is episode 43 of a podcast series that provides evidence-based research and analysis on the most significant questions of policy and public debate facing the island of Ireland, north and south.

Host Rory Montgomery MRIA, talks to authors of articles on topics such as cross border health co-operation; the need to regulate social media in referendums, education, cultural affairs and constitutional questions and the imperative for good data and the need to carry out impartial research.

ARINS: Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South brings together experts to provide evidence-based research and analysis on the most significant questions of policy and public debate facing the island of Ireland, north and south. The project publishes, facilitates and disseminates research on the challenges and opportunities presented to the island in a post-Brexit context, with the intention of contributing to an informed public discourse. More information can be found at www.arinsproject.com


ARINS is a joint project of The Royal Irish Academy, an all-island body, and the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at Notre Dame's Keough School of Global Affairs.

ARINS: The SDLP, Politics and Peace

This is episode 4 of the My Identity podcast series hosted by Professor Colin Graham, Maynooth. In this series, Colin is in conversation with a range of people whose ideas, work and life experiences shed light on the topic of identity on the Island of Ireland. My Identity is part of the ARINS project.  

Colin Graham is Professor English and formerly Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Maynooth University. His books include Northern Ireland: Thirty Years of Photography, Deconstructing Ireland and Ideologies of Epic. He was editor of The Irish Review from 2004 to 2020. During the Brexit negotiations he created the Twitter account @borderirish and wrote the book I am the Border, so I am, published by HarperCollins. 

ARINS: Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South brings together experts to provide evidence-based research and analysis on the most significant questions of policy and public debate facing the island of Ireland, north and south. The project publishes, facilitates and disseminates research on the challenges and opportunities presented to the island in a post-Brexit context, with the intention of contributing to an informed public discourse. More information can be found at www.arinsproject.com 

ARINS is a joint project of The Royal Irish Academy, an all-island body, and the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at Notre Dame's Keough School of Global Affairs. 

My Identity is hosted by Professor Colin Graham. 

Podcast management and production by Dr Susie Deedigan (University of Notre Dame). Audio design and editing by Conor Patterson and Morgan Blain-Crehan, The Spinner’s Mill, Belfast.

ARINS My Identily: Episode 4 with Lata Sharma

In this month’s ARINS podcast, host Rory Montgomery discusses the recent UCL Constitution Unit report ‘Reform of Stormont: Options for Discussion’ with its authors, Conor Kelly, Alan Renwick and Alan Whysall.

This is episode 44 of a podcast series that provides evidence-based research and analysis on the most significant questions of policy and public debate facing the island of Ireland, north and south. 

Host Rory Montgomery, MRIA, talks to authors of articles on topics such as cross border health co-operation; the need to regulate social media in referendums, education, cultural affairs and constitutional questions and the imperative for good data and the need to carry out impartial research. 

ARINS: Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South brings together experts to provide evidence-based research and analysis on the most significant questions of policy and public debate facing the island of Ireland, north and south. The project publishes, facilitates and disseminates research on the challenges and opportunities presented to the island in a post-Brexit context, with the intention of contributing to an informed public discourse. More information can be found at www.arinsproject.com 


ARINS is a joint project of The Royal Irish Academy, an all-island body, and the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at Notre Dame's Keough School of Global Affairs.

ARINS:  Reform of Stormont, Options for Discussion

First instalment showcasing some of the darker and heavier cuts of my collection. Loads of late 90s UK tech house sprinkled with some exceptional recent releases.

after hours ZEROZERO

In the fifth episode of ‘My Identity’ Professor Colin Graham (Maynooth) is in conversation with Claire Mitchell. 

Claire Mitchell is a writer and researcher from Belfast. She writes about people and everyday politics in Northern/Ireland, using interviews, memoir, archives and storytelling.  Her latest book, The Ghost Limb: Alternative Protestants and the Spirit of 1798, was published in 2022. Clare was formerly a senior lecturer in Sociology at Queen’s University Belfast and holds a BA, PhD & post-doc in Politics from University College Dublin. In this episode, she discusses her identity and her work. 

This is episode 5 of the My Identity podcast series hosted by Professor Colin Graham, Maynooth. In this series, Colin is in conversation with a range of people whose ideas, work and life experiences shed light on the topic of identity on the Island of Ireland. My Identity is part of the ARINS project.

This is episode 5 of the My Identity podcast series hosted by Professor Colin Graham, Maynooth. In this series, Colin is in conversation with a range of people whose ideas, work and life experiences shed light on the topic of identity on the Island of Ireland. My Identity is part of the ARINS project.  

Colin Graham is Professor English and formerly Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Maynooth University. His books include Northern Ireland: Thirty Years of Photography, Deconstructing Ireland and Ideologies of Epic. He was editor of The Irish Review from 2004 to 2020. During the Brexit negotiations he created the Twitter account @borderirish and wrote the book I am the Border, so I am, published by HarperCollins. 

ARINS: Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South brings together experts to provide evidence-based research and analysis on the most significant questions of policy and public debate facing the island of Ireland, north and south. The project publishes, facilitates and disseminates research on the challenges and opportunities presented to the island in a post-Brexit context, with the intention of contributing to an informed public discourse. More information can be found at www.arinsproject.com 

ARINS is a joint project of The Royal Irish Academy, an all-island body, and the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at Notre Dame's Keough School of Global Affairs. 

My Identity is hosted by Professor Colin Graham. 

Podcast management and production by Dr Susie Deedigan (University of Notre Dame). Audio design and editing by Conor Patterson and Morgan Blain-Crehan, The Spinner’s Mill, Belfast.

ARINS My Identity: Episode 5 with Claire Mitchell

As part of Biodiversity Week 2025, Dr Carla Mateus delivered a lunchtime lecture in the Royal Irish Academy on the topic of historical meteorological records held in the Academy Library's archive collections. 

Historical meteorological observations are crucial to better assess past climate variability and trends and the frequency, intensity, duration, and distribution of extreme weather events, and to put the current climate change into historical context. The records preserved in the archives of the Royal Irish Academy date from the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century and are of cultural and scientific importance. Many of the records were sent to the Academy by diligent observers interested in science and the arts, others were collated in response to an Academy initiative to organise a system of meteorological observations in Ireland in the period 1850-52.

This lecture highlights the role of the Royal Irish Academy as a curator of historical meteorological records across the Island of Ireland, as a publisher of diverse papers on instrumentation and meteorological observations, and as a learned body which encouraged a standardised approach for reliable weather recording.

The meteorological records include observations of air temperature, maximum and minimum air temperatures, wet bulb, sea temperature, rainfall, pressure, wind direction and force, cloud cover and weather remarks. Many well-known historical extreme weather events are covered by instrumental observations and documentary weather remarks, such as storms and air temperature extremes.

Historical early meteorological observations from Ireland in the archives of the RIA (1783-1854)

This is episode 45 of a podcast series that provides evidence-based research and analysis on the most significant questions of policy and public debate facing the island of Ireland, north and south. 

Host Rory Montgomery, MRIA, talks to authors of articles on topics such as cross border health co-operation; the need to regulate social media in referendums, education, cultural affairs and constitutional questions and the imperative for good data and the need to carry out impartial research. 

ARINS: Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South brings together experts to provide evidence-based research and analysis on the most significant questions of policy and public debate facing the island of Ireland, north and south. The project publishes, facilitates and disseminates research on the challenges and opportunities presented to the island in a post-Brexit context, with the intention of contributing to an informed public discourse. More information can be found at www.arinsproject.com 

 
ARINS is a joint project of The Royal Irish Academy, an all-island body, and the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at Notre Dame's Keough School of Global Affairs.

ARINS podcast 45: European Perceptions of Scottish Independence Before and After Brexit

Panel discussion, chaired by Catriona Crowe with Margaret O’Callaghan, Margaret MacCurtain and author Lucy McDiarmid. 

The discussion is followed by the launch of At home in the revolution - what women said and did in 1916. 

At Home in the Revolution as a publication derives its material from women’s own accounts of the Easter Rising, interpreted broadly to include also the Howth gun-running and events that took place over the summer of 1916 in Ireland. These eye-witness narratives -- diaries, memoirs, letters, autobiographies, and official witness statements -- were written by nationalists and unionists, Catholics and Protestants, women who felt completely at home in the garrisons, cooking for the men and treating their wounds, and women who stayed at home during the Rising. The book’s focus is on the kind of episode usually ignored by traditional historians: cooking with bayonets, arguing with priests, resisting sexual harassment, soothing a female prostitute, doing sixteen-hand reels in Kilmainham Gaol, or disagreeing with Prime Minister Asquith about the effect of the Rising on Dublin’s architecture. The women’s ‘small behaviours’, to use Erving Goffman’s term, reveal social change in process, not the official history of manifestoes and legislation, but the unofficial history of access to a door or a leap through a window; they show how issues of gender were negotiated at a time of revolution.

Speakers: 
-Mary E. Daly, President of the Royal Irish Academy 
-Lucy McDiarmid, Marie Frazee-Baldassarre Professor of English 
-Catriona Crowe MRIA, National Archives of Ireland 
-Dr Margaret O'Callaghan, Queen's University Belfast 
-Dr Margaret Mac Curtain, historian

At home in the revolution - Panel discussion and book launch

The Royal Irish Academy/Acadamh Ríoga na hEireann is an all-Ireland, independent, academic body that promotes study and excellence in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. It is the principal learned society in Ireland and has over 420 members who are elected in recognition of their academic achievements.

The Royal Irish Academy, the academy for the sciences and humanities for the whole of Ireland will vigorously promote excellence in scholarship, recognise achievements in learning, direct research programmes and undertake its own research projects, particularly in areas relating to Ireland and its heritage.

At home in the revolution - Panel discussion and book launch

The Royal Irish Academy

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