Ireland
12 episodes
Bishop Berkeley
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the philosopher George Berkeley, one of the most significant thinkers of the 18th century.
20 March 2014
Featuring: Peter Millican, Tom Stoneham, Michela Massimi
PhilosophyScholars of Trinity College Dublin17th-century Anglo-Irish people18th-century Irish philosophers18th-century Irish writersEmpiricistsAlumni of Trinity College DublinIdealistsPeople educated at Kilkenny College18th-century Anglican theologiansAcademics of Trinity College DublinEnlightenment philosophers18th-century Anglo-Irish people, 18th-century Irish male writers17th-century Anglican theologiansEpistemologistsAnglican philosophersHistory of calculusPhilosophers of science17th century18th centuryIrelandMathematicsTheologyEdmund Burke
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work of the philosopher, politician and writer Edmund Burke, whose views on revolution in America and France were hugely influential.
3 June 2010
Featuring: Karen O'Brien, Richard Bourke, John Keane
Philosophy18th-century Irish philosophers18th-century Irish writersPhilosophers of cultureIrish Freemasons, Irish libertarians, Irish people of English descentBritish MPs 1774–1780Rectors of the University of GlasgowBritish MPs 1784–1790, British MPs 1790–1796Virtue ethicistsPhilosophers of religionCritics of deismEnglish libertariansHistorians of the French RevolutionAlumni of Trinity College Dublin18th-century philosophersEnglish people of Irish descentPhilosophers of education18th-century English philosophersPhilosophers of art18th-century English male writersStreathamitesPolitical philosophersClassical liberalismPhilosophers of historyBritish MPs 1780–1784, Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituenciesWriters from Dublin (city)18th-century English writersBritish political philosophersIrish AnglicansConservatismPhilosophers of economicsSocial philosophersNatural law ethicists18th-century Anglo-Irish people, 18th-century Irish male writersAnglican philosophers18th centuryEconomicsFranceIrelandJoyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce's groundbreaking 1916 novel about growing up in Catholic Ireland.
26 November 2009
Featuring: Roy Foster, Katherine Mullin, Jeri Johnson
CultureIrish satirists20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights, 20th-century Irish male writers, 20th-century Irish poetsModernist writersTrope theoristsHumor researchersIrish expatriates in FranceIrish male dramatists and playwrightsMetaphor theoristsDeaths from ulcersIrish male novelistsSurrealist writersEyepatch wearersModernism20th-century letter writersIrony theorists20th-century Irish novelists, 20th-century Irish short story writers, Irish male short story writersIrish male poetsLiterary theorists20th centuryIrelandOliver Goldsmith
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of She Stoops to Conquer, The Vicar of Wakefield and The Deserted Village who was a great populariser of science and history in his time.
20 February 2025
Featuring: David O’Shaughnessy, Judith Hawley, Michael Griffin
CultureAlumni of Trinity College DublinStreathamitesIrish AnglicansIrish male dramatists and playwrightsAlumni of the University of Edinburgh18th-century Anglo-Irish people, 18th-century Irish male writersIrish male novelists18th-century Irish novelists, 18th-century Irish poetsIrish essayistsIrish male poets18th centuryIrelandOscar Wilde
Melvyn Bragg discusses Oscar Wilde, the Aesthetes and his literary legacy. Was Wilde a reactionary - the last of the romantics - or was he the midwife to modernism?
6 December 2001
Featuring: Valentine Cunningham, Regenia Gagnier, Neil Sammells
Bisexual poetsIrish Freemasons, Irish libertarians, Irish people of English descentConversationalistsIrish male dramatists and playwrightsBisexual novelistsFreemasons of the United Grand Lodge of EnglandVictorian poetsIrish writers in French, People educated at Portora Royal SchoolAlumni of Trinity College DublinBisexual journalistsInfectious disease deaths in FranceIrish male novelistsFin de siècleVictorian novelistsConverts to Roman Catholicism from AnglicanismScholars of Trinity College DublinLGBTQ AnglicansIrish expatriates in FranceBurials at Père Lachaise CemeteryAlumni of Magdalen College, OxfordWriters from Dublin (city)People convicted for homosexuality in the United Kingdom, People who have received posthumous pardonsBisexual male writers19th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights, 19th-century Irish poets, Symbolist dramatists and playwrightsLibertarian socialistsLGBTQ Roman CatholicsAnglo-Irish artists, Irish fantasy writersAphoristsWriters of Gothic fictionIrish male poets19th centuryIrelandMedicineRobert Boyle
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of Robert Boyle, a pioneering scientist and one of the first Fellows of the Royal Society.
12 June 2014
Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Michael Hunter, Anna Marie Roos
Science17th-century Anglo-Irish peopleIndependent scientistsFluid dynamicistsEnglish alchemistsIrish AnglicansDiscoverers of chemical elementsPeople educated at Eton College17th-century English male writers17th-century English writersWriters about religion and science17th-century English philosophersEnglish physicistsPhilosophers of science17th centuryIrelandSamuel Beckett
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of the author of Waiting for Godot, who lived in Paris and wrote in French as he found that more difficult than writing in English
17 January 2019
Featuring: Steven Connor, Laura Salisbury, Mark Nixon
CultureIrish male dramatists and playwrightsIrish Nobel laureates, Irish modernist poetsFormer Anglicans20th-century Irish novelists, 20th-century Irish short story writers, Irish male short story writersPeople with Parkinson's diseasePhilosophers of pessimismIrish writers in French, People educated at Portora Royal SchoolAlumni of Trinity College DublinIrish male novelistsIrish essayistsScholars of Trinity College DublinModernist writersBurials at Montparnasse CemeteryIrish expatriates in FranceAcademics of Trinity College DublinAnti-natalistsAbsurdist writersFrench Resistance membersNobel laureates in LiteratureFellows of the American Academy of Arts and SciencesWriters from Dublin (city)20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights, 20th-century Irish male writers, 20th-century Irish poetsPrix Italia winners20th-century essayistsExistentialists20th centuryIrelandMedicineSwift's A Modest Proposal
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jonathan Swift's satirical 1729 pamphlet A Modest Proposal, which reveals much about attitudes to the Irish and the poor in 18th-Century Britain.
29 January 2009
Featuring: John Mullan, Judith Hawley, Ian McBride
CulturePeople educated at Kilkenny College18th-century Irish writersEnglish fantasy writersNeoclassical writersEnglish male novelistsAlumni of Hart Hall, OxfordEnglish pamphleteersAlumni of Trinity College DublinEnglish AnglicansEnglish male poetsIrish satiristsEnglish short story writersEnglish male short story writers18th-century Irish novelists, 18th-century Irish poetsAnglican writers18th-century English novelists17th-century Anglo-Irish peopleEnglish satiristsJonathan SwiftEnglish political writers18th-century Anglo-Irish people, 18th-century Irish male writers18th-century pseudonymous writersAnglo-Irish artists, Irish fantasy writersIrish male poets17th century18th centuryIrelandThe Great Irish Famine
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why so many were vulnerable to the failure of the potato crops in Ireland in the 1840s, what relief was given and why so many died or left.
4 April 2019
Featuring: Cormac O'Grada, Niamh Gallagher, Enda Delaney
The Irish Rebellion of 1798
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the uprising in 1798 led by the United Irishmen, who were inspired by American and French revolutions, and the impact this had across Ireland.
8 December 2022
Featuring: Ian McBride, Catriona Kennedy, Liam Chambers
Yeats and Irish Politics
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poet W.B. Yeats and Irish politics from the suspension of home rule to the division of Ireland.
17 April 2008
Featuring: Roy Foster, Fran Brearton, Warwick Gould
CultureFellows of the Royal Society of Literature19th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights, 19th-century Irish poets, Symbolist dramatists and playwrightsAnglican poetsAnthologists20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights, 20th-century Irish male writers, 20th-century Irish poetsModernist theatreIrish AnglicansFormalist poetsIrish expatriates in FranceIrish male dramatists and playwrightsIrish Nobel laureates, Irish modernist poetsAnglo-Irish artists, Irish fantasy writersSonneteersNobel laureates in LiteratureVictorian writersIrish male poetsAbbey Theatre, Alumni of the National College of Art and Design, Burials in the Republic of Ireland, Butler Yeats family, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Independent members of Seanad Éireann, Irish Dominion League, Irish folklorists, Irish occult writers, Irish occultists, Members of the 1922 Seanad, Members of the 1925 Seanad, Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, People educated at The High School, Dublin, People from Sandymount, People from West Kensington, Protestant Irish nationalists, Symbolist poets, W. B. Yeats, William Blake scholars19th century20th centuryIrelandYeats and Mysticism
Melvyn Bragg discusses the life and beliefs of the Irish Poet W B Yeats and explores how a passion for magic and mysticism served and stood alongside his poetry.
31 January 2002
Featuring: Roy Foster, Warwick Gould, Brenda Maddox
ReligionFellows of the Royal Society of Literature19th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights, 19th-century Irish poets, Symbolist dramatists and playwrightsAnglican poetsAnthologists20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights, 20th-century Irish male writers, 20th-century Irish poetsModernist theatreIrish AnglicansFormalist poetsIrish expatriates in FranceIrish male dramatists and playwrightsIrish Nobel laureates, Irish modernist poetsAnglo-Irish artists, Irish fantasy writersSonneteersNobel laureates in LiteratureVictorian writersIrish male poetsAbbey Theatre, Alumni of the National College of Art and Design, Burials in the Republic of Ireland, Butler Yeats family, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Independent members of Seanad Éireann, Irish Dominion League, Irish folklorists, Irish occult writers, Irish occultists, Members of the 1922 Seanad, Members of the 1925 Seanad, Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, People educated at The High School, Dublin, People from Sandymount, People from West Kensington, Protestant Irish nationalists, Symbolist poets, W. B. Yeats, William Blake scholars19th century20th centuryIreland
