Another selection of interesting articles and films on historical themes:

The RTE website carried this article recently by Sean O' Duibhir on Rita Childers, who he says could have become Ireland's first female president in 1974, but for a combination of civil war politics and poor political choreography.

In the Irish Times on Thursday was an interesting article on food culture in Ireland highlighting a new research project on food in Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries. The lead researcher is Dr Susan Flavin, Associate Professor of Early Modern History at Trinity, who spoke at our 2017 Festival.  You can hear Susan's talk here.

Also in the Irish Times earlier in the week, this on links between Ireland and South Africa.

An intriguing piece in The Guardian on architecture and urban planning after the pandemic. The writer, Oliver Wainwright, looks at some historical precedents including the idea that cholera shaped 19th century street layouts - the introduction of sewerage systems to help prevent cholera outbreaks required the roads above them to be wider and straighter.

The London Library has put some of its literary and historical events online - they can all be accessed here. Particular highlights for us included lawyer and writer Phillippe Sands talking about his book on Nazi fugitives, The Ratline. Further down on the page, Hallie Rubenhold speaks about her book The Five, which looks at the lives of five working class women in 19th century London, who had one thing in common - they were the victims of Jack the Ripper. One of them, Mary Jane Kelly, was Irish.