We were really pleased to have been featured in the Irish Times this week, with an article by Festival co-founder Simon Kingston (might be behind a pay wall). Although we're in the midst of Festival planning - only 3 weeks to go - we've done a round up of some interesting historically-connected reads and listens for you below. Hope to see you in West Cork for the Festival!

The podcast Irish Imperial Lives on RTE1 focused on the 4,000 girls sent from Irish workhouses to Australia in 1848-50 as part of a scheme to populate the colony. This caught our attention as we have recently done an event with the Australian embassy in Dublin looking at Irish-Australian history, but also because 110 of the girls were from Skibbereen in West Cork. A sculpture to commemorate them was unveiled in Skibbereen in 2018. And a blog post from the excellent DC Tours, who do historical tours of Belfast (which we can highly recommend), focused on the Belfast Union Workhouse at the same time, during the Famine.

RTE Brainstorm featured an article on the importance of recording field names and local placenames in Westmeath. This chimed with some of the trips run by Gormú here in West Cork, with whom we are collaborating on a series of Festival Field Trips again this year. Find out more on our programme page.

Festival contributor (and former ambassador to the US) Dan Mulhall wrote in the Irish Post recent about George Russell. Known by his pen-name AE, Russell was a poet, painter and political commentator. Dan Mulhall spoke about AE at our 2017 Festival and the talk can be heard here.

In the light of Donald Trump confirming his Vice Presidential candidate as JD Vance, who is of Scots-Irish heritage, this intriguing article from Mary M Burke in the Independent on the politics of the Irish diaspora in the US. Not sure we agreed with it, but worth a read.

Finally, some very recent history (bordering on current affairs) - an interview with Arlene Foster, former First Minister of Northern Ireland. It's part of the excellent BBC Radio Reflections series - well worth a listen.