A fantastic start to the Festival today, which was officially launched by the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin.

We had two panel discussions, one chaired by Iain Dale who has recently edited a collection of profiles of the Taoisigh and interviewed a panel of three of the contributors to that book (with the current Taoiseach listening in!) They were Gary Murphy, on Charles Haughey, Deirdre Foley, on Liam Cosgrave and Stephen Collins on Jack Lynch.

There was then a discussion on 'The Changing Boundaries of Warfare, Security, and Sovereignty' with Paddy McGuinness and Professor Ben Tonra reflecting on Irish defence and security policy in context, both historical and contemporary, with Professor Gail McElroy as chair.