Here's our weekly round up of interesting historical content - lots to read and listen to. There won't be a round up next weekend as on Saturday 8 August we have here on our website our digital (mini) Festival with specially recorded talks and discussions. Find out more here.

In the Irish Times, historian and archivist Catriona Crowe wrote about the power of archives. She used the examples of the archives of the Irish industrial school system and the records of the adoption of Irish children in the United States from mother and baby homes to illustrate how crucial it is to preserve, properly catalogue and make these records available.

Three Castle Burning is a regular podcast that looks at aspects of Dublin's social history and this podcast 'From the Liberties to Lagos: Guinness and Nigeria' tells the story of the internationalisation of Guinness.  It links to Ireland & Empire, a theme we are touching on in our 2020 digital Festival and hope to explore further in 2021.

Novelist Kathleen MacMahon wrote a wonderful article in the Guardian last week on so-called "quiet" Irish women writers. Her grandmother, Mary Lavin, was one of the first women to feature in a poster of Ireland's great writers. Having read all her grandmother's work, MacMahon concludes that ".. if Ireland found these subjects quiet, Ireland needed its hearing adjusted."

Another literary feature, this one in the Irish Times, was entitled 'Mobilise the poets'. John Gibney described the origins of Irish cultural diplomacy - the quote comes from Arthur Griffith writing from prison in 1919.

And finally, a really interesting opinion piece by Dr Gillian O'Brien from Liverpool John Moores University on RTE Brainstorm about government policy towards culture and heritage.