What Were We Like

Who owns The Tricolour? Over the last year it has appeared on polls and lampposts all over Ireland – put there by anti-immigration campaigners, causing fights and debates all over the country. This happened in Catriona’s neighbourhood, and when she and other residents brought this to the attention of the Council, they were told officials were too afraid to take them down. In this episode, Diarmaid and Catriona trace the early origins of the flag, including the key moment when the dashing Thomas Francis Meagher was given a prototype of the Irish Tricolour by three mysterious women in revolutionary France.
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June 1984, and Ronald Reagan, the controversial, transformative Republican President of the United States visits Ireland. Opposition is widespread, and an unexpected alliance of lefties and priests man the barricades, with Reagan’s foreign policies the focus of their anger. Diarmaid and Catriona unearth all kinds of paddy-whackery, with the Americans asking the Irish Government if the Pope would say mass (lol), British journalists paying people in Ballyporeen to bring a donkey into a pub and feed it Guinness, and one man is arrested for throwing a tomato. Catriona herself was one of the protesters. “We thought he was the devil – little did we know what was coming down the tracks.”
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General election campaigns in the early years of the State were utterly vicious, with fresh cow dung, sticks, and nasty insults being hurled about as Fianna Fáil attempted to wrest power from the pro-Treaty Cumann na nGaedheal. Despite the shouts of “traitor”, “murderer” and “Spanish bastard” on the campaign trail, Dev and the Soldiers of Destiny take power for the first time in 1932. The Brits are not happy – Winston Churchill famously refers to Dev as the “devil”. But he assumes control of Ireland, dismantles the Treaty, introduces a new Constitution – yet his ultimate goal of uniting Ireland is stymied by the outbreak of World War Two.

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Having won instant success in their first election, the Soldiers Of Destiny are faced with an intractable dilemma – how to take their Dáil seats while also swearing a mandatory oath to the hated King of England. Cunning old Dev solves this by getting a letter from a friendly bishop, which he claims allows his TDs to take the oath without actually meaning it. They enter Leinster House in farcical and dramatic fashion in 1927. But Sean “No Craic” Lemass puts a major downer on things by banning his deputies from drinking in the Dáil bar. Diarmaid and Catriona have all the details from this momentous time for Irish politics.

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Since the crash, Fianna Fáil has become 'just another political party'. But for nearly a century it was THE leading force in Irish politics, synonymous with power, influence and flash suits; and dominated by outsized personalities like Pee Flynn, Charlie Haughey and Bertie Ahern. In this series, From the Civil War to the Crash, marking the centenary of Fianna Fáil, Diarmaid and Catriona trace how The Soldiers Of Destiny built up one of the most successful election machines in the world, and how it fell apart. Part 1 looks at its foundation, when a gang of idealistic young men lead by Eamon De Valera formed the party out of the ashes of the Civil War.
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