{"podcast":{"title":"Irish History Podcast","slug":"irish-history-podcast-778168","podcast_index_feed_id":778168,"rss_url":"https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/9190bee0-95f3-400b-842d-3232974654ec","website_url":"https://www.irishhistorypodcast.ie/shop","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/619566332eacc3a360702518/show-cover.png","author":"Fin Dwyer","episode_count":465,"summary":"From the Norman Invasion to the War of Independence, the Great Famine to the Troubles, the Irish History Podcast takes you on a journey through the most fascinating stories in Ireland's past. Whether it’s the siege of Dublin in 1171 or gun battles in the 1920s, the podcast vividly recreates a sense of time and place. Each episode is meticulously researched, creating character-driven narratives that are engaging and accessible for all. Since the first episode was released back in 2010, the podcast has covered scores of captivating stories. Major multi-part series have explored the Great Famine, the Norman Invasion, and Irish involvement in the Spanish Civil War. If you are looking for standalone episodes, there are lots of great interviews with leading Irish historians covering topics from medieval sex magic to Irish connections in the Jack the Ripper murders! Why not start with 'Three Days in July', an acclaimed mini-series from the summer of 2024. It explores the early years of the Troubles and the forgotten story of a young Londoner who was shot dead by the British Army in Belfast in 1970. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/irish-history-podcast-778168"},"episode":{"title":"The Irish Language: Why Ireland Became English-Speaking","slug":"the-irish-language-why-ireland-became-english-speaking","published_at":"2026-04-22T03:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/irish-history-podcast-778168/the-irish-language-why-ireland-became-english-speaking","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/irish-history-podcast-778168","url":"https://shows.acast.com/irishhistory/episodes/the-irish-language-why-ireland-became-english-speaking","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/acast/s/irishhistory/e/69e778641e1e812364d91590/media.mp3","summary":"How did Ireland become an English-speaking country? Was it colonialism, the Great Hunger, the education system or emigration that drove the shift from Irish to English? In this episode, I am joined by Dr Nicholas Wolf to explore one of the biggest questions in Irish history: how Irish, once the dominant language of the island, lost ground over the centuries.  Nicholas explains how this is a multifaceted story, beginning in the wars of the seventeenth century but continuing through the Great Famine of the 1840s and beyond. While he explores the impact conquest, plantation and emigration, Nicholas also explains why English became so necessary in everyday life in Ireland. About Nicholas Wolf Nicholas Wolf is a historian and librarian at New York University, where he is co-head of NYU Library’s Data Services department and associate director of research and publishing initiatives at Glucksman Ireland House. He is the author of  An Irish-Speaking Island  (2014), a social and cultural history of Ireland’s Irish-language community in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that was awarded the Michael J. Durkan Prize for Books on Language and Culture and the Donald Murphy Prize for Distinguished First Books. His research into the social and cultural history of the Irish language, Irish Catholicism, and Ireland’s population history has received grants and fellowships from the Gardiner Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Newberry Library, and Newman College at the University of Melbourne. Get  An Irish-Speaking Island  (2014)  https://uwpress.wisc.edu/Books/A/An-Irish-Speaking-Island Nicholas’s website:  https://nmwolf.net LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-wolf-204a24335 Check out this digitisation pro…","meta_description":"How did Ireland become an English-speaking country? Was it colonialism, the Great Hunger, the education system or emigration that drove the shift from Iri…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2149,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/irish-history-podcast-778168/episodes/the-irish-language-why-ireland-became-english-speaking/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/irish-history-podcast-778168/the-irish-language-why-ireland-became-english-speaking.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}