You'll often hear it said that Ireland punches above its waist in terms of the amount of

poets and writers it produces. Now does it truth to that?

Names like W.B. Yates, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett are just some of the internationally

recognized Irish writers who have stood the test of time.

However, giving credit to Irish society for producing these greats isn't necessarily accurate,

or at least it distorts the relationship many of these writers had with Ireland.

Indeed many Irish writers were marginalised in the Ireland they grew up in, particularly those who lived through the decades after independence.

If they cast a critical eye over life on the island or were from religious minorities,

they found themselves considered outsiders and marginalized. Now this was particularly the case in the 1930s.

That was a strange decade in Ireland. The island seemed out of kilter with broader global events.

Around the world it was a time of dramatic history.

It witnessed growing tensions between fascism and anti-fascism which would lead to the Spanish

Civil War and then ultimately the Second World War. But life in Ireland was somewhat different.

The dramatic events of the revolutionary era. But life in Ireland was somewhat different.

The dramatic events of the revolutionary era were firmly in the rear view, and the optimism

and hope it had engendered had long faded.

By the 30s, a narrow understanding of Irish identity synonymous with Catholicism and political conservatism had taken hold.

Needless to say, this alienated many Irish people, and while a new generation of writers did emerge,

many would have to leave Ireland to escape poverty, but also an increasingly stifling cultural atmosphere. This podcast explores their stories by looking

at what life in Ireland in the 30s was like and then following the lives of some of these writers

into exile.

It also looks at what life in London was like, where many of these writers would choose to live,

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