Medieval Irish Folklore (Radio Edit)

You're Dead to Me

BBC

Comedy, History

4.7 • 11.8K Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2026

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this special live episode, recorded at the 2023 Hay Festival, Greg Jenner is joined by Dr Gillian Kenny and comedian Seán Burke to learn about medieval Irish folklore.

Greg and his guests discuss the lore and stories from Gaelic Irish culture. Gaelic culture remained the dominant set of cultural and societal beliefs on the island of Ireland well into the 17th century until it was destroyed by a succession of English invasions.

But what were these beliefs and how did the Christianisation of Ireland from the 5th century onwards amalgamate pre-Christian stories into it?

From fairy darts to banshees, through some unusual ways of warding off the evil eye, this is a jovial jaunt across some ancient myths and legends.

This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.

Research by Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow Written by Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner Produced by Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner Assistant Producer: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow Project Management: Isla Matthews Audio Producer: Steve Hankey

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
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1:02.1	Hello, and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously.
1:05.9	My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster.
1:12.9	And that hum of excitement you can hear in the air is because we're coming to you live from the Hay Literary Festival in Wales.
1:14.1	Say hello, audience.
1:27.9	So today we are meandering back to medieval Ireland to learn all about Irish magic.
	...

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