Documentary on One Podcast
Episodes
A Knock On The Door
15 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The story of the kidnapping of German industrialist Thomas Niedermayer by the IRA in the 1970s faded from public memory – but affected one family fo...
Dads, Lads & Nicole
08 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Would you go along at 60mph, your backside millimetres from the road surface? This 13-year old girl would: Nicole aims to be a Formula 1 driver; but f...
The Orphans That Never Were
08 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
On February 23rd 1943, a fire in St Joseph's industrial school in Cavan Town, an orphanage run by an enclosed order nuns caught fire. 35 orphans and o...
Blue Cross Van
07 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Every Thursday night in a Dublin suburb, people form a queue on an empty footpath. The only clue to what they're doing is the line of pets at their fe...
Our Man in Westminster
01 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Enter the world of parliamentary plots, rumours and conspiracy. Paul Staines - aka Guido Fawkes - is the number 1 political blogger in the British Isl...
Agape
31 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Every year, on the last Sunday in June, hundreds of people head out to the deserted island of Inchagoill on Lough Corrib in Co. Galway. They go for a ...
DocArchive (2000): Lourdes
29 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The small town of Lourdes, located at the foothills of the Pyrenees has been the destination for Irish pilgrimages to Lourdes for decades. Since the A...
Oiled: A Portrait of Henrietta
25 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
She was muse to artists like Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud, she was known as the 'Queen of Soho', she toured with Marianne Faithfull and she lived fo...
Mag
24 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Mag lived in Wexford in the 1990s. She started to get pains in her stomach. She was assured she was not seriously ill and continued to work - includin...
DocArchive (1998): Remembering Michael
22 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Remembering one of Ireland's most famous actors Alfred Willmore also known as Micheál MacLiammóir. This dramatist, impresario, writer, poet and pain...
The Voices of Vern Nash
18 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
A multi award winning portrait of an elderly jazz man and his long battle with schizophrenia. Vern has multiple voices that speak to him - and he talk...
The Leisure Centre
17 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
January is a busy time for gyms and leisure centres but, who are the regulars? Portlaoise Leisure Centre has a stream of people through it beginning w...
Dee
11 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The remarkable story from 2007 of an Irish nurse who emigrated to America and ended up living on the streets there. She eventually regained control of...
Waiting at the Railings II
04 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Before Christmas there was the excitment of them coming home - choirs, banners and cheering in the emigrants' airport arrivals. In January, it's a ver...
"Ganbatte!"
01 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
An Irishman moves to Japan and learns about the place and its people from other Irish already there: a fake Catholic priest, a teacher on TV and a Ros...
Waiting At The Railings
29 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Christmas, Arrivals Dublin Airport. Who is waiting at the railings for returned emigrants? The woman who's hiding from her family, the mother who hasn...
Little Molly O'Neill
28 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
1922, Alice O'Neill and seven of her children are killed by a suspicious fire in their home. One child survives, 8yr old 'Little Molly'. Now, 90 years...
On A Christmas Morning
25 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
A woman is rushed to a maternity hospital...in the same hospital, another woman dreamt she'd hold a baby girl, called Lili....across the city a family...
The Joy At Christmas
21 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In December 2011, a prisoner in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin recorded the sound of the place during the Christmas period, the meals, Mass, present-making a...
Dublin City Council Messiah
20 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
What links Handel's 'Messiah' and Dublin City Council. Well, there are lots of real links (it was written and first performed in Dublin, the annual op...
Take No More
14 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
The extraordinary and desperate story of a standoff between teachers, subcontractors and parents. In September 2012, after 160yrs of waiting, Kilfinan...
Talking Statue?
13 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Louis Wilson makes money standing still...very still. He's a 'human statue' in Dublin. He dresses up as writers James Joyce and Patrick Kavanagh and s...
Superdog
07 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Eoghan Clonan is ten and like many children of his age, he really wants a dog but when Eoghan gets his new pet, it's not your usual four legged mutt. ...
Nightscapes - Earth
06 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Based on the Four Elements: Earth, Wind, Fire & Water. A night-time earth soundscape from Northern Ireland - birth, taxis, death. Sounds from the Mate...
Kenmare Street
30 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
A story of famine, enforced emigration, New York tenements, politics and how a kid from the slums of the 'Five Points' got to name a street in Manhatt...
I Hate My Voice
29 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Rosaleen McDonagh has a speech impediment. It makes dealing with people difficult. She is often frustrated with others, sometimes blames herself but s...
Nightscapes - Water
22 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Soundscapes from Northern Irish night-times based on the classical elements - Air, Earth, Fire & Water. In this episode, Water: fishing, crying, saili...
The Many Sides of Steve Menarry
15 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Steve, from England, lives in Donegal. He took early retirement from one high-pressure job on health grounds. Then, gradually he got another job, and ...
Love Letters From The Front
09 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
To mark Armistice Day 2012 - A story of love and war - based on a collection of letters written by Eric Appleby from the trenchs of WW1 to Phyllis, an...
Wrong Way Across The Atlantic
08 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
They went against the flow. Tom McDonough and Ned Hammell immigrated to Ireland from the US in the early years of the last century - they left America...
No Place Like Home
02 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Life inside a 'wet' hostel - where residents are allowed bring in alcohol. Sundial House, run by DePaul Ireland, a long-term housing project in Dublin...
Shellacked!
01 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
It used to be that you could varnish your nails - now you can have 'shellac nails'. It's a hard protection that makes the colour last. However, it's a...
Daft Horror Movies
31 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Horror movies that are so bad, they're good. Erik Threlfall is an expert on horror movies, trashy ones: 'Bloody Moon', 'Pieces', 'Slumber Party Massac...
One World: Team Vietnam - Let the games begin!
29 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone got behind the Irish Paralympic team at the London 2012 games but we also had good reason to be cheering on another team - Vietnam. Irish Aid...
One World: Under the Mango Tree
26 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Kiliwa is a community living with the aftermath of violence and child abduction by Joseph Kony’s Lord's Resistance Army. Della Kilroy records storie...
German Soup Kitchen
25 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In the week in which Angela Merkel put the frighteners on Ireland, The Curious Ear visits a place in Germany you may imagine didn't exist: a soup kitc...
If Music Be the Food of Life, Play On
19 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Three professional musicians go on the wards of Ireland's hospitals to make live music part of the healthcare experience, but for one, a tragic accide...
Nightscapes - Fire
18 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Four classical elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Producer, Laura Haydon makes a series of programmes from Northern Ireland recording nighttime sou...
From Belief to Unbelief
12 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In September 1980, twenty young religious men entered a seminary in Milltown in Dublin. Thirty years later, three of them tell their personal stories ...
Marge: cleaning, cancer and Dolly Parton
11 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
A woman's unexpected gift from cancer: Marge was obsessed with cleaning and tidying. That all changed in 1985 when she discovered a lump on her breast...
Thank you for having me (but I think you've been had)
05 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
The brilliant hoaxer Campbell McComas and his 'career' as a bogus after-dinner speaker. He created almost 2,000 fake characters that shocked and tickl...
Picking No.11 at the Prince of Wales Hotel
04 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
What happens at a Gramaphone Society meeting? In 2007, the Athlone Gramaphone Society met every Tuesday evening. They played music for each other but ...
Míne Bean Uí Chribín - My Granny
28 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most provocative and colourful public figures to hit the Irish airwaves in recent decades, who died lately. Even those who clashed with her...
A Forty Second Street Story
27 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
The shortest podcast we've ever published. Yet, it's full of character, tension and sound - just the kind of thing you're looking for in every full-le...
Sex, flights and videotapes.
21 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
How Ambrose Gordon - a man who claims to have more girlfriends than Rod Stewart ran a profitable but illegal pirating business in London during the ei...
Donegal Football Sound Story
20 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Donegal are in the GAA All-Ireland Football Final. Sound recordist, Guillaume Beauron, who lives in the county, has made an homage in sound to Donegal...
Meggers
13 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
It could be an insult or a term of endearment; it actually means, 'horseshoe-pitching'. Terry Flanagan is at a league final in Knockananna, Co.Wicklow...
Fighting on all Fronts
07 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Last April 42yr old Cathy Durkin went public to campaign for access to the cancer drug Ipilimumab or 'Ippy' - This documentary tracks Cathy's life fro...
The Visit
06 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Joe Kearney has become lost in his own county, Kilkenny. Up and down lanes and by-roads looking for a man who, he's told, is a local legend, a fiddle ...
The Visit
06 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Joe Kearney has become lost in his own county, Kilkenny. Up and down lanes and by-roads looking for a man who, he's told, is a local legend, a fiddle ...
A Farther Education
31 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
On a small island off the west coast of Ireland, three 13 year old boys are preparing for one of the biggest moments of their lives - leaving home. In...
Stasi & Google Maps
30 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Eavesdropping on eavesdroppers in Berlin while being eavesdropped upon. (50 Kilometres of Files; Rimini Protokoll). A short audio documentary from RTE...
Seen from a Distance
24 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
All around Ireland houses lie deserted. Zoë Comyns brings her family back to the cottage they own in Leitrim, where they lived when she was born, to ...
Nightscapes - Air
23 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Four classical elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Producer, Laura Haydon makes a series of programmes from Northern Ireland recording nighttime sou...
A Love That Slowly Grows - Tehran to Thomond
17 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
A love story that begins in Iran, then moves to Pakistan, then to Canada - and finally to Limerick - A remarkable tale of love, revolution, persecutio...
Drop Into The Archives
16 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
There are over 1,000 documentaries on the RTE Radio Documentary On One site - Ronan Kelly drops in on a couple. (A short audio documentary from RTE Ra...
The Wednesday Club
10 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
What's it like to be old? Well, every Wednesday a group of Dublin pensioners meet to enjoy life. Music is supplied by an inhouse band (all aged 80yrs+...
Clonehenge
09 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Achill Island has a new tourist attraction: enormous, brutal and totally illegal. But it has fans: It's fun, healing, artistic, archaeologically-inter...
I Could Have Danced All Night
05 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
One of the last great characters of Co Clare, for decades Michael Tierney could be seen walking the streets of Ennis delivering newspapers on his dail...
Message in a Bottle
03 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
The extraordinary story of Frank and Breda, an American GI and an Irish milk maid who 'met' via a message in a bottle which Frank threw overboard. In ...
Knowth Trowellers
02 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In the summer of 1962, archaeological excavations began on the megalithic site of Knowth, Co.Meath. In the summer of 2012, there was a reunion there o...
Fire and Water
27 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
By day, Feargus Callagy fits fireplaces; by night this Sligo man dreams of diving deep underwater on a single breath of air – Feargus is a freediver...
Abandoned
26 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
The forgotten victims of Japan's Tsunami and nuclear disaster: pets. Irishwoman, Kate O'Callaghan works to reunite pets from the exclusion zone with t...
The Animal Gangs
20 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
The so-called 'Animal Gangs' from the 1930's and 40's are a staple of Dublin folklore. Based around inner city Dublin, some remember them as Robin Hoo...
Bring Your Grandparents To School Day
19 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Pupils from the tiny two-teacher school in Kilrusheighter, Sligo, brought their grandparents to school. They didn't have to bring books or lunch, just...
Blind Ambition
13 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
The story of North Clare man Senator Martin Conway who, with just 16 per cent sight, recently became the first visually impaired Oireachtas member in ...
A Silver Lining
13 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
As GAA clubs around Ireland are being devastated by emigration, the GAA abroad is thriving. A story about missing home and embracing new opportunities...
A Gathering
12 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Colette Clarke is obsessed with finding her grandfather, Paul, about whom there are many mysteries. She never finds him but, instead, finds a whole ne...
May the Best Queen Win.
06 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In March the last Alternative Miss Ireland beauty pageant was held. The biggest night in the Irish gay calendar was at an end. For this bizarre but fu...
Great Limerick Run
05 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Why do people run in charity races? Reporter, Alison Turner, ran in the Limerick Fun Run with her recorder and discovered that a lot of the reasons ar...
Layby of Dreams
28 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
During the Foot and Mouth crisis of 2001 you couldn't go to sporting or cultural events - you couldn't even go for a walk in the woods. But there was ...
Undoing The Folded Lie
22 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
South African freedom fighter Kader Asmal lived in exile in Dublin for nearly thirty years. Born in 1939, he was the driving force behind the Irish An...
Schools Out Forever
21 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
One teacher rural schools, nearly all gone. Mantua NS, Roscommon closes June 2012. Fealeview NS, Limerick closed 2010. Both had enthusiastic teachers ...
Border Beliefs
15 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
A Hare Krishna Island Community in Fermanagh, a Celtic Shaman in Leitrim, a Tibetan Buddhist Centre and Jehovah Witness Hall in Cavan - all found with...
Father's Day
14 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Bono, Imelda Kenny and Maeve Conran talk about their fathers: Bob, 'Gally' and Desmond; all since deceased. Bono slept beside his father as he died, I...
The Book Club
08 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
The story of one of Ireland's oldest book clubs. On the 3rd Tuesday every month, 12 women in rural mid Cork, meet to discuss a book - and they've been...
We wuz robbed!
07 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
The fable of the Irish 1965 World Cup campaign games against Spain. A story of brilliance, luck and dodgy decisions as told by Dermot Corrigan. (A sho...
Ber vs The Big Wheel
01 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Ber O'Sullivan wanted new kitchen presses. She bought a scratchcard. Three stars came up and she was drawn to go on Winning Streak. A good day out on ...
Wexford Huskies
31 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine being pulled by a dog across a truck-busy road. You don't have to imagine it, listen to this story from the RTE Radio Archives from 2003, in O...
Welcome to Holland
25 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
A story of hope, hard work, love and courage. In 2004, Grace Harper was born a healthy baby but within a year, her life, and the lives of her family c...
Joyce not Jedward
24 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Ged Walsh is a housepainter with an odd-looking van. At first it looks like it's covered in gobbledegook words but when you look closer you see it's a...
DocArchive (1980): Alcoholism
22 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
A collection of stories from people who have struggled with alcohol. They speak about the effects on family, physical ruin and how it leads to depress...
Elvis and the Most Miserable Woman in Meath
21 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Whatever the weather, the Irish summer starts with the first country fairs. Last week, the Dunderry Country Fair took place in Co. Meath. Animals, fai...
Letter to Ann
18 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In 1984, Irish women wrote letters to Ann. She was a schoolgirl who had died giving birth in Granard, Co. Longford. The letters were read The Gay Byrn...
Two Boxes
17 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
One story is unbelievable, the other poignant: Two boxes, belonging to an English lord, Morpeth and an Irish orphan, Barbara McDonough. Two different ...
DocArchive (1984): Will You Still Love Tomorrow? - The Assassination of JFK
15 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
November 22nd 1963 is a famous date in history. It marks the day that the 35th President of America, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas, Texa...
The Secret Chicken Society
10 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
All around Ireland people keep show chickens. And with each one comes a dream, to become a National Champion. Join us as we journey through the up's a...
Litter Pickers
10 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
The Celtic Tiger wasn't all about making money and looking after No.1. There were some Irish people who made it their business to go around picking up...
You Can Stick Your World Cup...
04 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Are the Irish still going on about Saipan 10 yrs later? Of course we are. Go down any street, into any pub and the whole Mick McCarthy vs Roy Keane ro...
Silly Scully
03 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
A spoof caller, "Mr. Scully" with Gay Byrne on holidaying at home and why Brazil's soccer team were 'ballerinos'. We think this may be from 1973, Pres...
Our Women's Hearts
27 Apr 2012
Contributed by Lukas
20 years after the release of Ireland's best selling home-grown album 'A Woman's Heart', Kiara Murphy explores the effect this one album had on three ...
Don't Hang Up: Nightlines
20 Apr 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In the deep night a public phone box rings. It could be Margate in England, the Florida Everglades or a tiny town in New Zealand. But who will pick up...
The Finer Points of W's
19 Apr 2012
Contributed by Lukas
A Whimsy of W's: shooting Weirs, Watching grass grow, Writing in stone, hanging out the Washing and Whistling. A series of random activities joined by...
Old School, New School
13 Apr 2012
Contributed by Lukas
15 retired teachers from Ireland embark on a trip of a lifetime, as they travel to West Africa to bring over 500 years of teaching experience into the...
Ballroom Belles
12 Apr 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Brian Gallagher's mother, Mona, loves dancing. Her heydey was during The Emergency. It was a time of clothes rationing and when a man could complain i...
Unsinkable - Ireland's Titanic Village
06 Apr 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Will it sink? 100 years after 14 villagers left to travel on The Titanic, Lahardane, Co. Mayo, gets ready to commemorate the disaster. (An Irish audio...
Dracula was Irish
05 Apr 2012
Contributed by Lukas
100 years after Bram Stoker's death, DIT graduate, Fergal Browne finds the Irish influences on the "Dracula" story. (A short Irish audio documentary f...
Checking in at the Central Hotel
30 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever thought about what goes on behind the scenes when you stay at a hotel? This is the story of a day in the life of one Irish hotel - the C...
Dan Joe's TV Station
29 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
50 years ago, Cork farmer, Dan Joe Kelleher, was helping RTE erect a TV transmitter on a nearby mountain. It gave him an idea: Why not erect his own t...
My Bar Mitzvah in the Holy Land
23 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Jerusalem was a scene of sadness this week. In poignant contrast, a joyful visit to the city: 13-year old Irish boy, Coby Baker, went there to make hi...