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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Hello, and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. 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. Say hello, audience!
So today we are meandering back to medieval Ireland to learn all about Irish magic. And I did an Irish there, didn't I? Sorry. To learn all about Irish magic and folklore in the Middle Ages. And to help me separate history from hocus pocus, I'm joined by two very special guests. In History Corner, she's a historian of medieval and early modern Ireland, specialising in women, gender and folklore.
She's returning to You're Dead to Me after her raucous run in our Gráinne o'Malley episode, Absolute Chaos It Was. It's Dr Gillian Kenny. Welcome back, Jill.
Thank you.
And in Comedy Corner, he's a comedian, writer and actor. You might have caught him on the hilarious sketch show No Worries. If not, The Michael Fry Show or Hollywood Hijack. And it's very likely you've seen him on Tintinette because he's one of those young people who does viral sketch comedy and he does them very well. It's Sean Burke.
Welcome, Sean.
Thank you. Thrilled to have you on, Sean. First-timer. Yeah, yeah, first timer. So I have to ask the contractually obliged question. Did you do medieval Irish history at school? I think.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of medieval Irish folklore?
It's a while ago now. Counterintuitively, we studied a lot of American history in school.
That's the Joe Biden curriculum.
Yeah, yeah. We're still so proud of JFK to this day. So what do you know?
We start, as ever, with the So What Do You Know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener and audience, hello, know about today's subject. And I'm guessing most of you don't know a huge amount about medieval Ireland, let alone medieval Irish magic and folklore. Perhaps you're conjuring up vague images of banshees frolicking around forests.
Pop culture is not exactly bursting with references to Irish magic. You can get glimpses in films like Hellboy 2. Not everyone's fave, I guess. It's got characters there that are based on the mythological race called the Tuatha Dé Danann. You've got sinister fairies in Jonathan Strange, Mr Norrell. Anyone seen Excalibur, Arthuriana? That's got a sort of Irish-y vibe to it.
And you've got countless cultural references in films and books and TV to fairies and elves and other worlds. But what else do we need to know? Right, Dr Jill, let's start with the basics. What is Ireland? No, come on, we can do better than that.
No pressure. How long have you got?
How are we defining medieval Ireland? Because you as a historian go longer into the medieval period than I do as a historian in the medieval period.
So presumably everyone knows where Ireland is. We just start with that one. It's just over to the left, the one that looks like a teddy bear. So it does go a little bit longer. It goes into the 16th and 17th centuries because Gaelic Ireland, which was the predominant culture on the island, spread into there. It was sadly destroyed in the 16th and 17th centuries, but we won't talk about that today.
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Chapter 3: How did Christianity influence pre-Christian Irish beliefs?
But fierce. Small but aggressive.
LAUGHTER
You hear a lot about fairy forts.
Like most Irish people.
Yeah. Sorry, are we not describing Irish people?
Yeah, yeah. The idea of a fairy, I mean, Hollywood has taken it and made it adorable and cute and small and it's sort of very princessy, but we're not talking that here in medieval Ireland, are we? Fairies are scary. You don't want to mess.
They are beings who are immune to our charm. They can be very malevolent. They can love us. They live alongside us in the invisible realm. So the fairy, though, doesn't even begin to describe them. Fairy is a later English name for them. Their original name is the Aes Si, and that means people of the Hollow Hills. In Irish tradition, you never call them by their name.
because you don't want to get their attention. They provide a very handy mechanism within Gaelic medieval Ireland for explaining bad stuff. So if someone died, unfortunately, if you had problems with livestock, if you had crop failures, That's the fairies. You've annoyed the fairies.
Of course, you've got famous fairies, like the Banshee, for example, who predicted people's deaths by crying out and screeching at them or their loved ones. So the thing about the Banshee is, if you hear it, you're not going to die, but someone you know is. Just putting that out there.
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