NEW Season 3, Waterways through Time with historian, Turtle Bunbury
Turtle Bunbury Histories
In the NEW SEASON 3 of Waterways through Time, historian Turtle Bunbury further explores the rich history of Ireland’s waterways. With an instinct for quirky de...
Turtle is joined by Ultan Cowley who shares his insights into the daily lives, motivations and semi-mythological reputations of the Irish navvies who built the canals, and how their successors built Britain’s railways, motorways and the Channel Tunnel.
--------
36:19
NEW Episode 7, Season 3, The Royal Canal
Started on the eve of the French Revolution, the Royal Canal is Ireland’s longest manmade waterway running for 145 km (90 miles) from Dublin to the River Shannon. Here Turtle tells the colourful story of its founders Long John Binns and William Cope, and looks at why it took almost 30 years to finish the project.
--------
36:23
NEW Episode 6, Season 3: 30 Year Anniversary of the Shannon-Erne Waterway/
It is now 30 yrs since the completion of the Shannon-Erne waterway, linking the Shannon and Erne river systems. It was a pioneering project in many ways, not least as one of the first major collaborative efforts between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Turtle talks with renowned engineer Joe Gillespie, the main OPW representative on the project, for a reflection on how the transformational waterway came about.
--------
32:45
NEW Episode 5, Season 3: Writers on the Erne
Irish language novelist and historian Séamas Mac Annaidh discusses his childhood on the island of Enniskillen, as well as the monks who compiled the Annals of Ulster on Belle Isle, the school where Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett studied, and a poem about American GIs playing baseball amid the ruins of Devinish Island.
--------
35:41
NEW Episode 2, S3 Genesis
Featuring cameos by James Joyce’s canal-building forbear and Black Tom Wentworth, we learn how the desire to drain and improve Ireland’s boglands led the industrious Georgians to slowly (very slowly) construct some of the island’s earliest canals and waterways.
About NEW Season 3, Waterways through Time with historian, Turtle Bunbury
In the NEW SEASON 3 of Waterways through Time, historian Turtle Bunbury further explores the rich history of Ireland’s waterways. With an instinct for quirky details, Turtle turns his attention to the creation of the Grand Canal and the Royal Canal, and how they affected the evolution of the Shannon and Barrow River systems. Full of fascinating and lesser-known facts, this Season includes interviews with Gwen Wilkinson, who named her homemade boat ‘Minnot’ before setting out on her 400 km journey; Patsy Cummins, retired lockkeeper of the Grand Canal’s 29th lock; Joe Gillespie on the rebuilding of the Shannon-Erne Waterway and County Fermanagh storyteller Seamas McAnnaidh, bringing insights to writers and their influences on the water.
Listen to NEW Season 3, Waterways through Time with historian, Turtle Bunbury, Begin Again with Davina McCall and many other podcasts from around the world with the radio.net app