Today is International Podcast Day

Near FM have a very long history of podcasting and we started making podcasts of our programmes available on our website as early as 2005  making us the first radio station in Ireland make use of the technology.

We thought we’d take this opportunity to highlight some of the content you can find on our podcast page.

ARTS:

Frank Harte: A Life in Song
Near FM present a three part documentary on Frank Harte, the Frank Harte Festival & An Góilín Traditional singing club.

Frank Harte was a renowned traditional Irish singer & song collector. Every year since his death in 2005, the traditional singing club An Goilin has run a festival of traditional Irish singing in his honour. This documentary series captures a snapshot of this festival as it was in the year 2012 and provides the listener with an in depth look at the musical life of Frank Harte.

We document the festival in chronological order with a programme documenting each day of the festival: Friday, Saturday & Sunday. This series profiles Frank Harte, captures the famous, intimate & unique An Goilin singing circle; fly on the wall atmospheric and historical walking & singing tours of Dublin, lectures as well as interviews with friends and family members. The centerpiece of the three day festival is a Gala Music concert from the Saturday night which features in programme 2 of the series.

Frank Harte had a keen knowledge and sense of Irish history and in this series, through Near FM archive footage, we revisit Frank giving a talk in Coolock library in 1998 to celebrate the 1798 rebellion led by Wolfe Tone. Songs he sang such as Father Murphy, Dunlavin Green & Henry Munroe were born out of this period.

CULTURE:

Traveller’s Stories
North Dublin through the eyes of the Travelling Community is an insightful new radio series produced by Northside Dublin community radio station Nearfm and Northside Traveller advocacy group Travact.

Over 6 programmes, the series producer Leslie Murphy and narrator Paddy McDonagh explore the cultural identity of Travellers in 21st century Ireland with a nod to the historical aspects of Traveller life and a particular focus on Travellers of Northside Dublin.

The series is presented in a lively manner, with interviews, music and sound effects and a wide range of contributors. The programmes show the positive and negative sides of the lives of Travellers in North Dublin and how social exclusion and discrimination hasn’t stopped Travellers improving their quality of life, while at the same time keeping their culture and traditions alive and well.

SCIENCE/NATURE:

Ireland’s Oceans
Ireland has over 1400 km of coast line and 220 million acres of seabed some of it as deep as 5km. Our seas have weathered our coastlines and shaped our climate. In the distant past the freezing of these oceans created the icecaps that sculpted our land. And when the ice melted, raising seas turned our fragment of north Atlantic rock into an island. Our oceans brought the first settlers to Ireland but later carried millions away.

Despite living on this small island out on the Atlantic we don’t really think of ourselves as an oceanic country and most of us have little connection with the sea. But today Ireland is leading the way in the study of the sea and our scientists are starting to understand how our oceans work in ever more complex and exciting ways.Every day ocean scientists head into the lab and field to push our understanding of the seas slowly forward

Join Lenny Antonelli in this 2 part programme as he follows our marine scientists onto beaches and boats and into the lab to learn about the science of Ireland’s oceans.

HISTORY:

The Irish History Show
The Irish History Show is presented and produced by Cathal Brennan and John Dorney.  The show is broadcast on Near FM in Dublin.

John Dorney has a BA and an MA in Irish history from UCD and has been an on screen contributor to Scannal (RTÉ) and My Civil War (RTÉ). John Dorney also runs, and writes for, The Irish Story website.

Cathal Brennan has third level qualifications in Media Production (Marino College), TV and Video Production (Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology), Research Skills for TV (Screen Training Ireland) and a BA in Irish history from Trinity College Dublin. He also writes articles for The Irish Story.

DRAMA: 

Drama on the Northside
A trilogy of radio plays by different local writers and performed by the Near Drama Group.

‘Playing for Time’ by Henry Hudson
Set in a concentration camp in Eastern Europe in early 1945. Levi Esser is a middle-aged Jewish violinist. He plays in the camp orchestra and so avoids the gas chambers. Generations of Esser’s used the violin that Esser plays. He planned to hand it on to his only son, Rene but Rene was killed in the war. Esser wants a young inmate, Shimon, to take his place in the orchestra so the instrument will continue to be played thereby preserving the memory and traditions of the Jews and of the Esser’s in particular.

‘Gangsters, Donkeys & Spiritual Juice’ by Denis Byrne
The play is set in Dublin in the 1980s. In a Dublin Northside estate riddled with crime and political corruption a kid named Micko sees a vision of the Virgin Mary. Crowds gather and an idolised local politician with criminal connections tries to take advantage of the situation.

‘The St. James Rejoice Boarding House’ by Jack Byrne
A half hour radio drama adaptation of James Joyce’s ‘The Boarding House’ from Dubliners, this years Dublin City Libraries ‘One City, One Book’ choice. The storyline is original and deals with the tribulations of a male boarder in the titled boarding house. The house is run by an old haridan and her flighty daughter who eventually beguiles the boarder into bed and an unwanted pregnancy.