Motherfoclóir
Dispatches from a not so dead language. Hosted by Darach O'Séaghdha and The Irish For… @theirishfor (https://twitter.com/Motherfocloir) Follow the show on twitter @motherfocloir or email us at motherfocloir@headstuff.org
Episodes
December 20, 2024 • 39 mins
An audiodrama for fans of Motherfoclóir! The Greatest Matter is a new gothic crime tale set in Victorian Dublin, about a criminologist who arrives in the city and gets caught up in a murder investigation with occult connections. It's a full-cast audiodrama, with a cast of great Irish actors, immersive sound design and original music.
Have a listen to Ep 1 here, and all 12 episodes are available to listen to in full right now - just...
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September 24, 2024 • 53 mins
We're back!
Well, sort of. In March 2024 Darach, Gearóidín and Peadar were reunited for a live Seachtain na Gaeilge event in Clondalkin Library (a home advantage for Peadar!)
On the occasion of the anniversary of Brendan Behan's death, the gang discussed the controversy surrounding the English translation of his Irish language play An Giall: did Behan approve of this version, and the significant differences in the text?
This lead...
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October 27, 2023 • 65 mins
With thanks to the Bram Stoker Festival, the Motherfoclóir Podcast was resurrected for one afternoon in October 2022 to discuss the translation of Dracula into Irish by Seán Ó Cuirreáin.
In this recording of last year's live show Darach is joined by Peadar and Siún as they consider the different motives of the politicians who commissioned the translation and the writer asked to carry out the work.
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March 14, 2022 • 32 mins
Motherfocloir is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network and there are lots of other shows on the network we think you might like. Words To That Effect is a show that tells stories of the fiction behind popular culture and if you're a fan of Motherfocloir we think there's a very good chance you'll like this show too. Here's a full episode, all about the history of dragons in fiction and popular culture. Enjoy!
For more, and all the...
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September 2, 2021 • 92 mins
Thank you for your support over the last four years.
Thank you for inviting us into your headphones and into your head. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
Thank you to Brian and Kirsten for making each episode look and sound amazing. Thank you to Éimear, Clodagh, Caitlín, Siún and Ola, and all the members of the extended Motherfoclóir family.
Thank you to our guests for teaching us so much. Much love to anyone who s...
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August 28, 2021 • 36 mins
If you follow Darach's Word of the Week project with the Irish Arts Center in New York, you'll have seen the artwork of Amy Louise O'Callaghan - @amylouioc on Twitter, Instagram and Etsy - who reimagines Irish mythology in the style of Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli. More recently she has reimagined the iconography of tarot cards using well-known tales and characters from Irish mythology. She chats to Darach about her influ...
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August 26, 2021 • 49 mins
Join us for the final episode of Motherfoclóir, live on Zoom tonight: https://www.patreon.com/posts/55377967
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Every artistic/visual representation of Cúchulainn presents him as a hulking, ultra-masculine figure. But is this interpretation justified by the text? In the Táin, Cúchulainn is frequently described as a small lad, girly in some ways, a person who has to change his appearance to present as a "normal man" but does not ...
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August 19, 2021 • 72 mins
The re-release of Professor Terence Dolan's Dictionary of Hiberno-English didn't happen by accident, but was nudged into existence by a writer who also happens to be one of the most seminal and relevant voices in Irish podcasting. And he's our guest this week!
Before we folded the podcast forever, we are delighted to bring you this conversation between Darach and Blindboy Boatclub, one half of the Rubber bandits and author of tw...
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August 12, 2021 • 59 mins
In terms of literary prestige, romance novels don't get no respect, ranking lower than sports biographies and screenplay novelisations on the scale of respectability - according to people who don't read them, anyway. But what about people who do?
Since Covid, sales of romance novels have shot through the roof, largely on account of the #BookTok hashtag on Tiktok. And one of #BookTok's stars joins us on today's episode. You might...
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August 5, 2021 • 58 mins
Four years ago we started this podcast off with a discussion of the letter V. There’s been much water under the bridge since then and while we always meant to give the other seven “forbidden” letters their own episode, there was always something a bit more urgent to attend to. Like translating smutty novels and so forth.
But on today’s episode, Dr McEvoy and Mayor Pete assist Darach in a whistle stop tour of the letters J, K, Q,...
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July 29, 2021 • 46 mins
Everybody is talking about Twitter sensation Séamas Ó Reilly and his hilarious yet moving memoir "Did You Hear Mammy Died?"
And rightly so - it's a sensational telling of a remarkable story of a boy with ten siblings losing his mother far too young and being reared by one of the most memorable Irish Dads in the history of memoir. Can a movie be far behind?
Séamas didn't just appear out of nowhere, of course, and between his Ru...
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July 22, 2021 • 57 mins
When we say that a child is full of divilment, are we saying that they are possessed by Satan? No, we are not.
In today's episode, Darach, Gearóidín and Peadar consider the concept of the devil in the Irish language. Why does diabhal scéal (devil a story) mean no story? What's the deal with the devil being buried in Killarney? Were politicians aware of the term Taoiseach An Bháis (Lord of Death) when the term Taoiseach was chose...
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July 15, 2021 • 51 mins
Well, it couldn't last forever; Motherfoclóir will be ending forever before this autumn. Before we go on our separate ways, we'd like to bring you some topics and guests that we always meant to, but put on the long finger because we wanted "do more prep" or "wait until X was available" or some other excuse. Anyway, there's no time to procrastinate anymore…
First up, our Gearóidín tells Darach all about her PhD thesis in advance o...
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June 4, 2021 • 13 mins
Darach chats to Katy and Dominic, the hosts of popular podcast "The Europeans".
To hear the full episode and much more visit https://www.patreon.com/darach
The Europeans podcast can be found at https://europeanspodcast.com/
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May 13, 2021 • 64 mins
Darach is joined by Mira Adama (@LostWolfling), along with a cast of other contributors, to discuss a cult classic of Irish cinema.
Watch Fatal Deviation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPne3Wh0lqk
This is our last episode of the season! You can join us on Patreon for bonus content throughout the break.
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Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach
Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www...
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Recently, Yiddish became the fortieth language to join Duolingo, an achievement that followed hot on the heels of Harry Potter being translated into Yiddish. And would you believe that a brother and sister were responsible for these separate accomplishments? Well, when we found out about it we were struck by how many of the same kinds of conflicts and considerations that faced Irish came up again in thre context of Yiddish. So we h...
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May 5, 2021 • 46 mins
Watch this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsORJSesv48
In 2017, Irish Sign Language (ISL) was officially given legal recognition in Ireland. Of course, it has a long history prior to this and in today's episode, Darach and Gearóidín meet Caroline McGrotty (@CarolineMcTweet), an ISL translator and presenter, to find out more.
Where did ISL come from? Is it different in Northern Ireland? What is Caroline's favourite ISL w...
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April 29, 2021 • 47 mins
Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the Wee Donkey.
Everyone is hooked on “Line of Duty” at the moment, the latest reinvention of the cop show genre - and, fittingly, a reinvention of the “Irish cop” trope which is even older than television. But why did this format - a legacy from the era of segregation and McCarthyism - survive when westerns, Elvis movies, and musicals either die off or get resurrected beyond recognition?
More than an...
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April 22, 2021 • 56 mins
When he’s not beavering away at this very podcast, Darach does a bit of work with the Irish Arts Center in New York as part of their word of the week project. This allows him to collaborate with some exciting and talented artists, such as today’s guest Louise Ní Chuilinn (as known as Selkies). Louise, an Irish speaker living in Brussels, tells Darach and Peadar about that city’s artistic scene, such as the bandes dessinées which Fr...
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April 16, 2021 • 70 mins
There’s a song in the Mincéir tradition (made famous among settled audiences by Luke Kelly) called the 40 Foot Trailer which ends with the line
“There's a bylaw to say you maun be on your way
And another to say ye can't wander”
The implication is clear: the Traveller Community are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Despite the visibility of the Travelling Community in Irish life, in political pamphlets and bad-faith do...
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