Offaly Episodes

The Irish Midlands flow to the relentless rhythm of the River Shannon and along its banks the Irish Stew podcasters found themselves again, Day Five of their “Off the Beaten Craic in the Hidden Heartlands” wanderings, gazing across its broad expanse from the docks of the County Offaly town of Banagher. There, cohosts John Lee and Martin Nutty met local historian James Scully and caught up with an old friend of John’s, Mark Boylan, who covers horseracing for The Irish Field , to explore the histo...

Ireland has no shortage of stately manors, but as Irish Stew hosts Martin Nutty and John Lee learned, no other historic property has a legacy like Co. Offaly’s Birr Castle Demesne, which for generations has been an incubator of breakthroughs in engineering and science. With local historian and educator Brian Kennedy as their guide, the podcasters share the story of the Victorian-era, steampunk-style construction of timber, iron, and stonework that was the world’s largest telescope from 1845 to 1...

The poet Seamus Heaney once said, "I think of the bog as a feminine goddess-ridden ground, rather like the territory of Ireland itself." And that territory is 14- to- 21 percent bog. So, on their fourth day “Off the Beaten Craic in the Hidden Heartlands,” Irish Stew cohosts John Lee and Martin Nutty head to Shinrone in Offaly near the Tipperary border to the farm of Donie Regan, a demonstration site for Peatlands for Prosperity, the brainchild of Douglas McMillan and his Green Restoration I...

How did Ireland become a food destination? Thanks go to chefs like John Coffey of Athlone’s Thyme Restaurant and Belfast’s Niall McKenna of the Waterman House, both past Irish Stew guests. But ask those chefs that question and they’ll thank their lucky stars for the local producers who supply the fresh vegetables, fruit, meat, seafood, and dairy that make their cooking soar. So Irish Stew went Off the Beaten Craic to Daingean, Co. Offaly, to talk with two farmers on the vanguard of Ireland’s org...