Irish Stew Podcast is “Off the Beaten Craic” in Co. Longford for the sound of the low whistle and the sight of an Iron Age roadway at the Corlea Trackway Visitors Centre, located a half hour’s drive north from their home-away-from-home in Athlone. There they met their guide Noel Carberry who opens and closes the interview with his virtuosity on the larger, lower-pitched variation of the traditional tin whistle.

Noel is a 26-year-veteran of the Corlea Trackway Visitors Centre, a “life sentence’ as he jokingly calls it, but beyond the bog he’s best known as an expert musician of the uilleann pipes, the Irish tin and low whistles, and bodhrán.

He brings Ireland’s Iron Age dramatically to life through his expert commentary on the Corlea Trackway, the widest prehistoric road of its kind discovered in Europe. Laid down in oak planks between the autumn of 148 BC and the spring of 147 BC, this one-kilometer wooden roadway once stretched from dry land to dry land across the bog, a monumental and mysterious statement of power and belief in the Hidden Heartlands.

“What you’re talking about is a prehistoric planked road, for all the world like a railway track upside down, with planks of oak laid down on runners of ash, oak, or silver birch,” he says.

Noel tells of growing up in the nearby workers housing of Bord na Móna, the Irish agency which extracted peat to fuel power plants. That same industrial extraction uncovered the buried trackway in 1984, when milled peat operations stripped the bog down to the level of the ancient timbers and a worker with an interest in archaeology realized their importance.

For Noel, the ancient trackway may have been less a simple road than a display of dominance, possibly built with timber taken from defeated neighbors, their sacred oaks regarded as the reincarnation of ancestral spirits.

On view at Corlea are eighteen meters of preserved roadway saved from industrial destruction and maintained, presented and compellingly interpreted by the OPW, or Office of Public Works.

With tales of ancient kings, bog bodies, and spirited tunes like “The Rocky Road to Dublin” echoing through the Centre, Noel makes a compelling case that Ireland’s true story runs not just around the coasts, but through the deep, mysterious middle.

With thanks to Noel and the OPW, the podcasters depart for the final Off the Beaten Craic stops in the Hidden Heartlands series with episodes coming up next in County Leitrim.

Links

• Corlea Iron Age Roadway and Visitors Centre
• Facebook

Irish Stew Links

• Website
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• LinkedIn
• Media Partner: IrishCentral

Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 2; Total Episode Count: 144

The Irish Stew podcasters venture across Westmeath one last time, to the county’s eastern reaches to explore the picturesque village of Tyrrellspass, where they once again find a story of community commitment…and a bog.

The community leader giving cohosts John Lee and Martin Nutty the grand tour of his charming town is Eugene Dunbar, a retired teacher who never retired from educating anyone who’d listen about the treasures unique to Tyrrellspass.

After meeting Eugene at the town’s centerpiece castle tower, the trio followed the signs to the Cloncrow Bog & Village Trail.

“I came here in 1972 as a geography teacher, and I was absolutely intrigued with the whole system of the bogs and having one so close to us here in Tyrrellspass,” he says. “It’s what they term an intact raised bog, with the same vegetation that would have been on it 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,000 years ago. So, you're looking at a unique landscape that hasn't changed in millennia.”

Eugene tells of how people moved from viewing bogs purely as fuel sources to recognizing them as vital carbon sinks and ecological wonders, driven locally by the volunteer effort known as ETHOS--Everything Tyrrellspass Has On Show. Refusing to be bogged down by bureaucratic challenges, Dunbar and the other ETHOS volunteers created the interpretive raised boardwalk through the local raised bog, which morphs into a trail through the highlights the village itself, culminating in its picture-perfect town green with its evocative 1970 Imogen Stuart sculpture of three school children representing the future of the new Ireland.

After a restorative pint (or maybe it was two) in the snug, welcoming Willie’s Bar, Eugene took the podcasters back to his inviting home, decorated with the paintings of his wife Josephine who served the trio tea and scones while the podcast recording began in earnest.

Add signature Irish hospitality to Everything Tyrrellspass Has On Show!

It’s off to Longford next week when Irish Stew adds a mysterious Iron Age road to its Off the Beaten Track Road Trip itinerary as they explore the Corlea Trackway, discovered in 1984 by workers digging peat in the local bog--yes, again with the bog!

Links

• Cloncrow Bog & Village Trail Website
• ETHOS
  • Website
  • Facebook
  • YouTube

Irish Stew Links

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Media Partner: IrishCentral

Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 1; Total Episode Count: 143

In this end of years politics episode, Martin Nutty sits down with Ted Smyth, former Irish diplomat and president of the advisory board at Glucksman Ireland House, NYU, to discuss the political landscape on both sides of the Atlantic.

Smyth offers stark assessments of Trump's second term, characterizing it as an assault on American democracy with unchecked executive power. However, he finds hope in recent Democratic victories, particularly Zohran Mamdani's New York City mayoral win and gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, suggesting voters are experiencing "buyer's remorse" and seeking balance.

The conversation explores affordability as the defining issue for upcoming elections, with both American and Irish middle classes struggling with housing costs and basic expenses. Smyth criticizes Ireland's failure to address its housing crisis despite available resources, and discusses coordinated campaigns by right-wing media to destabilize Ireland and the EU.

On Ireland-Israel relations, Smyth advocates for focusing on a two-state solution rather than symbolic gestures, drawing parallels to Northern Ireland's peace process. He addresses concerns about Ireland's defense spending and the need for a more proactive public relations strategy to counter negative narratives in publications like the oped pages of the Wall Street Journal.

Smyth concludes with an optimistic call to action: support local communities, businesses, and cultural institutions. Whether in Dublin or New York, he argues that strength comes from grassroots engagement and maintaining democratic values during challenging times.

Ted Smyth Links

• Website
• Glucksman Ireland House
• UCD Clinton Institute
• LinkedIn
• BlueSky
• X

Irish Stew Links

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Media Partner: IrishCentral

Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 39; Total Episode Count: 142

Irish Stew couldn’t make it to Dublin, so cohost Martin Nutty and John Lee settled for the Dublin House, a venerable watering hole on New York’s Upper West Side, known for its low-key vibe, high quality pints and its 10-foot-tall neon sign in the shape of a harp that has been lighting the way to a great craic for decades.

The occasion was a meet-up over a pair of those pints for “Stew in Review,” a holiday retrospective on their 2025 season.

Martin reflected on the core message of the Joseph Kennedy III episode as the former US Special Envoy to Northern Ireland advocates for the healing power of civility over the destructive impulse of rage.

John notes for craic it’s hard to top the episode recorded in the cavernous, cacophonous Common Market with Belfast Night Czar Michael Stewart and Belfast Food Tours’ Caroline Wilson, and for raw, riveting emotions the episode with Northern Irish actors John Duddy and Ciaran Byrne as they relived their experiences of The Troubles.

That was one of two episodes of Irish Stew recorded live before a (paying!) audience as part of the Origin Theatre First Irish Festival, a 2025 highlight made possible by then artistic director Mick Mellamphy, an high-energy experience the pair hopes to expand on in the year to come.

With a pint or two oiling the conversational gears the pair shared recollections of The Irish Stew residency at the Solas Nua Capital Irish Film Festival, a standout episode with the groundbreaking Irish president Mary Robinson, the sense of commitment to community they found throughout their Off the Beaten Craic in the Hidden Heartlands Road Trip, the destination dining at Thyme Restaurant in Athlone, and the serendipitous stories they stumbled upon in their off-season Midlands ramble.

The podcasters also raise a toast to their travel partner Tourism Ireland, media partner IrishCentral, the Dublin House for welcoming them into their cozy confines, and, above all, the folks who lend their ears--the listeners. The episode wraps with a sneak preview of what’s to come in 2026, and, after settling their bar tab, the podcasters head back into the windy winter weather on West 79th Street, pausing for a selfie under the glowing green harp that heralds the Dublin House.

Irish Stew Links

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 38; Total Episode Count: 141

In this season of giving, Irish Stew welcomes Pennsylvania-born lawyer-turned-nonprofit leader Sean Granahan, the president of The Floating Hospital, a 160-year-old New York charity with deep Irish roots that still cares for the city’s poorest families. Founded in 1866 out of Trinity Church in the wake of the Civil War Draft Riots, it first served emancipated Black families and post–famine Irish immigrants crowded into lower Manhattan’s notorious Five Points district.

In the episode, Sean connects those early Irish arrivals, once left to die of tuberculosis considered “the natural death of the Irish,” to today’s homeless families in New York’s shelters, many fleeing violence, eviction, or aging out of foster care.

Sean describes the organization’s founding mission as a “three-legged stool” of meeting immediate needs, sharing health education, and delivering care, a model that still guides its work as New York city’s largest provider of healthcare to families in homeless shelters and domestic violence safe houses.

He recounts the organization’s colorful maritime era, when their ships took kids and moms out for fresh-air harbor cruises while they received vaccines, essential services, and vital health education. Sean had to hit pause on that chapter after 9/11 when their vessel, the Lia, was retired to a dock well up the Hudson River. The Floating Hospital may not be floating now, but the work continues full speed ahead at its Long Island City base and satellite sites where 30,000 people are cared for annually, from pediatric and vaccination services to mental health and dental care. Sean insists that their clean, bright, dignified, welcoming clinics have as much an impact on patient outcomes as their healthcare services.

That ethos comes alive in “Candy Cane Lane,” a holiday pop-up where homeless moms and kids experience the joy of holiday shopping as they choose free new coats, pajamas, toys, and hygiene items.

With Mayo and Dublin roots, Sean tells how his high-flying corporate law career was rerouted when he volunteered to help the then struggling Floating Hospital, and how he and his staff navigate through shifting political headwinds and funding threats.

And after 20 years at the helm, he still dreams big, yearning for the day The Floating Hospital floats again! “The ship is magical,” he says of his quest to refit the Lia and sail it again. “If you want to get 500 kids vaccinated, all you do is say, ‘We’re going out on the ship on Friday,’ and you’ll have a thousand.”

The episode closes with a “season of giving” invitation to make a holiday gift to The Floating Hospital or join their “Tugboat Society” of small monthly givers keeping homeless moms and kids afloat.

But to really understand this uniquely Irish New York story, you’ll want to hear Sean tell it himself on Irish Stew.

Links

The Floating Hospital

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Threads
• BlueSky

Sean Granahan

• LinkedIn

Irish Stew Links

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 37; Total Episode Count: 140

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 history, legend, music, and all that gives life and character to this small Shannon-side community with a population aspiring to hit the 2,000 mark.

James met us at the cozy, convivial Flynn's Pub on Main Street, but the craic there proved too mighty for recording purposes, so the trio beat a retreat to the hilltop Church of St Paul's for what proved to be Irish Stew’s first recording in a church (but not their last as you’ll hear in the final Hidden Heartlands episode).

A lifelong educator and noted local historian, James set about unraveling the history of the old Irish saying, “That Beats Banagher!,” in a book of the same name which he co-wrote with Kieran Keenaghan. In this richly illustrated volume they explore the murky provenance of “That Beats Banagher!” and how it entered Irish political and cultural lore. A beguiling spinner of the town’s stories, James shares tales of the earliest days of the town, the arrival of the international man of mystery from the 1600s Matthew de Renzy, the town’s unexpected literary links to Anthony Trollope and Charlotte Brontë, Banagher’s vibrant community life, and its status as a popular port of call for the river cruising crowd.

They started the day in a pub, absolved their sins in a church, and then retreated to a pub, J.J. Hough’s Singing Pub, a renowned destination for trad music fans and tourists alike run by Ger Hough, who IrishCentral called the most creative publican in Ireland.

There they met David and Mark Boylan who John got to know when the Breeders’ Cup flew the whole Boylan family to Kentucky so the then 14-year-old Mark could sing his Breeders’ Cup song before about 80 thousand fans at Churchill Downs for the 2011 World Championship race meet. Mark may be all grown up but he hasn’t outgrown his love of horses and of his hometown of Banagher which shines through in the closing segment.

And in such a small, tight-knit community it was no surprise to learn that James was Mark’s teacher at St Rynagh’s School.

Well, that beats Banagher!

Next week Irish Stew hits pause on their Off the Beaten Craic series to embrace the season of giving with the story of a New York City charity rooted in the plight of the impoverished Irish immigrants in the notorious Five Points district in our conversation with Sean Granahan, president of The Floating Hospital.

Links
James Scully

• Book: That Beats Banagher!

Mark Boylan

• The Irish Field
• X
• Instagram
• Facebook

Hidden Heartlands Travel Resources

• Ireland.com
• Discover Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands

Irish Stew Links

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 36; Total Episode Count: 139

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 1917. Built by William Parsons, the 3rd Earl of Rosse, “The Leviathan of Parsonstown” as it became known is a 20-foot-tall engineering marvel that enabled the Earl to map light-years distant nebulae with stunning accuracy that rivals modern Hubble telescope images.

Brian points out that the Parsons family's 400-year legacy includes what’s thought to be one of the world's earliest surviving suspension bridges on the grounds, Charles Parsons' invention of the steam turbine, and the work of photography pioneer Mary Wilmer Field, the 3rd Countess of Rosse.

Her 1850s glass plate photographs are preserved in Ireland’s Historic Science Centre at Birr, which not only tells the Birr science story in historical artifacts and interactive displays, but that of Ireland as well.

And Birr is still writing that science story today as it hosts the Irish station of the Europe-wide LOFAR radio telescope network, which in 2018 observed for the first time a billion-year-old red-dwarf, flare star.

Add botany and horticulture to the science mix with multi-generational botanical treasures on display across the expansive grounds including 17th-century box hedges (among the world's tallest), specimens from China and South America, and Victorian glasshouses under restoration.

“There's something in bloom every day of the year, throughout the whole year of plants from right throughout the world.” Brian says.

The conversation wraps with a discussion of the town's transformation from "Parsonstown" back to its original Irish name, its connection to St. Brendan's monastery, the charming town’s rich Georgian heritage, and things to see and do “off the beaten craic” in Birr’s environs.

But for Brian, it all starts with the Birr Castle Demesne, “Come early in the morning because one day is just not enough to take in all that the castle has to offer,” he advises.

Next week Irish Stew makes one more stop in Co. Offaly at the River Shannon town of Banagher where John and Martin record their first (but not their last) episode in a church!

Links

Birr Castle Demesne

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• X
• YouTube
• TikTok

Hidden Heartlands Travel Resources

• Ireland.com
• Discover Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands

Irish Stew Links

• Website
• Episode Page: Brian Kennedy
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• X
• Facebook

Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 35; Total Episode Count: 138

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 Ireland Cooperative team.

Doug explains how centuries of peat extraction left expanses of degraded bogland, often dismissed as wastelands. But they’re fields of dreams for Doug who outlines how rewetting bogs halts carbon loss, restores biodiversity, and opens the opportunity to the wet farming techniques known as paludiculture.

Using Donie’s farm as a showroom for how paludiculture can restore economic value to bog land, Peatlands for Prosperity is testing potential hydrophilic cash crops such as bog berries, cranberries, even lettuce and celery, as well as common wetland plants like bullrushes and common reeds which can be renewable sources of building and packaging materials. Both believe wetland agriculture can offer farmers meaningful new income streams from both these kinds of crops and from earning carbon credits for maintaining carbon-sequestering bogs.

The conversation probes the challenges of farmer hesitancy, policy confusion, cultural ties to turf cutting, and how the demonstration site helps other farmers see the program’s potential.

Donie speaks passionately about witnessing wildlife return to his land, and the team discusses educational outreach, including bringing schoolchildren onto the bog to inspire the next generation of environmental stewards, the ecotourism possibilities of restored boglands, and how transforming Ireland’s peatlands could be a win-win for climate, biodiversity, farmers, and rural communities alike.
But let’s give Seamus Heaney the last word from his poem Bogland:

Our unfenced country
Is bog that keeps crusting
Between the sights of the sun

Next week Irish Stew reports from Birr Castle with a focus on the groundbreaking science done there, exemplified by the world’s largest telescope for 72 years, the mighty Leviathan of Parsonstown.

Links
Green Restoration Ireland

• Website
• Peatlands for Prosperity
• Facebook
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Bluesky
• X
  
  

Douglas McMillan

• LinkedIn

Hidden Heartlands Travel Resources

• Ireland.com
• Discover Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands

Irish Stew Links

• Website
• Episode Page: Peatlands for Prosperity
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• X
• Facebook