Three Castles Burning

In the early nineteenth century, Madame Tussaud spent several years in Dublin. Her waxworks and relics of the French Revolution proved a big draw for crowds here, packing out a gallery on Exchequer Street and touring the country. She would even create works honouring the leading Irish politician of the day. Her time in Ireland would shape her later world famous museum, and decades later it acquired a particularly gruesome relic connected to a violent day in Dublin.

In Ulysses, the pub we know as J & M Cleary's appears as The Signal House. It seemed a good location to explore food in the time of James Joyce. Ann Marie Duffin's fantastic page Bia Duit has been exploring food history and folklore, and she joins me to talk all things food in 1904.  Ken and Gwen from the brilliant Assassination Custard - a beloved institution on Kevin Street - brought along their own unique contribution to proceedings, with food inspired by the time.
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At the recent Luke Kelly Festival, I was delighted to speak with Sabina Higgins (née Coyne) all about the Focus Theatre and Deirdre O'Connell. Bringing the Stanislavski acting system to Ireland in the 1960s, Deirdre transformed how young actors felt about the possibility of the theatre. The tiny Focus Theatre - with the support of Luke Kelly and others - had a massive impact on the theatre here, producing a generation of actors who would have real impact in the Irish arts. We talk about it, and Sabina's career more broadly, including the landmark television programme Insurrection (1966).

In October 1955, the visit of Yugoslavia to Dublin caused real division in Irish society. A top-class football side on the world stage, opposition to communism led Archbishop McQuaid and others to call for a boycott of the game. In a new book, Cold War Football: A History in Ten Matches, Alan McDougall and Tony Shaw examine this match and others like it, weaving Cold War tensions and the excitement of the beautiful game.

There could be nowhere more fitting to discuss the life of Edward Fitzgerald than upstairs in the Lord Edward, as part of Culture Date with Dublin 8. That he was born into privilege is clear, but Fitzgerald also rejected it, his sister recalling that "he was a Paddy and no more; he desired no other title than this." Annie Hughes is a singer and a member of An Góilín Traditional Singers. Fergus Whelan is author of Enemies of the State: Richard Musgrave, the Rebellion of 1798 and the Making of Sectarian Irish History.