What Were We Like – Details, episodes & analysis

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What Were We Like

RTÉ

History

Frequency: 1 episode/15d. Total Eps: 18

Diarmaid Ferriter and Catriona Crowe bring us on a journey through the hidden histories, humanity and humour of our past.

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Apple

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Apple Podcasts

🇬🇧 Great Britain - history
05/06/2026
#84
🇬🇧 Great Britain - history
04/06/2026
#60
🇬🇧 Great Britain - history
02/06/2026
#98
🇬🇧 Great Britain - history
14/05/2026
#87
🇬🇧 Great Britain - history
13/05/2026
#65
🇬🇧 Great Britain - history
12/05/2026
#61
🇬🇧 Great Britain - history
03/04/2026
#97

Spotify

No recent rankings available

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https://omnystudio.com/listener
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RSS feed quality

Good

Score global : 73%

Publication history

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The History of The Tricolour (Part 3)

Season 2 · Episode 9

Monday, May 11, 2026 • Duration 48:38

This episode charts the Tricolour's 20th Century evolution: its formal adoption in 1937; getting the Brits to return the Tricolour that flew over the GPO in 1916; all the way up to Italia '90.

The gruesome digging up of Roger Casement's body features, as does John McGahern's most famous novel, Amongst Women, which came out in 1990 with a Tricolour splashed across its cover.

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The History of The Tricolour (Part 2)

Season 2 · Episode 8

Monday, May 4, 2026 • Duration 34:13

Patrick Pearse’s dramatic ‘The fools, the fools’ speech at Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa’s funeral was a key moment in the story of Ireland’s flag. Pearse made the oration alongside a Tricolour draped across the veteran Fenian’s coffin. The Green White and Gold was then flown over the GPO during the Easter Rising, and it was Sinn Féin’s skill as propagandists, alongside the monumentally 'stupid’ British reaction to 1916, that helped the Tricolour ascend, leaving Parnell’s green flag in its wake.

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Ep 4 - Campaigns, characters and controversies (Part 2)

Season 1 · Episode 4

Tuesday, October 21, 2025 • Duration 49:39

In the fourth episode of What Were We Like?, Diarmaid and Catriona talk about Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh’s remarkable offer to swap places with kidnap victim Tiede Herrema while he was in the Áras; and how Garrett Fitzgerald and Noël Browne were being talked up as possible candidates in the 1990 Presidential election.

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Ep 3 - Campaigns, characters and controversies (Part 1)

Season 1 · Episode 3

Monday, October 20, 2025 • Duration 38:28

In the third episode of What Were We Like?, Diarmaid and Catriona talk about how Douglas Hyde was removed as a patron by the GAA for attending a soccer match; why Muhammad Ali was not considered a suitable guest at Áras an Uachtaráin; and how Eamon De Valera almost failed to win a second term because he refused to campaign at all.

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Ep 2 - Brian Lenihan, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, and the two most important powers the President has

Season 1 · Episode 2

Tuesday, October 14, 2025 • Duration 38:03

In episode two of What Were We Like?’s special series on the history of the Presidency, Diarmaid and Catriona take a deep dive into the two most critical powers that the President has, and recall the resignation of Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh and Brian Lenihan’s infamous “mature recollection” moment.

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Ep 1 - What can the President actually do?

Season 1 · Episode 1

Tuesday, October 14, 2025 • Duration 33:43

In the first episode of What Were We Like?’s special five-part series on the history of the Presidency, Diarmaid Ferriter and Catriona Crowe talk about how the office came into being in the first place, Eamon de Valera’s role in shaping its powers, and what the president actually can and cannot do.

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Preview with Diarmaid Ferriter and Catriona Crowe

Season 1

Friday, October 10, 2025 • Duration 01:47

Diarmaid Ferriter and Catriona Crowe bring us on a journey through the hidden histories, humanity and humour of our past. In this first mini series, they’ll explore the history of the presidency, and what it means, as Ireland gets ready to choose its next Uachtarán.

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The History of The Tricolour (Part 1)

Season 2 · Episode 7

Monday, April 27, 2026 • Duration 28:33

Who owns The Tricolour? Over the last year it has appeared on polls and lampposts all over Ireland – put there by anti-immigration campaigners, causing fights and debates all over the country. This happened in Catriona’s neighbourhood, and when she and other residents brought this to the attention of the Council, they were told officials were too afraid to take them down. In this episode, Diarmaid and Catriona trace the early origins of the flag, including the key moment when the dashing Thomas Francis Meagher was given a prototype of the Irish Tricolour by three mysterious women in revolutionary France.

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A President Comes to Town - Reagan in Ireland

Season 2 · Episode 6

Monday, April 20, 2026 • Duration 51:55

June 1984, and Ronald Reagan, the controversial, transformative Republican President of the United States visits Ireland. Opposition is widespread, and an unexpected alliance of lefties and priests man the barricades, with Reagan’s foreign policies the focus of their anger. Diarmaid and Catriona unearth all kinds of paddy-whackery, with the Americans asking the Irish Government if the Pope would say mass (lol), British journalists paying people in Ballyporeen to bring a donkey into a pub and feed it Guinness, and one man is arrested for throwing a tomato. Catriona herself was one of the protesters. “We thought he was the devil – little did we know what was coming down the tracks.”

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Fianna Fáil: "The Devil" Takes Power (Part 3)

Season 2 · Episode 5

Monday, April 13, 2026 • Duration 37:03

General election campaigns in the early years of the State were utterly vicious, with fresh cow dung, sticks, and nasty insults being hurled about as Fianna Fáil attempted to wrest power from the pro-Treaty Cumann na nGaedheal. Despite the shouts of “traitor”, “murderer” and “Spanish bastard” on the campaign trail, Dev and the Soldiers of Destiny take power for the first time in 1932. The Brits are not happy – Winston Churchill famously refers to Dev as the “devil”. But he assumes control of Ireland, dismantles the Treaty, introduces a new Constitution – yet his ultimate goal of uniting Ireland is stymied by the outbreak of World War Two.

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What Were We Like – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

What Were We Like – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

Other1

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Other1