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
• Instagram
• 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