With thanks to the Bram Stoker Festival, the Motherfoclóir Podcast was resurrected for one afternoon in October 2022 to discuss the translation of Dracula into Irish by Seán Ó Cuirreáin. In this recording of last year's live show Darach is joined by Peadar and Siún as they consider the different motives of the politicians who commissioned the translation and the writer asked to carry out the work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Motherfocloir is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network and there are lots of other shows on the network we think you might like. Words To That Effect is a show that tells stories of the fiction behind popular culture and if you're a fan of Motherfocloir we think there's a very good chance you'll like this show too. Here's a full episode, all about the history of dragons in fiction and popular culture. Enjoy! For more, and all the eps of Words To That Effect, go to HeadStuffPodcasts.com

Thank you for your support over the last four years.  Thank you for inviting us into your headphones and into your head. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.  Thank you to Brian and Kirsten for making each episode look and sound amazing. Thank you to Éimear, Clodagh, Caitlín, Siún and Ola, and all the members of the extended Motherfoclóir family.  Thank you to our guests for teaching us so much. Much love to anyone who sent us messages of encouragement.  Go raibh míle...

If you follow Darach's Word of the Week project with the Irish Arts Center in New York, you'll have seen the artwork of Amy Louise O'Callaghan - @amylouioc on Twitter, Instagram and Etsy - who reimagines Irish mythology in the style of Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli. More recently she has reimagined the iconography of tarot cards using well-known tales and characters from Irish mythology. She chats to Darach about her influences, her work process, her interest in Japan and her...

Every artistic/visual representation of Cúchulainn presents him as a hulking, ultra-masculine figure. But is this interpretation justified by the text? In the Táin, Cúchulainn is frequently described as a small lad, girly in some ways, a person who has to change his appearance to present as a "normal man" but does not wear this disguise when he does not have to.  In today's episode of Motherfoclóir, Darach talks to Masters student Finn Longman about queer readings of the Táin. Once we...

Blindboy talks to Darach about the Dictionary of Hiberno-English, and the idea of resistance in language through dialect and satire.

Since Covid, sales of romance novels have shot through the roof, largely on account of the #BookTok hashtag on Tiktok.

Dr McEvoy and Mayor Pete assist Darach in a whistle stop tour of the letters J, K, Q, W, X, Y and Z.

Everybody is talking about Twitter sensation Séamas Ó Reilly and his hilarious yet moving memoir "Did You Hear Mammy Died?"

When we say that a child is full of divilment, are we saying that they are possessed by Satan? No, we are not.

Well, it couldn't last forever; Motherfoclóir will be ending forever before this autumn. Before we go on our separate ways, we'd like to bring you some topics and guests that we always meant to, but put on the long finger because we wanted "do more prep" or "wait until X was available" or some other excuse. Anyway, there's no time to procrastinate anymore… First up, our Gearóidín tells Darach all about her PhD thesis in advance of a viva. What's a viva? What's a thesis? We will explain....

Darach chats to Katy and Dominic, the hosts of popular podcast "The Europeans".To hear the full episode and much more visit  https://www.patreon.com/darachThe Europeans podcast can be found at https://europeanspodcast.com/

Darach is joined by Mira Adama to discuss a cult classic of Irish cinema.

Recently, Yiddish became the fortieth language to join Duolingo, an achievement that followed hot on the heels of Harry Potter being translated into Yiddish. And would you believe that a brother and sister were responsible for these separate accomplishments? Well, when we found out about it we were struck by how many of the same kinds of conflicts and considerations that faced Irish came up again in thre context of Yiddish. So we had to find out more. On today’s episode, Darach chats with...

Darach and Gearóidín meet Caroline McGrotty, an Irish Sign Language translator and presenter.

Darach, Gearóidín and Peadar discuss the evolution of the cop show and the Irish cop trope

When he’s not beavering away at this very podcast, Darach does a bit of work with the Irish Arts Center in New York as part of their word of the week project. This allows him to collaborate with some exciting and talented artists, such as today’s guest Louise Ní Chuilinn (as known as Selkies). Louise, an Irish speaker living in Brussels, tells Darach and Peadar about that city’s artistic scene, such as the bandes dessinées which French learners in Ireland love so well. She talks about her...

Darach and Gearóidín are thrilled to be joined by Oein De Bhairduin, a writer and academic who celebrates and shares his Traveller heritage.

This week Darach and Peadar are joined by Aileanóra from @EnyaComments who has all the answers.

It's a family affair this week on Motherfoclóir as we welcome Gearóidín's Dad, Colm McEvoy, to the show.

Are things holy because we need them or do we need them because they're holy? This is something that we consider on this week's episode when holy wells are discussed. Are the legends and myths about holy wells just a roundabout way of explaining what their purpose is? Why are there so many in Limerick? What does Ryan Tubridy's surname mean?  We also discuss the theory that zombie movies are more popular under Republican presidents and vampire movies are more popular under the...

And what of Irish poetry - are the best known Irish poems well understood? What is the most searched for Irish poem anyway?

Darach, Peadar and Gearóidín started to talk about baile/bally- placenames in this week's episode but that journey took many turns, including trains and eels.

Darach, Gearóidín and Peadar discuss the latest baby name stats and try to get to the bottom of it all.