The book is full of counter factures. What if prince henry hadn't died? What if in 16 12? What if? Yes, the the outcome would have been different. But it's not as if the boyne overnight, sort of shifts dimension. Finteno to will come and talk about modern ireland shortly. i think a lot of listeners will be unaware just how important france was to the irish story. And had he been killed by a bullet there, what would have happened? It's impossible to say, but it would have been no extraordinary different kind of e.
‘Devil-Land’ – that was how foreign observers viewed England in the 17th century: a ‘failed state’ torn apart by seditious rebellion, religious extremism and royal collapse. The historian Clare Jackson recounts this stormy and radical era through the eyes of outsiders across the Channel. But she tells Andrew Marr that the country’s turbulence also bred great creativity and curiosity about the wider world.
The Anglo-French journalist Benedicte Paviot is the UK correspondent of France 24. She explores how the French view Britain today. From Brexit to the government’s pursuit of ‘Global Britain’ and the new Australia/UK/US defence pact, contemporary French neighbours often look on with hostility and bemusement.
Fintan O’Toole is an Irish journalist and polemicist who has spent much of his career commenting on Britain from the other side of the water. But in his latest book, We Don’t Know Ourselves, he turns his attention to Ireland since his birth in 1958. It’s another story of great turbulence and rebellion, from underdevelopment, domination by the Church and a sectarian civil war in the North, to struggles for intellectual, civil and sexual freedoms.
Producer: Katy Hickman