Neil Oliver Podcast

In this podcast Neil enters a city fizzing with new idea. In the late C18th and early C19th Edinburgh was the beating heart at the centre of what many people have called the Scottish Enlightenment. The intellectual thinking generated here was recognised around the world with men and women of genius said to be on every street with new ways of thinking bussing around every part of the city.It was here, inspired by the city’s physical location - sat on a volcano - that James Hutton developed revolutionary ideas about how the world was created. Ideas that went counter the accepted thinking of the day. Hutton became known as the father of geology and was one of the first thinkers to contemplate deep time and confront us with our insignificance in the face of eternity.To help support this podcast and get exclusive access to new videos packed with history, current affairs and a whole lot more sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverThe series Instagram account is – Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we’re setting sail on a legendary voyage of exploration with the greatest navigator ever to come out of the British Isles - Captain James Cook. We follow James from the beginning of his adventure, when he leaves his job as a grocers lad in Staithes and travels to the hauntingly beautiful port of Whitby to pursue his dreams of a life a sea. It’s here, as a merchant seaman transporting coal up and down the eastern seaboard that he learns his trade. His ambition, dedication and yearning for adventure drive him to sign up and join the Royal Navy where he soon rises through the ranks to become captain of the valiant vessel, HMS Endeavour. Aboard the ship he would make famous he sets off on a number of extraordinary voyages of discovery that would help shape the future of the British Isles and the direction this great seafaring nation would present to the world. To help support this podcast and get exclusive access to new videos packed with history, current affairs and a whole lot more sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverThe series Instagram account is – Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast, it’s 1745 and we’re walking along the cobbled streets of a busy, bustling fishing port, off to buy groceries from a young lad named James Cook. Staring out at the sea every day from his shop window in Staithes, North Yorkshire the teenage grocers boy, James Cook, dreamt of future that would take him around the world. Staithes is a striking fishing port, filled with beautiful clear light, sharp air and constantly changing weather. It’s full of picturesque higgledy-piggledy houses and has the power to buoy the spirits of anyone who visits. This is the place where Britain’s legendary explorer, who would go on to help shape the future of the British Isles, fell in love with boats and the sea. To help support this podcast and get exclusive access to new videos packed with history, current affairs and a whole lot more sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverThe series Instagram account is – Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast I’m taking you to a place that’s part of my ‘origin myth’, it’s a location that witnessed a bloody and brutal battle which is famous around the world. As a wee lad, it was here, that I discovered many of my ancestors from Clan Cameron were killed and buried. This realisation clicked a switch in my young brain and I realised that if I was connected to this part of history then I was connected to every part of it. The build-up to this battle begins less than a year before when Bonnie Prince Charlie, the dashing young pretender, lands on the Scottish island of Eriskay, striding onto the bloody historical stage. He raises his standard and builds an army around himself, determined to claim the British crown by force. On 16th April 1746, on the beautiful moorland of Culloden his Jacobite army fought what would prove to be the last pitched battle ever to take palce on British soil – the Battle of Culloden.  To help support this podcast and get exclusive access to new videos packed with history and current affairs every week sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverThe series Instagram account is – Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast we’re walking down the aisle with a couple who fought like cat and dog for years, but are now about to be joined in union. The Act of Union came into force in 1707 and England and Scotland were finally brought together by the pen and not the sword. The independent parliaments of Scotland & England were united and a prosperous new beginning was promised, but as the Act that would legally bring them together was signed the bells of St Gilles’ Cathedral, on Edinburgh’s royal mile, rang out with the mournful lament, ‘Why am I so sad on this my wedding day?’To help support this podcast and get exclusive access to new videos packed with history and current affairs every week sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/neiloliverThe series Instagram account is – Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast we’re landing in Lyme Regis with a swashbuckling Duke who is determined to be the King.Charles II’s eldest illegitimate son, James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, lands in the west country with a small army of soldiers intent on deposing his catholic uncle, King James II.The duke’s uprising gains momentum and his army swells to around 8000 strong. Because the majority of the Duke’s new raw recruits are agricultural worker, rather than trained soldiers, it becomes known as the pitchfork rebellion.The Duke’s and the King’s army meet at Sedgemoor in what is the last battle of any note ever fought on English soil.Sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreon to help support this podcast and get exclusive access to New Videos Every Week.https://www.patreon.com/neiloliverThe series Instagram account is – Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast we’re travelling the sharp end of a war which ripped the British Isles apart.King Charles I went head to head with increasingly bold Parliamentarians. Bitter, internecine politics and deadly powerplays led to opposing armies being raised, and a bloody civil war swept across the whole of the British Isles. Families, neighbours and lifelong friends were pitted against each another as people were compelled to pick a side and face each other in the blood and gore of lethal combat.In the beautiful rolling hills of the west country, near the city of Bath, a brutal battle was fought that throws the personal tragedy of civil war into sharp relief - horror and heroism side by side with the intimate heartbreak of friends fighting against each other to the death. The battle of Lansdown Hill fought in 1643.Sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreon to help support this podcast and get exclusive access to New Videos Every Week.https://www.patreon.com/neiloliverThe series Instagram account is – Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast we’re teetering on the brink of a war that would rip the three kingdoms apart. In what is one of the most significant moments in Scottish history the National Covenant was born. King Charles I of England and Scotland, an imperious and domineering monarch, went heat to head with the Presbyterian Scots who were in no mood to listen to new ideas, not even from a king.Riots and rebellion swept the country and the King found himself at war with the nation. A resounding clash of religious faiths, a ground-breaking document, rebellion and a blood-soaked island. Sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreon to get exclusive access to New Videos Every Week and to help support this podcast.https://www.patreon.com/neiloliverThe series Instagram account is – Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast we’re prowling the beautiful coves and bays of the Irish coast with Barberry Corsairs.On a dark night in 1631 a notorious Dutch pirate known as ‘Captain Murat’, who operated out of Morocco with the blessing of the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul, sailed ashore to Dunashad castle in Baltimore, County Cork. On this one fateful night Captain Murat and his pirates left a dark shadow of violence and slavery over the whole town. All the inhabitants, every man, woman, and child were taken aboard their pirate ships and transported to north Africa to be sold into slavery.Sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreon to get exclusive access to New Videos Every Week and to help support this podcast.https://www.patreon.com/neiloliverThe series Instagram account is – Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast Neil takes us to a place where all our modern senses and sterile sensibilities are thrown into shock. London at the turn of the C17th was a major metropolis, a city teeming with life, where pestilence and poverty sat cheek by jowl with great wealth and riches. A major industrial centre it was ripe with every stink of animal and human imaginable, streets crowded and claustrophobic, some lined with the rotting body parts of dismembered criminals.Striding into this world came William Shakespeare, a man who had the power to entertain the thongs. Conjuring and conceiving magical words and language he became one of the pillars of the English language. His plays and poetry, that have moved and shaped the whole world, were written, read and performed on Bankside at the Globe theatre.To help support this podcast and get exclusive access to New Videos Every Week sign up to Neil Oliver on Patreon.https://www.patreon.com/neiloliverThe series Instagram account is – Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.