The Dublin Festival of History runs from 24th September to 7th October 2018 and is a celebration of history with over 140 free history events for the general public including talks, walks, seminars, exhibitions and films taking place in venues around Dublin including libraries and Dublin Castle.
This is the biggest free history festival in the country which last year attracted 7,500 people at 90 history events. It is a must-attend festival for anyone who loves history and enjoys reading, researching and watching history. This year they have added many new event partners broadening the reach and diversity of the exciting festival programme.
This year’s speakers include Michael Palin, Anne Applebaum, Helen Rappaport, David McCullagh, Diarmaid Ferriter, Catriona Crowe, Frank McDonough, Pamela Cox, Clare Mulley and many more.
Michael Palin
Former Monty Python stalwart and much-loved television globe-trotter Michael Palin will bring to life the world and voyages of HMS Erebus, from its construction in the naval dockyards of Pembroke, to the part it played in Ross’s Antarctic expedition of 1839–43, to its abandonment during Franklin’s ill-fated Arctic expedition, and to its final rediscovery on the seabed in Queen Maud Gulf in Canada in 2014. To shed light on one of history’s greatest exploration stories, he has travelled to various locations across the world – Tasmania, the Falklands, the Canadian Arctic – to search for local information, and to experience at first hand the terrain and the conditions that would have confronted the Erebus and her crew. A gifted communicator, this event is not to be missed!
Anne Applebaum
Anne Applebaum will speak about her new book Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine. In 1929 Stalin launched his policy of agricultural collectivization—in effect a second Russian revolution—which forced millions of peasants off their land and onto collective farms. The result was a catastrophic famine, the most lethal in European history. At least five million people died between 1931 and 1933 in the USSR. But instead of sending relief the Soviet state made use of the catastrophe to rid itself of a political problem. In Red Famine, Anne Applebaum argues that those Ukrainians perished not because they were accidental victims of a bad policy but because the state deliberately set out to kill them. Anne Applebaum is a columnist for The Washington Post, a Professor of Practice at the London School of Economics, and a contributor to The New York Review of Books. Her previous books include Iron Curtain and Gulag: a History, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction.
Helen Rappaport
2018 is the 100th anniversary of the murder of the Russian Royal family in Ekaterinburg after the Bolshevik Revolution. The myth of the secret escape of one of the Romanov princesses has been immortalised in plays, books and films but the question of how and why the Royal family were left to their fate at the hands of the revolutionaries remains a fascinating tale still to be fully explored. A decade in the making, Helen Rappaport’s book, The Race to Save the Romanovs includes a range of new and unseen sources from the archives including letters, diaries and telegrams. Free from conspiracy theories, it offers the most revealing, detailed and definitive account of the Romanov family and their horrifically cruel deaths. Dr Helen Rappaport is a Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling historian, as well as one of a very small few Russian-speaking female historians in the UK. She is a historical consultant for the TV drama series, Victoria and has written for The Times.
The Festival of History which features over 140 free events will also feature talks on the Third Reich, Hitler’s women pilots, women’s suffrage, the sinking of the RMS Leinster, Karl Marx and Ireland, the origin of county colours, History in/of Gaming, “Sass Mouth Dames” women in Hollywood in 1930s, Dubliners who died in First World War, Servants, shopgirls and sex-workers, Exploring the History podcast, Christy Dignam on Aslan’s Feel No Shame album, Dublin’s tenement history, Women in Pawnbroking in 19th and 20th centuries. The festival will also feature seminars on Viking history, 20th century Dublin architecture, and the impact of WWI on sport in Ireland.
For more information check www.dublinfestivalofhistory.ie
Twitter and Facebook: @HistFest
Instagram: Histfestdub
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