By John Harrington
Michael Foley’s extraordinary book, ‘The Bloodied Field’, gave everyone who read it a terrific insight into the events and consequence of Bloody Sunday in Croke Park in 1920.
He has now doubled-down on this public service by producing ‘The Bloodied Field’ podcast, which features eight carefully crafted episodes focusing on the build-up, the event and the aftermath of that dark day when 14 innocent civilians were murdered by British Forces at a Gaelic Football challenge match between Tipperary and Dublin.
So, what can those who enjoyed the book expect from the podcast?
“For people who enjoyed the book, I suppose it's another dive into that world,” Foley told GAA.ie
“We've taken the book as the basis and kind of moved stuff around a lot. Obviously there's been a lot of new information as well has come up in the last five or six years so we've been able to push that into it as well.
“Really, I suppose it's a re-exploration again of Bloody Sunday, what exactly happened here, and the meaning going forward afterwards.
“And, again, introducing the victims, the families. I think one of the big things that we've been able to go into that maybe we couldn't, that I wasn't able to go into in the first edition of the book, is the impact on the families after Bloody Sunday.
Actors Barry John Kinsella, front left, who played the role of Michael Hogan and Jack Galvin, who played the role of William Robinson, two of the 14 victims of Bloody Sunday in a series of short films by the GAA, in the company of journalist Michael Foley, left, Uachtarán Chumann Lúthchleas Gael John Horan and musician Colm Mac Con Iomaire at the launch in Croke Park of a special range of initiatives by the GAA to focus on the memory of the 14 people who went to a match on Bloody Sunday, Nov 21, 1920 and never came home.
“It wasn't just a case of burying their loved ones and moving on, this was an event that stayed with families and stayed with people all the days of their lives and up through the generations and you can see in their stories where that impact seeps out.
“And, I suppose, from the very beginning of this whole project the whole idea has been to try to get the story out to as many people as possible. So there obviously is a cohort of people who will read the book and hopefully they'll get a lot out of it.
“There's also another cohort people who might be more inclined to go listen to a podcast or radio documentary or something like that so we thought it would be a good idea to take the book as the basis for a podcast and just deliver something that would basically tell the story in as broad a way as possible taking as many angles as we can.
“Everything from Mick Hogan the player, for example, from Tipp, the British who are here in Ireland at the time, the guys who came to Croke Park, obviously how the shootings happened and the aftermath. And the impact, most importantly, on the families.
“And to get to know more about the victims themselves, that was the big motivation for the book at the time, the fact that we didn't know a lot about the victims. So, the podcast was another way of really getting their story out there for people to engage with and to get to know them.”
You can listen to the Bloodied Field podcast HERE.