On a freezing January morning in 1785, four cannons echoed across Dublin. Thousands of people abandoned their work and flooded into Ranelagh to watch Richard Crosbie step into a wicker basket, untie the ropes, and drift into the sky.
To the stunned crowd below, they were watching the dawn of a new age.
Except they weren't. When Crosbie died forty years later, travel in Ireland was just as slow and gruelling as it had always been.
Today, we are constantly told we are living through unprecedented, breakneck change. The ground feels like it is moving beneath our feet, and it is easy to believe our generation has it faster than anyone before us. But is that actually true?
In this episode, I look back at the moments the future arrived in Ireland: from Richard Crosbie’s eccentric flight over Dublin, to the first motorcars rattling along ancient dirt tracks to the steam trains and electric telegraphs that shattered distance and forced Ireland to reinvent the clock.
Along the way I ask a simple question: which Irish generation actually saw the world change the fastest?
Coming Next Week: The Shepherd’s Secrets
Next Wednesday my major new three-part series, The Shepherd's Secrets, begins. It explores the dark and complex history of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries, told through the story of the Good Shepherd Convent in Waterford.
Get ad-free early access at patreon.com/irishpodcast.
Sound by Kate Dunlea.
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