Episode 3: Sunday 28th September 2025
In the third episode of The Records Show, Katie goes back to a time when Ireland had the best health service in Europe, there’s a Los Angeles-bound pilot who ‘accidentally’ lands in Baldonnel, Star Trek reunifies Ireland, a British war hero is blown to pieces and there’s the biggest event to hit Irish genealogy in generations.
Overview:
In The Records Show, Katie Hannon explores the shelves of Ireland’s National Archives, digging out previously undisturbed documents, before heading out across the country to follow the trail of the stories behind them. The hundreds of thousands of records held at the National Archives have been gathered from all walks of life: there are maps, plans, secret reports, census returns, wills, prison and court records, as well as the archives of various government departments.
This three part series takes Katie from the surface of the moon to Steven Speilberg’s Co Wicklow bunker to the epicentre of Ireland’s international sports car industry – Castleblaney. She hears of a strictly no-nonsense judge and his moral vigilantes, a plan to turn Nelson’s Pillar into Ireland’s Statue of Liberty, an illegal arrival who has lunch with the President and both Lennon and McCartney turn up at the National Archives.
These files are an adventure. There are stories about astronauts, rock stars, and Hollywood actors … about presidents and Queens and royal banquets. But more than anything, The Records Show is about people and the lives lived in this country. Throughout this series Katie will be following the preparations for the much-anticipated release of the 1926 Census – the first to be taken since independence, revealing the story of those who lived through the birth of this nation.