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Vices and Volumes | Navigate Irish and British History's Absurdities from 1800s Books

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by Avril Clinton-Forde

23 episodes

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Podcast Overview

Victorians had opinions about EVERYTHING. Jaw shapes. Correct use of coil horns. Servant's gloves. All treated with the kind of earnest detail usually reserved for matters of real importance. Avril Clinton-Forde selects the delightfully absurd from her collection of Irish and British 1800s books—where privileged people wrote volumes about life's minutiae. Social catastrophes, Irish banshee etiquette, Georgian marriage disasters, bizarre upper-class hobbies, and enjoys wonderfully overcomplicated language of the 19th Century. For history lovers, heritage enthusiasts, and curious insomniacs!

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Publishing Since

9/25/2025

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Recent Episodes

June 9, 2026

Author Richard Maher brings us Sir Charles Wogen, Kildare's Jacobite Spy & the Princess Rescue 1719

Richard Maher, author of Sir Charles Wogan: Jacobite Soldier, Royal Agent and Man of Letters, joins Vices & Volumes to tell the extraordinary story of one of Ireland's most overlooked historical figures — a man from Kildare who smuggled a royal princess out of an Austrian palace in a snowstorm, and a researcher who spent eleven years and several trips to Spanish, French, and British archives piecing the story back together.From spiking a courier's drink on an Alpine road to outrunning the British spy network across the Alps, Wogan's 1719 rescue of Clementina Sobieska reads less like history and more like a very well-organised heist. Richard also takes us inside the Archivo General de Simancas — a 16th century castle in León containing 33 million documents — where he found one page written in Wogan's own hand, buried in a year's worth of 18th century military correspondence.We also talk about what it actually feels like to hold a 300-year-old letter written by the person you've spent a decade researching, and Richard's upcoming career break to follow Wogan's trail into a private French archive.Features discussion of Sir Charles Wogan by Richard Maher (2024) and primary sources from the Stuart Papers and Archivo General de Simancas.If you enjoy the show, you can support Vices & Volumes at ko-fi.com/vicesandvolumes — every contribution keeps the books open and the archives visited.

May 26, 2026

Mayo & Galway 1852 | Lord Lucan's Evictions, Bare Feet & a Very Tinder Horse

Mayo and Galway, 1852. Five years after the Famine — the roofs are still off, the faces still marked.Sir Francis Bond Head, retired soldier and former Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, arrives in the west of Ireland with a firman from the constabulary, a carpet bag, and a deeply personal grievance against the Irish jaunting car. He wanted to see the real Ireland — not the tourist route, but the west, where the poverty was worst.What follows is one of the most extraordinary pieces of Victorian travel writing about Ireland: funny, warm, and quietly devastating. Bond Head calls unannounced on Lord Lucan — the man who evicted 10,000 from his Mayo estates — sits in lean-tos with evicted women who bless him through the rain, asks a barefoot boy what hurts his feet most ("Snow is cauld, your honour"), and encounters a very tinder little horse who refuses to go east.He also visits workhouses whose populations have fallen from 4,400 to 995, talks to drivers who remember when the potato fed everything, and asks the constabulary at every stop whether there is really as much religious conflict as the English press would have it.Features readings from A Fortnight in Ireland by Sir Francis Bond Head (1852), American edition, Putnam's Library.Content Advisory: Contains historical accounts of the Great Famine, post-Famine evictions, and poverty in the west of Ireland.

May 12, 2026

The Irishman's Harvest | Famine Ireland Through an Englishman's Notebook 1851

Found in a Dublin antique shop, this 1851 Victorian survey of London's poor contains one of the most vivid records of Famine-era Irish immigrants ever written — and it was penned by a Punch magazine co-founder who couldn't quite escape his own bias.<ul><li>Donate a Coffee https://ko-fi.com/vicesandvolumes</li><li>More info at https://vicesandvolumes.com</li><li>Instagram https://www.instagram.com/vicesandvolumes/</li></ul>Henry Mayhew walked into the Irish courts of Rosemary Lane, East London with a notebook and a head full of assumptions. He found thirty pictures of holy men on the walls, beads in a tumbler on the window-ledge, and a community that had built an entire economy out of oranges, eloquence, and each other.This episode covers how the Irish came to dominate London's orange trade, Father Mathew's temperance movement as unlikely competitive advantage, the Limerick man who sold four chickens for three shillings and threepence and walked to Dublin rather than take the ship, and Old Norah's green velvet dress — thirty shillings, earned back, and then lost to a brother with a pension and a talent for other people's savings.Features readings from London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew (1851), picked up at Needful Things, Dublin.<ul><li>Donate a Coffee https://ko-fi.com/vicesandvolumes</li><li>More info at https://vicesandvolumes.com</li><li>Instagram https://www.instagram.com/vicesandvolumes/</li></ul>

23 total episodes available

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What is Vices and Volumes | Navigate Irish and British History's Absurdities from 1800s Books?: Victorians had opinions about EVERYTHING. Jaw shapes. Correct use of coil horns. Servant's gloves. All treated with the kind of earnest detail usually reserved for matters of real importance.

Avril Clinton-Forde selects the delightfully absurd from her collection of Irish and British 1800s books—where privileged people wrote volumes about life's minutiae. Social catastrophes, Irish banshee etiquette, Georgian marriage disasters, bizarre upper-class hobbies, and enjoys wonderfully overcomplicated language of the 19th Century.

For history lovers, heritage enthusiasts, and curious insomniacs!
How often does this podcast release new episodes?: This podcast updates daily.
Where can I listen to this podcast?: This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
Does this podcast accept guests?: Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.

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