01.03.2011 10:24
What's on?: Sunday Miscellany

The 40 shades of green, a pint of Guinness, fiddle music; the economic crash, emigration and bailouts; Celtic mythology, folklore and literature: all of these are images conjured up by the word 'Ireland'. Although it's going through a difficult time economically, there's one area of culture where Ireland has always shone: the art of storytelling. And 'Sunday Miscellany' carries on this tradition.

Whether through poetry or narrative, storytelling is alive and well on RTÉ Radio 1, the Irish national radio station. Every Sunday morning at 9.10 am (Irish time), listeners can hear a range of brand new writing from new voices and established names. Reportage, appreciations, memory pieces, poetry, travel writing and personal accounts of events and happenings are all the stuff of Sunday Miscellany. The programme is 50 minutes long and each reading is separated by a piece of music, although, unfortunately, the music is not played on the podcast for copyright reasons.

Sometimes there is a theme running through one edition of Sunday Miscellany, for example 'Father's Day', 'Halloween' or 'St Patrick's Day'. Or the readings have been recorded at literary festivals in Ireland such as the 'Mountain to Sea Festival' in Dublin, the 'Bluestack Donegal Bay Arts Festival' or 'Listowel Writers' Week'.

The programme has been running for over 40 years and is an important Sunday morning ritual for many Irish people in Ireland, and now, of course, around the world. Each programme has 6 readings which all meet the guidelines for submission to the programme - scripts should be approximately 700 words long, which means a reading time of between 7 and 8 minutes. And all of the readings are done by the authors themselves, so you hear a great range of accents, most of them Irish.

Tune in and find out what stories will be told on this week's Sunday Miscellany. Just click here: