Actor and writer Catherine Harvey explores the poetry and language of Northern Ireland, asking how the way people speak and write is connected to the place itself.

Catherine's journey begins in Belfast, where poet Ciaran Carson’s linguistic roots lie deep beneath the foundations of the city. For many years, he was director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University, with its longstanding connection to many of the province’s wonderful writers – including, of course, Seamus Heaney himself.

Among others, Catherine talks to poets Scott McKendry and Maria McManus, dialect expert Antoin Rodgers and literary academic Frank Ferguson. With readings by Victoria Gleason and Michael Hughes – from the Weaver Poets, who once worked in Ulster’s prosperous linen industry, to the poetry of the streets today and a Greek myth for modern times.

Other episodes in this fourth series look at dialect poetry in Wales and Scotland.

A Made in Manchester production for BBC Radio 4 Show less