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Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arunan.

And me, William Duremple.

Now, every so often, William and I are called upon to read something that we are so utterly mesmerised by that we ring each other up multiple times a day to say,

did you get to this bit yet? Oi, did you read this bit? And also, variously, bloody how he writes

really well, I don't think I'll ever write anything again. Our very special guest, I'm delighted to say, is Patrick Raddenkeef. And if you have been watching Disney and if you've

been listening to our podcast, both of these beautiful things come together because Patrick's

marvellous book, Say Nothing, About the Troubles, has taken both TV and the literary world by Storm. It is a very fine work,

Patrick. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for coming on. I'm so delighted to be with you.

We should sort of say what we have been talking about to lead us to this. So, I mean,

if you have been following this podcast, and if you haven't heard previous episodes, I urge you to do so.

We have been starting from the very earliest point of the history of Ireland just to explain really where we are today, which is the troubles.

That's what we're going to be talking about because the trouble, you just have to say the troubles and everybody in Britain knows what you're talking about.

But we started off with Tudor England, talking about

the plantation system. We talked about the Easter Rising, the civil war. And now we are in the bit

that perhaps most of you remember or your parents remember and have talked about a time when there

was not just instability and violence in Ireland itself,

but also in Britain, in England, in London, more specifically as well.

So this thing is going to be seared in your minds.

And anyone who's grown up here, Patrick, will perhaps know that at one time,

...