In this audio essay, writer and podcast producer Ian Maleney probed how different media and narrative industries have told the story of the final years of peat harvesting in the Irish midlands. Prompted by conversations with a film-maker, a theatre maker and a journalist – each in their own ways grappling with the subject – Maleney asked how their approaches reflect and influence popular understanding of the past, present and future of the area and its people.
Ian Maleney is a writer from County Offaly. His first book, a collection of essays titled Minor Monuments, was published in 2019 by Tramp Press, and was shortlisted for the Michel Deon Prize and Butler Literary Award. His writing has been widely published, including in The Guardian, Esquire and the New Statesman. He is the editor of Fallow Media, an online literary magazine.
He is also the producer of The Witness: In His Own Words, which won ‘Podcast of the Year’ at the Irish Podcast Awards 2022, as well as co-producer of Crimeworld with Nicola Tallant.
