What links the alphabet with Dublin’s National Botanic Gardens and an ingenious Cherokee chief?

The historic glasshouses of the Irish National Botanic Gardens

Find out on this audio guided tour of the Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin — the ‘alphabet tree’ is just one of the many fascinating stories  featured on our Red tour of the historic gardens.

Other stories include the unusual ‘pulsation engine’ and how it pumped the old mill stream in the gardens uphill to the glasshouses. You’ll also discover why Chinese roses were so much more interesting than European ones and what the gardens are doing to monitor climate change.

Along the way you can sit a while in the chain tent that is part metal and part tree and if you’re lucky you might catch the blue green flash of a kingfisher down by the river. Visit in May and you can enjoy one of the garden’s delights, the Chinese handkerchief tree in full bloom.

Self guided tour of the Glasnevin Gardens

Allow about an hour for the tour. This podcast is an ideal guide to exploring the gardens or perfect for an armchair tour that will transport you to the historic and beautiful gardens. Ideal for anyone interested in the role science and botany have played in Irish history. Click to download the podcast tour here.

A full crop of Handkerchiefs

The visitor centre in the garden has a cafe and occasional exhibitions, and ample car and bike parking.

The podcast is available to download from our Ingenious Ireland website and you can keep up with all our latest podcasts by subscribing to our iTunes channel.

This is the third in a series of three audio tours from the gardens made in association with National Botanic Gardens and with grant aid from the department of Tourism, Culture and Sport under the Cultural Technology Grant Scheme.

For more about the fascinating history of science in Ireland, visit  our website, Ingenious Ireland.ie.

Addison's 300-year-old walk

Do you want to know who lives in one of the fanciest houses in Glasnevin? And hear how early botanical gardens were the pharmacy shops of their day?

Come on this audio guided tour and we will bring on a fascinating walk around Ireland’s National Botanic Gardens in Dublin, including a stroll down a tree-lined avenue that is over 300 years old.

You’ll hear stories like that of the father and son who helped to discover potato blight,  how Thomas Moore’s ‘last rose of Summer’ has Chinese ancestry and how it brightens even the darkest winter days.  Stories like these and many more await in this Ingenious Ireland audio guide podcast.

Self guided tour of the Glasnevin gardens

Allow about an hour for the full tour.  This podcast  is an ideal guide to exploring the gardens, or perfect for an armchair tour that will transport you to the historic and beautiful surroundings of the Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin. Ideal for anyone interested in the role that science and botany have played in Irish history. Click to download the podcast tour here.  The visitor centre in the gardens has a cafe, and there is ample parking for bikes and cars.

This is the second in a series of three audio tours made in association with National Botanic Gardens, and with grant aid from the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport under the Cultural Technology Grant Scheme.

Augustine Henry: plant hunter extraordinary

The podcast is available to download from our website and you can keep up with all our latest podcasts by subscribing to our iTunes channel.

For more about the fascinating history of science in Ireland, visit our Ingenious Ireland website.

Then come with us on our podcast tour of the wonderful glasshouses in the Irish Botanic Gardens at Glasnevin, Dublin.  You’ll hear stories about weird plants, the engineering of a glasshouse, exotic orchids, and some of the science and scientists associated with the gardens.  Click to download the podcast tour here.

Turner's ingenious glasshouses

This audio tour will take you inside the world famous glasshouses, architectural treasures that Richard Turner designed in the 1840s.  We’ll introduce you to some of their most fascinating residents, including the loneliest tree in the world, the Wood’s Cycad.

We will have you imagining the smell from all the aromatic plants, and introduce you to a fearsome plant, known as the Queen of the Andes, that eats birds and sheep.

This 40 minute podcast tour is an ideal guide to your visit to the gardens, or perfect for an armchair tour that will transport you to the steamy surroundings of the tropical glasshouses in the Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin. So if you are interested in the role that science and botany have played in Irish history, this series of podcasts is just right for you.  Click to download the podcast tour here.

Bananas growing in Dublin's Botanic Gardens

This is the first in a series of three audio tours from the gardens made in association with National Botanic Gardens and with grant aid from the department of Tourism, Culture and Sport under the Cultural Technology Grant Scheme 2010.

For more about the fascinating history of science in Ireland, visit our website.

Ireland's greatest scientist, Sir William Rowan Hamilton

Then you’ll enjoy our podcast walking tour.  It features a lovely stroll by Dublin’s Royal Canal, tracing the steps of Ireland’s greatest scientist Sir William Rowan Hamilton, on the day he invented a new type of algebra.  Click to download the podcast here.

Hamilton’s algebra is called Quaternions, and you could say that it helped to land a man on the Moon because, among other things, it’s used to control spacecraft, and was vital to Nasa’s Apollo missions.

Every year, on Hamilton day (October 16^th) hundreds of people join the annual commemoration walk from Dunsink Observatory to Broome Bridge, the very spot where Hamilton invented his new form of mathematics in a flash of inspiration.  It’s a key moment in the history of Irish science.

Quaternion equation at Broome Bridge by the Royal Canal

Our podcast was recorded on the 2011 walk, and features the ballad of William Rowan Hamilton (written by local man Jack Gannon), lots of stories and information about the Royal Canal, its engineering, wildlife, and even how canal locks work, plus interviews with many of the  people who attended.

You can use the podcast to take your own tour along the canal towpath.  The audio lasts 44 minutes, and the route by the canal is about 4 km long, and wheelchair accessible.

So if you fancy a stroll,  or even listening from the comfort of your couch, have a listen and learn about one of Ireland’s most important scientists.

Click to download the podcast here.

The podcast is presented by science journalist Mary Mulvihill, from Ingenious Ireland, and the production was supported by Maths Week Ireland and IRCSET.  Full details, the route, and getting to and from the canal are here.

Promoting Ireland’s rich scientific heritage.

This is the first in a series of Podcast tours — more to follow soon.

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