“Everybody needs a break, climb a mountain or jump in a lake,” sang Christy Moore.

“Some head off to exotic places, others go to the Galway Races ... Summer comes around each year, we go there and they come here. Some head off to Frijiliana, but I always go to Lisdoonvarna.”

Here at the politics department in The Irish Times our holidays are of the culturally improving sort, as you’d expect. Wagner at Bayreuth. Touring the great cathedrals of Europe. The Camino. Golf in Puerto Banus. You know yourself.

But before we head off, we also like to give listeners to the Inside Politics podcast a chance to recollect and ruminate upon an episode from recent political history.

To see the woman convicted of my sister’s murder pictured with President Connolly broke me

‘The Main Street was a very different place’: Ireland’s growing dereliction clear to see in Bray

Fergie Chambers: The Dublin-based communist millionaire in the Trump administration’s crosshairs

Jason Arday found dead after resigning from Cambridge over plagiarism claims

In the last few years, we’ve covered Garret (FitzGerald) vs Charlie (Haughey), the Bertie (Ahern) Years, the Fall of Brian Cowen and Labour’s Pains in Government 2011-2016. This year, it was the Rise and Fall of the Progressive Democrats. (You can pick it up on irishtimes.com or wherever you get your podcasts, as they say.)

Dessie Can Do It, part one: the birth of a new political force

This week, I’ve been pondering the history of arguably Ireland’s most........

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