For the first episode of The Echo of the Thunder podcast I was delighted to speak with Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh. Fearghal is a historian of the Irish revolutionary period and author of the consistently blistering BLOSC blog, a home for his writing on history and politics. His explicitly Marxist, anti-imperialist analysis is always worth reading and in this episode we covered the fundamental philosophical tenets of Irish republicanism, the socialist republican tradition, the South as a counter revolutionary state and his experiences growing up in County Tyrone during The Troubles.