As the controversy about the Ireland women’s team and the song they sung was unfolding on Wednesday, I was sitting down with the latest guest on Experience, Eoin Ó Broin. 

Ó Broin is to my mind one of the most interesting figures in Sinn Féin when he talks about dealing with the past while being aware of how hurt others were by it. We talked briefly about the events of the week in that context but it merits being listened to in full rather than pulling out a line in what was a long conversation. 

Conflict resolution was one of the reasons he joined Sinn Féin and his journey to Sinn Féin is something we talked about in depth.

Dion Fanning and Eoin Ó Broin Photo: Bryan Meade

I went to Blackrock College with Eoin Ó Broin. When we were 15 we were going to form a band together, a plan that lasted as long as one spectacularly inept attempt by me to play “Ziggy Stardust” on guitar.  

Eoin Ó Broin did join a band called The Foremen who were expected to go places and I wrote one of the first pieces about them.

A few years later, when I was leaving to go to live in London, he was returning. Our experiences there were very different. In the podcast I mention a meeting we had on the street just before that time and how I was surprised by what he was reading and where he was heading. As he has done so, he has become one of the most interesting members of Sinn Féin (not just on housing, which doesn’t feature in this conversation) but on Ireland and its history.

This was a conversation about where the island is heading and why maybe we all need to be less certain of what we think as we go there.