When Muhammad Ali visited Dublin to fight Al Blue Lewis he famously asked where do all the black people hang out? He was told there weren’t any. Dave Hannigan has written a marvelous book about that week in Ireland. He talks to Dion Fanning about Ali’s time in Dublin and the people who made it happen.
The restaurateur Padraic O’Kane is upbeat about the future for the high-profile Dublin eateries he co-owns, Fire Steakhouse & Grill in Dublin’s Mansion House and Sole Seafood & Grill on South William Street. However, he is less optimistic about the outlook for the hospitality sector outside of the main cities, many of which he believes will close down if they are are forced to repay warehoused tax debts. In this podcast, he talks about the economics of the sector, and why, as it did during the pandemic, the government needs to step in. He also talks about bringing US college football to Dublin each year and explains how, this year, the event will break the world record for the number of Americans leaving the US to attend a single sporting event.
Last year, out of the blue, the Biden administration sanctioned China’s semiconductor industry. It banned the sale of semiconductors to China and US citizens working with Chinese companies. The move highlighted the importance of the sector – and the growing geopolitical issues enveloping it. After all, it is a resource that is fuelling the global economy. In Chip War, Chris Miller recounts the sequence of events that led to the United States perfecting chip design and details why the battle to control this industry will shape our future. In this podcast, he talks to Sinead O’Sullivan about the politics and economics of the semiconductor industry.
Qualtrics is far from a household name but that belies its prolificacy. A $12.5 billion company, its client roster includes 90 per cent of the Fortune 100 companies. Irishman Donnchadh Casey is chief customer officer with the SaaS company. In this podcast, he talks to Rosanna Cooney about its new EMEA headquarters in Dublin and the upcoming acquisition of Qualtrics by private equity firm, Silver Lake.
On July 22, 1982, Malcolm Macarthur went to the Phoenix Park in Dublin and bludgeoned Bridie Gargan, a 27-yeara-old nurse, to the point of death. Two days later, he shot a young farmer, Donal Dunne, in Edenderry, Co Offaly with Dunne’s own shotgun. The killings triggered the resignation of the Attorney General, and almost brought down Charles Haughey’s government. A new book by the Irish Times journalist Harry McGee delves into the murders – the motivation behind them, the manhunt, and enduring legacy of Macarthur’s violent killing spree. On this podcast, McGee talks to Ian Kehoe about the events of 1982, Macarthur’s personality, and the political fallout that almost toppled a government.
By his own admission, Noah Charney is “half criminologist, half art historian”. An academic and a prolific writer, he is widely acknowledged to the world expert in the area of art forgery. His book, The Art of Forgery, examines how to value art and weird things, but it is also a book about psychology and the manicness of the men (and they are nearly always men) who try to one-up the high world of art institutions. In the latest instalment of The Context, Charney talks to Sinead O’Sullivan about what constitutes original work, the biggest cons attempted, and why the De Vinci Code is riddled with inaccuracies.
Ireland will become the first country in the world to mandate health labels on alcoholic drinks. In this podcast, chief executive of Alcohol Action Ireland speaks to Rosanna Cooney about the long slog of advocacy to make this happen and Ireland's future crackdown on alcohol advertising.
Is the era of globalisation coming to an end? And if it is, what does mean for Ireland, a country whose economic model is built on acting as a conduit between continents? These are just some of the question that Sinead O’Sullivan discuses with Michael O’Sullivan in the latest instalment of The Context, our new podcast/book club series. Michael O’Sullivan, a Cork-born economist and former chief investment officer for wealth management at Credit Suisse, discusses the thesis behind his book, The Levelling: What’s Next After Globalisation, zeroing in in on Ireland’s place, in a de-globalizing world.
Our Tandem co-founder and chief customer officer of Beqom, a Swiss-headquartered compensation management business, Aisling Teillard is helping companies to rebuild their relationships with staff after a rocky period of layoffs and disenfranchisement. In this podcast, she talks to Rosanna Cooney about her start-up Our Tandem being acquired, moving to Geneva and developing a new-age of company culture 3.0
In 1876, two Swiss spies came to America and conducted some of the most covert and consequential industrial espionage in history. It changed the course of the global watch industry forever. Aaron Stark, a former Apache pilot and economics professor, chronicles the story his new book, Disrupting Time: Industrial combat, espionage, and the downfall of a great American company. In this podcast with Sinead O’Sullivan, Stark talks about the story, the history of watches, and what it says about the nature of innovation.
Simon Johnson is the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and is currently Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he is head of the Global Economics and Management group. He has just co-authored a book with US economist Daron Acemoglu, entitled 'Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity', proposing ways in which digital technology can be repurposed for societal benefit as well as private profit. In this podcast with Stephen Kinsella, he talks about the thesis of the book, the nature of the global political economy, and the outlook for Ireland.
