Don O’Neill doesn’t speak in slogans. He speaks in stories — slow-burning, salt-air-soaked, stitched through with a kind of quiet resolve. Raised in the small seaside town of Ballyheigue, County Kerry, O’Neill grew up sketching gowns in secret, dreaming of runways far from the Atlantic’s reach. But even as he dressed icons like Oprah and Michelle Obama, the pulse of home never left his designs.
His journey wasn’t a straight line. It zigzagged through kitchens and catwalks, through heartbreak and hard-earned success. O’Neill trained in design in Paris while working restaurant shifts at night. He spent years as Creative Director at THEIA, only to see the brand shutter suddenly — a moment that cracked open his identity but didn’t break his belief. In this episode of Arts Matters, he speaks with Alison Cowzer. Arts Matters is sponsored by HLB Ireland.
Nobody knows the business of agent to the stars better than Irish pop's manager-in-chief Louis Walsh. In conversation with Sam Smyth, he looks back on the RTÉ payments scandal, the mutual need the state broadcaster and Ryan Tubridy have for each other and the central role the presenter's agent, Noel Kelly, continues to play in this equation. Walsh also reveals the outcome of a phone hacking court case he has taken in the UK.
Ibec's pre-budget submission is a counter-intuitive call on the State to spend money. But not to splash out willy-nilly, as the business lobby group's chief economist Gerard Brady tells Stephen Kinsella. Addressing capacity constraints in the economy, establishing a counter-cyclical infrastructure to exit the feast-and-famine habits of government capital spending and planning for the long-term needs of an ageing population are the key proposals they discuss on this podcast.
Mairead McGuinness is facing the final period in which she can push reforms through as European commissioner for financial services. As we get closer to European and Irish elections that will define her own political future, she tells Thomas Hubert that "nitty-gritty" measures to progress towards a capital markets union are her priority, defends the taxonomy of sustainable investments she has put in place and explains what the EU wants to achieve with sanctions against Russia.
Shane Kiernan and Stephen MacCarthy are co-founders of Recruitroo, a company tackling labour shortages with an automated online platform to recruit overseas workers. While they acknowledge it is difficult to raise money at the moment, they tell Thomas Hubert that investors still remember the value created by start-ups founded in the previous economic slowdown over a decade ago.
The DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson spoke at an event organised by Co-Operation Ireland last night. After the proceedings ended, the politician sat down with Tommie Gorman to discuss power sharing, the Windsor Framework, and North-South relations.
Emily O'Reilly marks 10 years as European Ombudsman as Brussels is engulfed by the Qatargate corruption scandal. As one of the top officials tasked with policing fellow eurocrats, she explains where gaps remain in the "integrity architecture" of the EU and why. The former journalist and Irish ombudsman also tells Thomas Hubert how she is approaching next year's European election, when her own position will be up for renewal.
Wirecard was once a $30 billion tech start-up unicorn. However, it was later exposed to be a financial fraud by a team of journalists led by Dan McCrum. McCrum is part of the Financial Times investigations team, and his book, "Money Men: A Hot Startup, A Billion Dollar Fraud, A Fight for the Truth", is an international bestseller. In this podcast, he talks to Sinead O’Sullivan about his efforts to uncover the story and the interlocking relationships between politics and business.
Niall Woods has a unique perspective on the world of professional rugby. A former international who plied his trade with leinster, London Irish and Harlequins, he worked in various bodies representing players for ten years before establishing his own talent agency, Navy Blue Sports. In this podcast, he talks about the decline of London irish, cutting deals with sponsors, and why ruby players who operate out of the IRFU system should be available for the national team.
In his book, "Our Lives in Their Portfolios", Brett Christophers argues that that as a result of privatisation and the financial crisis, the ownership and operation of housing, infrastructure and other social assets have moved behind closed doors. In the latest episode of ‘The Context’, he talks about his book and his theory with Sinead.
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.
