Twenty years ago, Sport Ireland launched its Women in Sport programme with a bold aim: to give women equal opportunities on the pitch. Two decades later, participation is up, sponsorships are stronger, and elite events are drawing record crowds. But stubborn challenges remain — from teenage dropout rates to a shortage of facilities and patchy media coverage.
In this episode of Sports Matters, Ian Kehoe sits down with two women at the forefront of change: Niamh Tallon, founder and CEO of Her Sport, and Emer O’Sullivan, corporate affairs director at Lidl Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Tallon talks about why she launched Her Sport and the mission that drives it: “Our vision is equal opportunity in sport, regardless of gender… Wwe have to be honest with ourselves when we look at the landscape and realise that the opportunity for girls and women is not the same.”
O’Sullivan explains Lidl’s long-running sponsorship of ladies' Gaelic football, from the controversial “Lady Ball” launch to grassroots investment in jerseys and equipment: “We want to do good, we want to be purpose-driven… but equally there are commercial reasons too. It has to work both ways.”
They discuss the barriers that still hold girls and women back — from lack of toilets at pitches to entrenched club cultures — and the power of visibility to change the game. “If girls have a positive experience, they have the facilities… They’ll tend to stay in sport,” O’Sullivan says.
Sports Matters is sponsored by the law firm Whitney Moore.
Rachel Doyle built the Arboretum from an idea into Ireland's most acclaimed independent garden centre. The entrepreneur talks to Alison Cowzer about growing the business into a global award winner, the importance of reinvesting, and planning a diplomatic succession. The Family Matters podcast series is sponsored by Whitney Moore.
Danny McCoy has spent 13 years at the helm of Ibec. He has been critical of government in the past, but believes the current government is doing the best in extraordinary circumstances. He talks to Ian Kehoe about why a sovereign wealth fund is a bad idea, why the state needs to grow, and how Ireland can reap the bounty of multinational growth.
McCambridge Bread has been on the Irish grocery shopping list for more than 75 years and Michael McCambridge has led the family business through its third generation. In the first episode of the Family Matters series, sponsored by Whitney Moore, McCambridge talks to Alison Cowzer about branding, leveraging heritage, and lean management Tuesdays.
At an age when he could be retiring, tax expert Alan Moore has reinvented himself as a technology entrepreneur, rolling out a new AI-powered product that he believes can revolutionise the tax system. He has secured funding from SOSV and is raising additional capital. In this podcast with Ian Kehoe, he talks about the business model, the world of tax, and his career – from tax official to tax adviser to tax entrepreneur.
As a former government minister who had been admired as a schoolteacher for 30 years, Pat Carey’s distinguished career in public life could have been indelibly tainted by shocking and squalid lies. But he fought to clear his name, securing an apology from the Garda Commissioner and a settlement. He talks openly about the controversy, his sexuality, and his life.
Dr Tom Gernon is an Irish scientist who has dedicated his career to diamonds, figuring out where on the planet they are and how did they get there? He talks to Rosanna Cooney about his latest research which breaks down one of the great mysteries of the hardest crystals.
UCD war historian Edward Burke's next book, Ulster's Lost Counties, is a study of a forgotten aspect of Irish history: loyalism in the three Ulster counties that weren’t partitioned and where that population felt left behind. In conversation with Dion Fanning, he discusses the memory and mythology accumulated in Ireland's borderlands and in similar frontier regions elsewhere in Europe. They also talk about Burke's participation in the recent forum on international security policy, the threats facing Ireland and the gap between the protests that targeted the forum and how he thinks citizens perceive those issues.
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.
