“I don’t think Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams had any appetite for violence at all”
In his book, Stakeknife’s Dirty War, the former H-Block prisoner, Richard O’Rawe, provides the inside story on Freddie Scappaticci. In an interview with Dion Fanning, he explores the many lives of Scappaticci, his own experience as a prisoner during the hunger strikes, and his views on Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams as they pursued peace, viewed as “treachery in a pristine sense” by many republicans.
“We have a rigorous matchmaking process to ensure the most relevant people drive the strongest results”
Lynn Hunter owns and runs the biggest influencer agency in the country and now plays the matchmaker between global brands and Irish content creators. In this podcast, she tells Rosanna Cooney about getting the agency off the ground and where the influencer industry is headed.
How Boris Johnson transformed the Tories, why they won’t change back and why that’s bad news for Ireland
Tommie Gorman talks to Dion Fanning about the Boris Johnson he knew and why the chaos that defined Boris Johnson's premiership will remain given those most likely to succeed him.
“If I look at one particularly challenging case, it was Apollo House – a high-profile case that resonated with an awful lot of people”
In 2016, Tom O’Brien was caught in the crossfire when Apollo House, a building he was receiver over, was occupied by activists protesting homelessness. Six years on, he reflects upon that period and talks about the latest journey in his career: managing partner of Mazars. In this podcast with Ian Kehoe, O’Brien also talks about the future of the accountancy industry, the economic outlook for Ireland, and the sectors most at risk of failure.
“If a politician is really serious about what five-year-olds are seeing at sporting events then maybe they’d address the gambling ads they’re seeing everywhere.”
Following the explosion of sanctimony after the brawl at Croke Park, Paul Flynn and Fintan Drury discuss how the GAA's own approach has contributed to the problems and why the player at the centre of the affair has been forgotten.
“The thing I focused on was the accounting fraud. And it came down to this phrase, which short-sellers use, which is ‘there is never just one cockroach in the kitchen’. “
Sean Keyes talks to Dan McCrum about his book Money Men, which tells the story of the €24 billion fraudulent German payments company Wirecard – and also of the investigative journalism that uncovered it.
“Our mission is to try and save and change as many lives as possible, that has driven a lot of the growth that we’ve had over the past five years”
When US multinationals began to expand into Ireland, they were years ahead of local practices in terms of looking after employee wellbeing, says Stephen Costello. He saw the opportunity to launch the workplace mental health start-up Spectrum Life – and tells its story to Devin Sean Martin.
“I can’t imagine a situation where the EU fully admits a new member which is at war with a foreign power.”
On Wednesday night, Emmanuel Macron addressed the French people following the disappointing results in last week’s national elections. He spoke about the deep divisions in the country and how he hoped to heal them.
As president, Macron is now in unprecedented territory. What does that mean for France and what does it mean for Europe? In this podcast Thomas Hubert, senior correspondent with The Currency, and Fergal Lenehan, an Irish academic based in Germany, discuss France, Germany and Ukraine's EU candidacy. Thomas reflects also on how Macron may have to reinvent himself after the election.
“You have people who have a legitimate expectation to own a home, and be safe and secure for the rest of their lives. That is totally different to the experience many elements of the millennial generation have.”
In every country, there's a bargain between workers, capital, and the state. The bargain protects the interests of ordinary people by giving them security and a reasonable standard of living in their working lives, and in retirement. Ireland's bargain, according to Stephen Kinsella, is based on the broad ownership of land. But now, for most young people, ownership of land is out of reach. That's bad in the here and now - and even worse for the future. In this podcast, the economist talks about his recent four-part series on Ireland’s generation gap and explains how many millennials will be left without assets on which to rely in retirement.
“Populists have a tendency to adopt conspiratorial thinking.”
Matthew Continetti has written a history of American conservatism, a study of the age old tension between populism and the elites that have, long before Trump, dominated the story of the American right. His book – The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism deals with this history at a time when it seems as if one side has triumphed. “Right now,” Continetti says, “I think the Republican Party has consolidated around a populist tradition, exemplified by President Trump and his Make America Great Again movement.” In this podcast he talks to Dion Fanning about his book.
“My parents had a newsagents and stacking shelves is what I assumed I would do for my life”
An inspiring careers day at school steered Belfast woman Aislinn McBride towards software engineering when she was 16. She now has 15 years’ experience under her belt at Kainos, a Northern Ireland-headquartered technology business expanding across 22 countries. One of her key challenges as chief technology officer is to replicate this lightbulb moment among potential candidates to broaden the group’s recruitment reach, she tells Thomas Hubert.