For professional athletes, retirement doesn’t come in the form of a gradual career peak—it arrives suddenly, often through injury or physical decline. Unlike those in other careers who can steadily build toward financial security, many athletes find themselves facing uncertainty in their early 30s. In this episode of Sports Matters, former rugby players Niall Woods and Marty Moore discuss the challenges of transitioning out of the game, from financial instability to the loss of identity and structure. Speaking to Ian Kehoe, they explore the psychological and practical difficulties of life after professional sport and the importance of preparation for the next chapter. Sports Matters is sponsored by Whitney Moore.
In the first episode of Experience with Dion Fanning, a new podcast series with people in Irish life reflecting on the experiences that shaped them, John Banville talks about grief, journalism and why he doesn't care what people say about him on Twitter.
Ireland gets a poor return for its investment in public infrastructure. As the population climbs, that's a big problem. Marco Chitti, a transit researcher who specialises in sharing best practice in infrastructure investment, has some ideas on how to build better. In this podcast, Chitti talks to Sean Keyes.
Mikhail Gorbachev's biographer William Taubman talks to Dion Fanning about how he came to know the last leader of the USSR and how if he hadn't humiliated Boris Yeltsin at a meeting in 1987, the history of the Soviet Union might have been different.
The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council has warned that Government faces difficult choices and needs to prioritise what it wants to achieve in Budget 2023. It must address with the current cost-of-living crisis, without further stoking inflation. It must balance short-term and long-term demands. It must also appease the three coalition partners. And as the economist Sebastian Barnes, the chairman of the Council, says in this podcast with Stephen Kinsella, the upcoming Budget is set against the backdrop of four overlapping crises. He remains positive about the economy but is less upbeat to the state’s approach to pension and climate.
The growth fund BGF made its first investment in the Irish market in 2019. It has followed it up with a dozen more deals, deploying a total of €97.5 million in the Irish market. Backed by Isif, AIB, Bank of Ireland and Ulster Bank, it has €250 million in capital to invest.
In this podcast with Ian Kehoe, the head of BGF in Ireland Leo Casey talks about the type of companies the firm is willing to back, the sectors it prefers, and the size of the check it can write. In addition, the former IBI corporate financier talks about the slowdown in dealmaking this year, frothy valuations and the headwinds facing the economy.
Co Limerick-based Nick Cotter is the winner of this year's Global Student Entrepreneur Awards for the solution developed to reduce chemical use in livestock by Cotter Agritech, the latest strand in a farm-based business sustaining two generations of his family and several employees. From running a marketing survey in his primary school for his first firewood business to selling organic lamb to Adare Manor and keeping a cool head when approached by venture capitalists, he tells Thomas Hubert what drives him to juggle business, college and life – and why it could only have happened on a farm.
The car bomb that killed Darya Dugina may have been intended for her father Aleksandr Dugin, a figure who may or may not have Vladimir Putin's ear but who has articulated a vision of the Russian nation which justifies the invasion of Ukraine. Journalist and documentary-maker Johnny O'Reilly talks to Dion Fanning from Kyiv about Dugin's importance if any and how the war is now playing out on the frontline in Ukraine.
Two years ago, Mike McGrath and Martin Fitzgerald put their money in their own pockets and developed a minimum viable product, before launching it to the market last year. Today, their Cork-based company, Kwayga, has 50,000 suppliers listed on its platform and is operating in 50 countries.
The business, an online platform that matches buyers and sellers in the food and beverage sector, initially targeted the European market but it is now gaining momentum in the US and Canada. In this podcast with Ian Kehoe, McGrath talks about the genesis of the business, the growing problem of supply chain disruption, and raising funds to scale internationally.
Kevin O'Brien is one of the great figures from the golden age of Irish cricket. A 50-ball century against England in 2011 catapulted him to the forefront of people's minds but he was there on all the great days. After announcing his retirement, he spoke to Dion Fanning about his disappointment in how it ended.
Deciphex, the virtual diagnostics company led by academic turned entrepreneur Donal O'Shea, is applying Artificial Intelligence algorithms to pathology, a discipline that hasn't changed much in its physicality over the last century. In this podcast, he talks to Rosanna Cooney about speeding up the diagnostic process and presenting pathologists with an alternate career path.
