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.
French businessman Richard Dujardin lived in Ireland for eight years and won the first operating contract for the Luas. He now chairs NetworkIrlande, the cross-border business group that recently held an awards ceremony in Paris to highlight companies taking part in the current boom in trade and investment between the two countries. Thomas Hubert was there and he spoke with Dujardin as well as two of the winners, Danone Ireland’s managing director Killian Barry and Martin O’Donnell, commercial director with the ag-tech start-up Terra NutriTech. They discussed silver linings from Brexit, shifting export patterns and perceptions between the France and Ireland – as well as the value of the Irish pub to business diplomacy.
David Donoghue headed the Irish side of the Anglo-Irish secretariat. His book One Good Day details the negotiations and tensions on the way to the Good Friday Agreement. In this podcast, he talks to Dion Fanning about how the personalties were as important as the policy, as well as the threats made on his own life.
From a weekend hobby stall in Temple Bar, Margaret O'Rourke has built MoMuse into an undercover success story. She talks to Rosanna Cooney about building her jewellery business organically without advertising, and the decision to bring her husband Paul O'Rourke into the business.
This week, Ireland has been talking about Sean Quinn and the RTÉ documentary, Quinn Country. In 2007, Tom Lyons went to the Slieve Russell Hotel and heard Quinn deliver a speech in which he reflected on his life but which also foreshadowed much of what was to come.
This weekend, in a special podcast which includes excerpts from that speech never previously broadcast, Tom Lyons and Ian Kehoe talk to Dion Fanning and reflect on Quinn's life and times and the themes that have been present through his rise and fall.
Denmark has long been a superpower when it comes to renewable energy. But what can we learn from their experience? In the latest episode of Energy Matters, Ian Kehoe is joined by Lise Holmegaard Larsen of State of Green, a Danish public-private body tackling climate change, to understand the journey Denmark has been on, what policies have been put in place, and how countries such as Ireland can catch up. This series is sponsored by Pinergy.
Is the recent wave of job cuts by technology companies a structural shift or a necessary realignment? The Currency’s Chief Economics Writer Stephen Kinsella and Senior Correspondent Thomas Hubert join Editor Ian Kehoe to discuss Ireland’s response to the tech slump - including the opportunities arising from it.
There will be around 100,000 satellites orbiting the earth by the end of the decade. Ubotica, an Irish space tech start-up, has developed a machine learning chip that can process images from inside these cereal-boxed sized satellites. Aubrey Dunne, chief technology officer and c0-founder, talks to Rosanna Cooney about the potential applications of this observational technology, from spotting crop failure before it's visible on the ground, to identifying forest fires and oil slicks in real-time.
In episode four of Energy Matters, we look at renewable energy and examine whether Ireland is really where it should be in terms of both onshore and offshore energy systems, and where we need to go over the next decade. Ian Kehoe is joined by Ruth Young, Senior Consultant at Cornwall Insight, and Conall Bolger, CEO of the Irish Solar Energy Association. This series is sponsored by Pinergy.
Leaving the world of mass manufactured alcohol behind, Karen O'Neill founded a new drinks brand with a modern take on mead. Beekon was going gangbusters, O'Neill tells Rosanna Cooney, but then the unimaginable happened and she had a decision to make: to fight on or fail.
