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.
In this episode of Experience, the Republic of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny talks to Dion Fanning about his single-mindedness, why trophies have never been how he judges success, and dealing with criticism.
In episode two of Energy Matters, we examine how individuals and businesses can be more efficient in their energy use. Ian Kehoe is joined by Muireann Lynch, Senior Research Officer at ESRI, and Madeleine Murray, CEO of Change By Degrees to look at ways we can reduce our energy usage and bills, and the shifts we need to make to our habits. This series is sponsored by Pinergy.
The restaurant and hospitality sectors are in the eye of a storm, with a slew of insolvencies and closures expected in the next twelve months. Damien Grey, the two-star Michelin chef, and owner of Liath, talks to Rosanna Cooney about the misguided perception of a restaurant as anything other than a profit-seeking business, his obsession with daily accounts and when to let go and walk away with integrity.
In this week's episode of Experience, Eoin Ó Broin talks to Dion Fanning about trying to start a band together, how Blackrock College gave him confidence and conflict resolution in a new Ireland.
By his own admission, Aidan Connolly is an unusual leader. Over the past 30 years, he has worked across major corporations, greenfield start-ups, high-growth environments, and turnaround missions all over the world. He has invested in, or worked with, more than a dozen start-ups, and has evaluated the pitch decks of hundreds more. In this podcast with Ian Kehoe, he talks about the nine key lessons he has learned from start-up success over his lengthy and varied career – and what it means for all of us.
In this week's episode of Experience, Mary Coughlan talks to Dion Fanning about how her life began when she stopped drinking, how she has adapted to success over the years and why she still sometimes bears a grudge.
Energy Matters is a new podcast series which examines in detail the true state of the Irish energy sector, tackling everything from the war in Ukraine to the future of transport. In this first episode, Ian Kehoe talks to Enda Gunnell, CEO of Pinergy, and Stephen Kinsella, about how we've reached the position we're in, the structural deficiencies that have got us here and where we go next. The series is sponsored by Pinergy.
The business of recruitment is inextricably tied to the economy. In this podcast, Ed Rossiter, the founder of recruitment company Phoenix, talks to Rosanna Cooney about the slow tanking of the tech sector, the globalisation of talent, and finding recruitment professionals who are worth their salt.
Emma Donoghue talks to Dion Fanning in the latest episode of Experience about her new novel Haven and why the death of her father Denis Donoghue has spurred the author of Room and The Wonder on to want to achieve more.
Starting a vodka company straight out of college didn't give Mark Kavanagh much time for credibility, so he has had to carve it out for himself and his company, Wexbury. In this podcast, he talks to Rosanna Cooney about getting stocked nationwide and building a company where the marketing comes first, and the product comes second.
