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.
Paul Flynn and Dion Fanning are joined by former Mayo footballer Conr Mortimer to talk about the comments made by club footballer of the year Eugene Branagan as well as the ongoing problems with the new intercounty season.
Catherine Sheridan is chief operations officer at EI H2, a young Cork-based company on a mission to find the best Irish sites to convert excess renewable electricity into hydrogen fuel gas. She tells Thomas Hubert about the role of the technology in the wider energy transition, the choice Ireland faces between simply meeting its energy needs or turning renewables into a revenue stream for generations and what makes candidates click when she recruits new workers.
When Politico published a draft opinion from the US supreme on Monday night all hell broke loose.
The story told much about modern America, a leak from the Supreme Court was unheard of and immediately a search began to identify the leaker and establish on which side of the debate - argument, bar room brawl - they might be on
The Supreme Court condemned the leak but also confirmed the story while stressing that the draft was not the final judgment.
Last November Julie F Kay wrote an essay for the New York Times with Katherine Kolbert which stated that Roe is as good as gone. Their book - Controlling Women - What We Must Do Now to Save Reproductive Freedom - also looked at how America must mobilise.
In this podcast, Kay speaks about the decision and also her time in Ireland where she was lead counsel on a case taken by three women to the European Court of Human Rights.
The construction industry is going through a radical shift and Evercam is at its new frontier, using cameras and artificial intelligence to defeat some of the biggest difficulties in the sector - delays, disputes and reworks. In this podcast, Marco Herbst, chief executive and co-founder of Evercam, tells Rosanna Cooney about building out this new technology and its material impact on the future of every building site.
On February 20th, 1933, two dozen of Germany's wealthiest industrialists attended a meeting with Adolf Hitler. What transpired protected their wealth through the Nazi era and beyond. In this podcast, David de Jong, author of Nazi Billionaires, talks to Dion Fanning about how these men protected their wealth and the stories of those who were complicit and those who suffered.
A peer to pay payments company based on an escrow style concept, Trustap is signing up marketplaces across the world and is about to expand its offering to include delivery of items. In this podcast, founder and CEO Conor Lyden tells Rosanna Cooney about the advantage of starting the business right out of college, raising funds in the current climate and living as a penniless founder.
Manchester United have another new manager. Dion Fanning and Paul Flynn discuss what is needed to alter a culture in management while Sean Keyes looks at the Manchester United figures and sees some worrying developments for the club in the numbers.
Whether the EU can keep a united front in response to Russian aggression will also depend in large part on the outcome of this weekend’s runoff in the French presidential election. A President Le Pen would water down sanctions and try to rebuild relations with Putin.
To help us navigate the turbulent waters of European politics and policy at a time of war, Mujtaba Rahman talks to Ed Brophy. Mij is the Managing Director for Europe at the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, and one of Europe’s leading political analysts. He leads and oversees Eurasia’s analysis and advisory work on Europe, helping clients to navigate the macro-politics of Brussels and its interaction with the member states across a wide range of policy areas.
Sinead O'Sullivan grew up in Armagh so it was a culture shock when she found herself in Harvard Business School, a training ground for American elites and "the home of unfettered capitalism". O'Sullivan learned the ways of American old money and, in a series for The Currency, wrote about investing in alternative assets like wine, art, watches, cars and farmland. In this podcast with Sean Keyes, she explains how the rich play a different game to ordinary investors.
“The freedom struggle begins again today against a foreign conspiracy of regime change,” Imran Khan tweeted as he departed office. He claimed that he was a victim of a US plot but as Professor Ayesha Jalal says in this podcast, he offered no proof. In this podcast with Dion Fanning, she explains why the US moved away from Pakistan and why the Biden administration were said to believe Khan was supporting Trump. Jalal also discusses what Imran Khan's departure means for relations with Russia, China as well as negotiations with the IMF, which had stalled.
