Every March, St Patrick’s Day transforms Dublin — but few people know the man helping to turn a single parade into one of Ireland’s biggest cultural and economic events.
Richard Tierney is the CEO of St Patrick’s Festival, the organisation behind Ireland’s national celebration. In thispodcast with Ian Kehoe, Tierney explains how the festival has evolved into a multi-day, citywide programme — with free daytime events, night-time culture and thousands of participants — while still carrying the weight of national identity at home and abroad.
Coming from a background in live entertainment and major commercial deals, Tierney was brought in with a clear brief: make the festival financially sustainable without losing its cultural soul.
As international sanctions target an ever-increasing list of Russian interests in response to the invasion of Ukraine, Thomas Hubert's reporting has traced €13 billion worth of Irish-domiciled assets to Russian firms on the EU and US sanctions list and Stephen Kinsella has assessed the balance of forces between Moscow's military might and Western powers' economic pressure. They join Ian Kehoe to discuss how this confrontation will play out and why Ireland finds itself at the centre of it.
After a harrowing week in Ukraine, two academics at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna spoke to Dion Fanning about what is happening in the country. Ukrainian Lidiia Akryshora and US historian Katherine Younger about why Putin isn't a rational actor and why there is no way he can achieve what he wants in Ukraine.
Paul Keogh advises some of the most illustrious dynasties of Ireland. His new book, The Family Business Book, offers practical advice on succession planning, firing your relatives and employing them in the first place. He tells Rosanna Cooney how to prevent bust-ups and plan for the future when more than just business is at stake.
Time magazine correspondent Simon Shuster has written extensively about Russia, Ukraine and the key figures in the crisis. In this podcast, he talks to Dion Fanning about what will happen next in Ukraine, how the origins of this crisis began a year ago and why Putin wants disagreement and instability in the west almost above anything else.
A record €13.5 billion worth of food, drink and horticulture products were exported from the Republic last year, a 4 per cent rise on 2020. This was achieved despite both the pandemic and Brexit. However, with the rise of gastro nationalism and the sustainability agenda, what does the future have in store for the Irish food industry?
In this podcast with Alison Cowzer, the chief executive of Bord Bia Tara McCarthy talks about all these issues - and much more besides. McCarthy also talks about how inflation is impacting the sector, the battle for talent, and the opportunities and challenges for Irish food exporters.
As the French presidential election increases the pace before the first round at the beginning of April, Thomas Hubert and France 24's Stephen Carroll reflect on the evolution of Emmanuel Macron during his presidency and whether the challenge ultimately will come from the extreme or from the centre.
Howard Hastings is chairman of Hastings Hotels, the family-owned business that owns a string of five-star hotels in the North and has a stake in the Merrion Hotel in Dublin. In this podcast with Ian Kehoe, he talks about steering the business through the pandemic, the hospitality outlook for 2022 and how Belfast is benefitting from cruise liners and a booming film industry. He also talks about the lessons he learned from his father William and his own journey in business.
The resignation of Northern Ireland's first minister Paul Givan caused shock and disappointment with the DUP accused of pulling a stunt. In this podcast, senior contributor Tommie Gorman analyses the move from the position of all the parties in Northern Ireland and anticipates what will come next and why Boris Johnson's future is central to developments
Bobby Healy is on a mission to build a worldwide drone delivery service. In an interview with the economist Stephen Kinsella, the founder of Manna outlines the technological and societal barriers that he is aiming to overcome, and how the business has the capacity to make structural changes to the economy. Healy and Kinsella also we talk about the rise and rise of AI as a societal technology, what progress means, Ireland’s dual economy, and how to develop a new industrial policy for the country. They also examine likely interest rates hikes and what they mean for the flow of capital to firms breaking new ground.
