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.
Irishman James Fitzgerald is managing the World Anti Doping Agency's (WADA) communications. With the Olympics taking place behind closed doors, it will be a trying time for competitors. Many are also critical of WADA and want more to be done to cut out doping. Fitzgerald talks about the challenges of fighting a war which will never be won and defends WADA from its critics.
Ed Brophy has served as chief of staff to a tánaiste and chief advisor to a finance minister. Having just stepped away from politics, he talts to Stephen Kinsella on the intersection of power and policy, and the crises that defined the decade: the bailout, Brexit and Covid.
Ross Frenett was always fascinated by political extremism. It led him to join the army, to work as a war correspondent, and eventually to co-found Moonshot. Moonshot monitors, analyses and influences extremist behaviour online. It uses digital ad campaigns to present political extremists with an alternative point of view. Frenett talks about life in the internet's sewer, why Ireland's extremists are idiosyncratic, Ireland's responsibility as a hub of the global internet, and how to reach those who have been sucked into conspiracy theories.
The search for weapons of mass destruction was the story that dominated the build up to the war in Iraq 18 years ago. One of its architects was Donald Rumsfeld, who died this week. In this podcast, his biographer Andrew Cockburn talks to Dion Fanning about the failure to think through that invasion and why Rumsfeld contributed so much to that disastrous war.
Scurri, the delivery management software company founded by Wexford entrepreneur Rory O’Connor, was growing impressively before the crisis. The pandemic, however, accelerated that growth exponentially with an increasing number of retailers looking to improve their online footprint. And to capitalise on “being in the right place at the right time”, Scurri has just raised €9 million in funding to expand its offer and triple its workforce. In this podcast with Ian Kehoe, O’Connor talks about the genesis of the business, and how a decision to pivot from B2C to a B2B model transformed the company. He also talks about dealing with Brexit, the future of the high street, and raising funds during a pandemic. O'Connor also reflects on his own career journey – from his time as an executive with Waterford Crystal to working as a consultant with Intel and Heineken. And he explains the advantages of running a business from Wexford.
As a National Hunt jockey, Richard Dunwoody's life was defined by his obsession: obsession to win and, more importantly, an obsession not to lose. Since retiring more than 20 years ago, he has set himself different challenges, travelling to the North and South Pole among other places. But he has had a smaller world since the pandemic hit and that has caused him to reflect as well.
One year on from her first interview with The Currency, the founder of Tour America and Cruise Holidays looks back on a pandemic she then expected to be an “emergency” and later turned into a protracted crisis. Mary McKenna says what has saved her travel agency was the retained profits she had left in the business – along with a mighty team effort to “do the right thing” for customers forced to cancel their holidays. With fresh bookings now flowing in, the only infectious thing in McKenna’s interview with Thomas Hubert is her optimism.
The economist Colm McCarthy has a wide range of views across a wide range of subjects – and he is not afraid to share them. In this podcast with Alison Cowzer, McCarthy assesses the state’s wartime response to Covid-19, explains why tax increases are unavoidable, and interrogates the structural malfunction linking Irish banks to the housing crisis. McCarthy, who has authored two major government reports on cost-cutting in the public sector, also talks about the attitude of policymakers to fiscal responsibility, the contradiction of Ireland’s emissions policy, and what he would like to see included in the forthcoming National Development Plan. A lifelong football fan, he also talks about the economics of the ill-fated European Super League, why the European Commission allows anti-competitive rules in football, and argues for more state involvement in the FAI.
As an equity analyst with Susquehanna, Gareth Hickey found he had a large reading list, and not enough time to get through it. While The Economist offered a narrated audio service of its content, there was no one place that offered narrated journalism from a selection of publications. So, in 2015, he decided to build one. Today, the company he leads, Noa, is nearing 50,000 monthly active listeners and has commercial relationships with The New York Times, The Economist, the Washington Post and the Irish Times. In this podcast with Ian Kehoe, he talks about Noa's struggles to land its first customers, the rise of narrated content and how he signed up the Harvard Business Review. Hickey also talks about the company’s business model, and explains why publishers need to embrace new methods of delivery to attract a younger audience. He reveals the company’s international expansion plans, and how, having already raised €1.2m, it will launch its Series A funding round later this year.
Andy Reid's career became a symbol for the debate that still surrounds Irish football when he was exiled from Giovanni Trapattoni's Ireland squad following a late night argument with the manager in a hotel bar. As he makes a career as a coach, he says Ireland needs to accept that it has talented players and why the media and social media today can be so damaging for young sportspeople.
