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.
Sam Smyth meets the pop svengali from Kiltimagh whose fame has long since eclipsed the boybands he represented. "I started at the bottom," Walsh says of his early years booking warm-up talent for showbands in the west of Ireland. Now he is a multi-millionaire with property investments in Ireland and Miami, and an enviable art collection. He talks to Smyth about his breakout years with Eurovision winner Johnny Logan and why Simon Cowell changed his life.
Ted Cunningham is the only person who went to jail in relation to the Northern Bank heist. Fifteen years later, he maintains his innocence and wants to clear his name. So why did he plead guilty and how did £3m in cash end up in his house? This is his story.
Declan Taite, the managing partner and joint country lead of Duff & Phelps, has been at the coalface of Irish restructuring and insolvency for more than two decades. In a wide-ranging discussion with Ian Kehoe, Taite talks about the cases he has worked on throughout his career, and shares his thoughts on the sectors that he believes will struggle in the future. He also discusses the sale of FGS to Duff & Phelps, and the firm’s ambitious growth plans for Ireland.
For 20 years, Marian O'Gorman has been Chief Executive of the iconic, family-run, Kilkenny Group. In this podcast, she talks to Alison Cowzer about succession, acrimony, the importance of championing Irish designers and the future of the retail brand. She also explains why she wants Irish businesses to rally behind Green Friday
Brid Horan broke the mould by becoming Ireland's first female actuary. Not that she planned it that way. In this interview, the former deputy chief executive of the ESB and cofounder of the 30% club talks to Alison Cowzer about her impressive career, leadership, pensions, and why gender balance matters
From Eircom to Quinn Insurance, he was the go to insolvency expert during the economic crash, handling some of the biggest corporate failures of the era. Ian Kehoe talks business with Grant Thornton Managing Partner Michael McAteer.
Sam Smyth meets Tony Boyle, who continues to seek justice over the awarding of the state’s second mobile phone licence to Denis O’Brien’s Esat. It has been an exhausting and costly battle, but, steeled by the findings of the Moriarty Tribunal, he is not giving up.
"We do things very simply. We have state of the art logistics." Breege O'Donoghue spent 37 years at the top of global giant Primark. Here she talks value, ambition, and the very DNA of the retail trade
An Post CEO David McRedmond has held leading roles in the communications sector including with TV3 and eir. He tells Sam Smyth about taking on the banks, maintaining government investment in the countryside and making money from broadcasting – all in the face of digital transformation.
In an in depth interview, the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform talks about overhauling the Department’s culture post-crisis, the institutional reforms that have taken place and the need for a robust public debate around the political economy of spending.
