Irish Stew Podcast: Recent Episodes
John Lee & Martin Nutty
Irish Stew, the podcast for the Global Irish Nation featuring interviews with fascinating influencers proud of their Irish Edge. If you're Irish born or hyphenated Irish, this is the podcast that brings all the Irish together Listen Notes
Why doesn’t a country good enough to produce Ryanair and Stripe have a normal venture fund industry? Alan Merriman spent three years lobbying the Irish government just to be allowed to launch one, and what he ran into along the way says more about Ireland’s capital gap than most economic reports ever will.
Merriman built Elkstone from a boutique advisory firm into one of Ireland's most active venture investors, and in this conversation he's candid about what it actually took to get there. In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why Ireland’s tax code made venture investing nearly impossible before 2022, and what it took to change it
- Why Merriman puts the quality of a founder at eighty percent of any investment decision, and what he’s really screening for
- Why Elkstone bets on the country instead of a sector, and what that says about the depth of the Irish market
- What Merriman calls “network compounding,” and his pitch for why the Irish diaspora is worth more than its checkbook
If you've ever wondered what it actually takes to build serious venture capital in a small country, or how Merriman makes the case for engaging the Irish diaspora as more than a source of sentiment, this one's worth the full listen.
ALAN MERRIMAN LINKS
- Elkstone
IRISH STEW LINKS
- Website Home Page
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 22; Total Episode Count: 163
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Through its ongoing “Global Irish Nation Conversation” Irish Stew is all about connecting the worldwide Irish family, so sitting down with Dr. Martin Russell, one of the world's foremost diaspora engagement strategists, felt like a meeting of kindred missions. The proud Corkonian has spent nearly two decades turning diaspora theory into practice, working with governments and communities across Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Balkans, all while championing Ireland's potential to be a global leader in the field.
Hosts John Lee and Martin Nutty open with a thought-starter on the "diaspora World Cup" unfolding across North America, then trace Russell's journey from a would-be mathematician at UCC to a scholar of the Irish diaspora's role in the Northern Ireland peace process. Along the way, Russell unpacks the famous 70 million Irish worldwide figure, his four pillars of diaspora engagement, and the crucial distinction between migration and diaspora.
"Other partners come and go and that's fine. That's the nature of life. But your diaspora are a community of consistency if you do it well," Russell says, making the case to governments worldwide.
The conversation turns to Ireland's new Diaspora Strategy 2026–2030, which Russell's research helped inform, the duty of care owed to the vulnerable Irish abroad, and the threat of "diaspora fade" in Irish America. His answer? "The quick answer is don't let it happen, be active."
A masterclass in belonging from a thought leader who's incredibly bullish on the diaspora's future.
MARTIN RUSSELL LINKS
- The Diaspora Institute
- The Networking Institute
EPISODE REFERENCE LINKS
- Ireland’s Diaspora Strategy, 2026-2030
- NY Times: Is this the diaspora World Cup?
- EU Global Diaspora Facility
- Institute for Integrated Transitions
BOOKS
- Fragile Neighborhoods by Seth Kaplan
- Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides by Jeffrey Cohen
- On Belonging: Finding Connection in an Age of Isolation by Kim Samuel
IRISH STEW LINKS
- Website Home Page
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 21; Total Episode Count: 162
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From Crumlin and Tallaght to the City of Brotherly Love, Irish Stew spins another Philadelphia story, appropriately timed to America's Fourth of July celebration of the Declaration of Independence forged in Philadelphia 250 years ago.
Recorded in advance of Philadelphia's Irish American Business Chamber & Network's Ambassador Awards Luncheon, cohost John Lee talks with John Cummins and Adele Farrell, who drew on the grit of their working-class Dublin roots to build business success and rewarding lives in America.
They tell of brutal Boston winters, tropical job sites in Puerto Rico, founding their breakout company NEXA Enterprise Asset Management, successfully exiting from it, and founding their new business initiative, Cummins Business Ventures.
The pair underscore the importance of the Irish American Business Chamber and Network in their success story, calling it the “missing piece” they wished they'd found on day one. They look forward to the Chamber’s signature Ambassador Awards event every year, especially in 2023 when John and Adele received the IABCN’s prestigious Taoiseach Award.
The episode wraps with a heartfelt Seamus Plug. This October, in partnership with the IABCN, John and Adele are launching a fundraising gala benefiting The Autism Hub, a new Dublin-based charity providing assessments, therapies, and family support for autism services in Ireland, a cause that's become deeply personal for them both. Hosted by their Rise Above Fund and the IABCN, The Infinity Gala will be held on Oct 15 in Warrington, PA.
It’s a warm, genuine, and often inspiring Global Irish Nation Conversation about finding your tribe in Philadelphia, three thousand miles from home.
LINKS
- John Cummins LinkedIn
- Adele Farrell LinkedIn
- The Rise Above Fund
- Irish American Business Chamber & Network
- Infinity Gala
IRISH STEW LINKS
- Website Home Page
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 20; Total Episode Count: 161
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What's Sherlock Holmes doing in New York's most Fenian pub?
That's the intrigue at the heart of Terror From America: A Sherlock Holmes
Adventure, the debut novel from journalist and historian Terry Golway, and the
question Irish Stew podcast cohosts Martin Nutty and John Lee set out to answer
before a packed, raucous house at Ernie O'Malley's on the first of June.
A Staten Island native with a Ph.D. in U.S. history from Rutgers and two decades
of political reporting at the New York Observer, Golway has written more than a
dozen acclaimed works of nonfiction. But fiction, he tells us, unlocks something
facts alone cannot: "You can learn as much about history through a novel as you
can in a history book."
His novel imagines Britain dispatching the world's greatest detective to infiltrate
the Irish American revolutionary underground of 1885 New York, a mission
rooted in a real and largely forgotten chapter of history. "The original crime is
based on something that actually happened," Golway explains. "Several Irish
Americans were going to try to blow up London Bridge…instead they blew
themselves up."
Holmes's investigation pulls him into the orbit of real historical figures, none
more compelling than John Devoy. In a dramatic reading brought brilliantly to
life by actor Mick Mellamphy, Devoy records in his diary what Charles Parnell
had told him when they met: "The American people are now the arbiters of the
Irish question,” to which Devoy replied, "I almost had tears in my eyes when I
heard those words. That was exactly what we in New York wished to be, the
arbiters of the Irish question."
And what does Holmes make of the Fenians he encounters? After infiltrating New
York’s Irish revolutionary underground as an itinerant fiddler at Clan na Gael
gatherings, Sherlock observed, "The Fenians who inhabit the back rooms of New
York's clubhouses and taverns bear little resemblance to the crude caricatures
portrayed in some less reputable newspapers. Formidable not because of their
capacity for mayhem, but because of the power they yield over the production of
memories."
Fiddler Eileen McLain provided the evening’s musical accents while Mick
Mellamphy served as producer. Past Irish Stew guests Peter Quinn, Larry Kirwan,
and Maura Clare were in the house as were Black 47 co-founder Chris Byrne and
Irish American Writers & Artists president Liza Engesser.
LINKS
TERRY GOLWAY
- Website
- Substack: Observer
- Book: Terror From America
- Amazon: Terror From America
ERNIE O'MALLEY'S
- Website
IRISH STEW LINKS
- Website Home Page
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 19; Total Episode Count: 160
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When Frederick Douglass left Belfast in 1845, only seven years after escaping slavery, he declared: "Wherever else I feel myself to be a stranger, I will remember I have a home in Belfast." That remarkable statement from a Black abolitionist finding radical welcome in a 19th-century Irish city is the beating heart of North Star, the immersive musical and theatrical experience that Northern Ireland-based DJ, broadcaster, and creative producer Kwame Daniels brings to New York's Irish Arts Center, June 3–21.
Irish Stew cohosts Martin Nutty and John Lee met Kwame at the Irish Arts Center a few days before opening night and recorded this episode in the IAC Library
He relates that his journey to Belfast began in a Ghanaian household in East London, where identity was worn proudly inside the home and navigated carefully beyond it. "As soon as we entered the house again, it was absolutely back to the background, the roots, and the culture," he recalls. "But outside, there was almost a code-switch going on. We were firm in our identity, and yet we were also aware of our surroundings and how we had to move within them." That same fluency served him when he arrived in Derry in 1997 and found a city divided along lines he didn't yet understand. Music became his passport across the sectarian divide. "I was bringing in sets of decks (the equipment DJs use to play, control, and manipulate music). That's the conversation, all the other conversations come out of that."
Kwame relates that Douglass's Belfast story with his evocation of finding a home in the city hit him with the force of revelation. "A Black man, an enslaved man on the run in 1845 and that's his response to being in Belfast. That has to be the starting point for us to reset."
The result is a 77-minute production, one minute for every year of Douglass's life, an immersive experience fusing hip-hop, jazz, gospel, classical, and electronic music with spoken word, choral arrangements, and the honest voices of young people from both Belfast and New York. "You're going to be presented with a level of musicianship that is extraordinary, and it's unlike anything you've ever seen."
North Star runs June 3–21 at the Irish Arts Center, tickets at irishartscenter.org.
Next up from Irish Stew, Fresh Stew LIVE with Terry Golway on his new thriller Terror From America: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, recorded before sold out audience in the Malachy McCourt Room at Ernie O’Malley’s Pub in NYC with the fiddler Eileen McLain and actor Mick Mellamphy enhancing the experience.
LINKS
NORTH STAR
- Irish Arts Center info and tickets
KWAME DANIELS
ORGANIZATIONS
- Bounce Culture
- Solab
IRISH STEW LINKS
- Website Home Page
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 18; Total Episode Count: 159
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While Team Irish Stew preps for its Fresh Stew LIVE before a paying (!) audience on June 1, past guest Sean Granahan and The Floating Hospital he leads are gearing up for June 2, the evening of their 160th anniversary Summer Gala. Given the charity's deep roots serving Irish and other impoverished newcomers to New York, John and Martin are revisiting their conversation with Sean to shine a fresh light on the Floating Hospital and its mission-critical fundraising effort.
Sean is a Pennsylvania-born lawyer with Mayo and Dublin roots who has spent two decades leading the Floating Hospital, a charity founded to provide basic healthcare to the Irish and other destitute arrivals crowded into New York’s first slum, Five Points, where tuberculosis was grimly called "the natural death of the Irish."
Today the Floating Hospital is New York City's largest healthcare provider to families in homeless shelters and domestic violence safe houses, caring for 30,000 people annually across pediatric, mental health, and dental services.
Sean notes that since its origins 160 years ago, The Floating Hospital has stood on its "three-legged stool" of meeting immediate needs of displaced people, providing essential health education, and delivering care to its neighbors in need.
The charity's colorful maritime era saw ships taking kids on fresh-air harbor cruises while delivering vaccines and health education, a chapter paused after 9/11 when their vessel, the Lia, was retired. After 20 years at the helm, Sean still dreams of sailing again, saying, "The ship is magical. If you want to get 500 kids vaccinated, all you do is say, 'We're going out on the ship on Friday,' and you'll have a thousand."
A volunteer stint keeping the then-struggling organization afloat rerouted Sean's career from corporate law to community service. He and his staff continue navigating funding threats and political headwinds to serve the city's most vulnerable families.
Now we can help, through attending the Floating Hospital Summer Gala or providing a donation to support the organization that helped so many Irish and other newcomers survive and thrive in New York.
FLOATING HOSPITAL LINKS
- Website
- Summer Gala Tickets
- Giving
- Blue Sky
IRISH STEW LINKS
- Website Home Page
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 17; Total Episode Count: 158
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Balmy spring weather lured Irish Stew cohosts John Lee and Martin Nutty to Central Park to record this episode in an urban pine forest, steps from the site of Seneca Village where so many Irish immigrants once lived. Backed by a chorus of birdsong, the podcasters preview their most ambitious show yet: Fresh Stew LIVE, a podcast recording before a live audience with historian and now novelist Terry Golway on Monday, June 1st, at Ernie O'Malley's,140 E 27th Street, New York City. Tickets are on sale at Eventbrite.
Terry will spin tales from his new thriller Terror From America: A Sherlock Holmes Adventure, telling how New York to break up the Fenians responsible for Irish American dynamite campaign in London in the 1880s.
The evening will open with a fiddler to set the Holmesian and Irish mood setting the stage for the centerpiece conversation with Terry, with dramatic flourishes from actor Mick Mellamphy and musical accents from the fiddler. Once the program winds down, Terry will stick around to sign books (cash or check only) while legendary uilleann piper Chris Byrne of Black 47 fame leads a session to keep the craic going,
The evening will include prize drawings and the first drink on in Irish Stew.
The Fresh Stew LIVE episode with Terry Golway recorded that night will drop in early June.
Links
- Tickets: Fresh Stew LIVE with Terry Golway
- Terry Golway
- Book Link: Terror From America: A Sherlock Holmes Adventure
- Website
- Ernie O’Malley’s
Irish Stew Links
- Website Home Page
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 16; Total Episode Count: 157
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It’s a wrap for Irish Stew as the podcast-in-residence at the 2026 Solas Nua Capital Irish Film Festival in Metro DC with this episode of five conversations spanning three films: Saipan, Báite, and Conveyance.
The Festival’s Opening Night feature Saipan unspools the drama that played out on that distant island between the manager of the 2002 World Cup-bound Irish football team Mick McCarthy, played by Steve Coogan and its star player Roy Keane acted by Éanna Hardwicke.
Co-director Glenn Leyburn speaks to co-host John Lee about the challenge of dramatizing one of Irish football's most divisive moments: "You want to show both sides of that story and show both men as three-dimensional human beings. We realized how much they wanted the best for their country and the team but just had different ways of going about that. Drama is built from having those shifts and then having shifts within that."
Co-director Lisa Barros D'Sa explained the creative process of her filmmaking partnership with her husband Glenn, saying, "The most important thing is to agree on the voice of the film and what the tone is. Once we lock that in, we know the film that we want to make. And then on set, I work a bit more with the actors. Glenn works a bit more with camera."
Festival regular and Irish football fan Dan Mahoney provides some audience perspective: "I've probably been to this festival seven or eight times. I was in Dublin for the semi-final match in 1990, which was an unbelievable experience. I didn't remember the whole story, but I thought it was a fabulous film," he said.
The following day, John spoke with Eleanor O'Brien, lead actor of Báite, the Irish-language murder mystery and family drama that earned the festival’s fan favorite award.
"It was my first feature film where I was the lead — and challenging for that reason, and also because of the Irish in it. By no means am I a native speaker," she says, adding “It's really nice being there at the start and being able to create a character knowing that the character is with me in mind."
Eleanor shares the unlikely early steps in her young career and towards the end of the conversation with the rising star, you’ll learn the Irish word for handcuffs!
Co-host Martin Nutty closes out the festivities with Gemma Creagh, associate editor of Film Ireland and director of the short film Conveyance, a satirical and spooky look at Ireland’s housing crises, told through the eyes of a young couple trying desperately to find a home.
“They go to see some really dilapidated, horrible places, and then they find this most incredibly gorgeous apartment in Dun Laoghaire overlooking the sea, however, it is not without an undisclosed guest of some ghostly kind,” she says.
Gemma also offers a sweeping account of the Irish film industry's rise, pinpointing a pivotal moment, saying, "Game of Thrones came into Northern Ireland and it was the biggest production that had ever been in Ireland. The impact was huge."
Three films, five voices, and a fitting farewell to a festival that keeps delivering.
Irish Stew Links
- Irish Stew CIFF Episodes
- Bluesky
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 15; Total Episode Count: 156
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Though the latest Irish Stew guest is Aileesh Carew, CEO and Museum Director of Dublin’s EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, this interview takes place in Philadelphia, upstairs again at Fergie’s Pub. Both Aileesh and cohost John Lee came to the “City of Brotherly Love” for the Irish American Business Chamber and Network’s Ambassador’s Awards where Aileesh would accept the Uachtarán Award for EPIC as an organization that has shown exemplary leadership in philanthropic contributions of time and talent to non-profits in Ireland.
"We are so honored to be recognized by the Irish American Business Chamber and Network, an organization that really understands and deeply cares about the Irish community, the links and the legacy,” she says.
The award comes at an especially meaningful time for EPIC.
“To receive the award and be recognized in our 10th anniversary year is very special to us,” says Aileesh, who has been with EPIC almost every step of the way. “EPIC’s purpose really is to tell the impact of the Irish around the world. Over 70 million people claim Irish heritage and we can chart at EPIC 1,500 years of immigration. It's the legacy of what the Irish people have achieved around the world."
Philadelphia was an important destination for Irish emigres and many played key roles in the birth of the American republic.
"John Dunlap was the printer of the Declaration of Independence. He was born in Bann in County Tyrone. He immigrated to Philadelphia as a boy and built one of the city's most influential printing businesses. He actually printed the Declaration working through the night on July 4th, 1776, and went on to print the first 200 copies of the Declaration of Independence."
Over its ten-year history, the interactive EPIC experience rose quickly in the ranks of not only Irish but European destinations, awarded Europe's Leading Tourist Attraction three years in a row.
Take that Eiffel Tower!
But rather than counting their laurels, Aileesh and her team are charting the course for the next ten years.
She says, "If you stand still, you go backwards, so we’ve embarked on a 10-year master plan. We're about to unveil three brand new galleries including “Isle of the Senses”f that will chart and evoke the Ireland the people left behind, what people take with them in the smell, the touch, the sense, and in their hearts.”
This is Irish Stew’s second EPIC episode having featured its first director, John Patrick Greene, for episode that dropped in 2022.
Next week Irish Stew shares the buzz around the Capital Irish Film Festival in conversations with the great cinema talent at the annual Solas Nua event.
Links
- Irish Stew Newsletter Signup - on home page
EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum
- Website
Aileesh Carew
Irish Stew Links
- Episode Page: Aileesh Carew
- Website Home Page
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 14; Total Episode Count: 155
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No Ordinary Heist had just finished rolling when Irish Stew cohosts Martin Nutty and John Lee took to the AFI Silver Theatre stage on the second night of the 2026 Solas Nua Capital Irish Film Festival in metro-Washington, DC. Before a near-capacity crowd of almost 400, the podcasters-in-residence led the post-screening Q&A on the gripping new Irish thriller inspired by the 2004 Northern Bank robbery in Belfast, still one of the largest bank robberies in British and Irish history, with £26.5 million in cash stolen.
On stage with John and Martin are the film's Belfast-raised director and co-writer Colin McIvor and Dublin-based producer Ruth Carter of Picture Locked Productions. The conversation explores the riveting human stories of the film set against the backdrop of a city emerging from The Troubles, the meticulous casting of Eddie Marsan and Éanna Hardwicke in leading roles alongside memorable Irish supporting talent, and the editorial choices that kept audiences white-knuckled throughout.
"The old cliche is that you create your heroes and then you trip them up every two minutes. Just what else can you do to screw it up for them," Colin says explaining the creative philosophy behind the film's tension.
The discussion broadens to explore the thriving all-island filmmaking ecosystem, with Ruth noting the increasingly seamless collaboration between Northern Ireland Screen and Screen Ireland saying, "We're really lucky in Ireland because we have such great support both in the South and in the North. They really go with an all-Ireland approach as much as they can."
Reflecting on how far Northern Ireland's film industry has come since 2004, Colin adds, "It's hard to believe that when I was a student coming through, that we would be where we are. We have got a place in the filmmaking industry now."
An engaging night of Irish cinema, covering everything from the craft of tension-building to the state of all-island filmmaking, all in this episode of Irish Stew.
With thanks to the Northern Ireland Bureau for their support of this screening and Q&A, Solas Nua and Festival Director Maedhbh Mc Cullagh for naming Irish Stew in the Capital Irish Film Festival Podcast-in-Residence and to John Collins for recording this episode.
Links
No Ordinary Heist
- IMDb
- Wikipedia
Colin McIvor
- IMDb
Ruth Carter
- Picture Locked Productions
- IMDb
All Irish Stew Libations Episodes - Ten episodes. All in one place.
- Capital Irish Film Festival Episodes
Irish Stew Links
- Episode Page: Fergus Carey
- Website Home Page
- Bluesky
- Mastodon
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 13; Total Episode Count: 154
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North Dublin native Fergus “Fergie” Carey didn’t just open a bar in Philadelphia, he helped invent a neighborhood, a scene, and a sense of community that stretches from Center City to the Irish arts world and back again. In this on‑location episode recorded upstairs at Fergie’s Pub on Sansom Street, Irish Stew cohost John Lee traces Fergie’s journey from Burgerland on O’Connell Street to becoming one of Philly’s best‑known publicans and civic connectors.
Fergie recalls the bleak job prospects of 1980s Dublin, his short, ill‑fated stint in Houston, and the sudden sense of being “revered because you’re Irish” when he finally landed in Philadelphia and started a job at El Taco Grande the very next morning. He walks us through bartending at McGlinchey’s, the leap to open Fergie’s with his Palestinian partner Wajih Abed in a rough‑and‑tumble City Center street, and the chaos of a first night saw the Guinness run dry in 40 minutes.
We explore how Fergie built a career as co‑owner or founder of beloved spots like Monk’s Café, The Goat, The Jim, and soon The Monto, while never losing sight of the core lesson he learned in fast food: you’re managing people, not walls. He talks about keeping a pub current yet grounded in tradition through his self-invented live-band karaoke, Quizzo evenings, Saturday trad sessions, ballad nights, and the hugely popular “pub sing.”
We also hear about Fergie’s deep engagement with Philadelphia’s civic and Irish cultural life, from Inis Nua Theatre Company and Beckett in the back room, to his tours to Ireland and charity concerts like his recreation of The Last Waltz.
We spoke on eve of the Irish American Business Chamber & Network’s Ambassador’s Awards Luncheon, the signature annual Irish event on the city’s calendar, after which those in-the-know kept the craic going at the nearby Fergie’s Pub.
Among them were local business and civic leaders John Cummins and Adele Farrell who will share their insights on the Irish American Business Chamber & Network and tales from their own Dublin-to-Philadelphia success story on a future episode of Irish Stew.
Links
Fergie’s Pub
- Website
All Irish Stew Libations Episodes - Ten episodes. All in one place.
- Libations Episodes
Irish Stew Links
- Episode Page: Fergus Carey
- Website Home Page
- Bluesky
- Mastodon
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 12; Total Episode Count: 153
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A language returned
Mollie Guidera returns to the Irish Stew for a second conversation. Since her first appearance in November 2023, she has published The Gaeilge Guide and grown Irish with Molly into the fastest-growing Gaeilge community in the world — more than 10,000 students across 75 countries. But what Mollie is really doing is harder to quantify: dismantling the barriers that sit between Irish people and their own language.
The problem was never the language
Fourteen years of compulsory classes, taught through the very language you were trying to learn, left a generation feeling guilty for failing at something that was never properly taught. Mollie's argument is simple: the language is logical, patterned, and far more learnable than people believe. The problem was always the delivery.
Hidden in plain sight
We spend time on Hiberno English — the way Irish survives in everyday speech. "Is the dinner not ready yet?" Nobody in America says that. Say it in Irish and it makes perfect grammatical sense. From Wilde to Joyce to Sally Rooney, the Irish literary tradition is Hiberno English in action — a colonized people turning the language of their oppressor into a thing of beauty.
The key holder
The episode carries the presence of Manchán Magan, who passed away last year. Mollie recalls asking Manchán for advice on a documentary about her offshore students — Hong Kong, Moscow, Alaska — and his reply coming back immediately: go for it. His wife's words at the Irish Book Awards said it best: Manchán opened the door and showed us all the way through. We just have to walk.
The language is yours
Fluency is a myth. What matters is showing up consistently, with curiosity, and without shame. The language is yours. It always was.
Episode Quote
"People have this negative reaction to Irish — and yet this regret for not learning it. There's a very complicated relationship. But I don't think the language itself is complicated."
— Mollie Guidera
Links
Mollie Guidera
- Website: Irish With Mollie
- Book: The Gaeilge Guide
- Podcast: Irish with Mollie
- TikTok
Irish Language Resources
- TEG: Irish Language Certification
- An Siopa Leabhar - Irish Language Book Store
All Irish Stew Irish Language Episodes - Ten episodes. All in one place.
- Irish Language Episodes
Irish Stew Links
- Website
- Bluesky
- Mastodon
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 11; Total Episode Count: 152
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Award-winning director, producer, and writer Ruán Magan joins Irish Stew for a timely conversation ahead of his double appearance at this weekend’s Solas Nua Capital Irish Film Festival, where he’ll present two very different visions of Ireland on screen.
Ruán reflects on a creative life that has taken him from early collaborations with his brother, writer and broadcaster Manchán Magan, through decades of boundary-pushing work that has reached audiences around the world. He talks about growing up in a family steeped in story, language, and history, and how that background propels him toward projects that dig beneath the surface of Ireland’s past and present.
One of his festival offerings is the new documentary “Daniel O’Connell – The Emancipator,” which marks the 250th anniversary of O’Connell’s birth and revisits the life, legacy, and global impact of “The Liberator.” Ruán describes the film as “a chance to step back from today’s noise and remember how one determined Irish lawyer changed the democratic DNA of the modern world,” connecting O’Connell’s campaigns for Catholic Emancipation to later movements led by figures like Frederick Douglass, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr.
He then turns to his Irish-language drama “Báite,” a feature that takes his fascination with Irish history and identity into more intimate, psychological territory. Ruán calls it “a story where the past seeps up through the floorboards of ordinary lives,” using the rhythms of the Irish language and the coastal landscape to explore guilt, memory, and the pull of old ghosts.
Throughout the episode, Ruán shares his approach to filmmaking as “trying to make the invisible visible—whether that’s buried history, an overlooked revolutionary, or the quiet truths people carry inside them.” He talks about balancing scholarship and emotion, why collaboration matters, and what keeps drawing him back to Irish subjects for a global audience.
Irish Stew will be the Podcast in Residence at the Capital Irish Film Festival, Feb. 26 – Mar. 1, appearing on stage after the Friday 6:30 p.m. screening to discuss Northern Irish film with a panel of Northern Irish filmmakers.
Links
Solas Nua
- Website
- Capital Irish Film Festival
- Báite
- Daniel O'Connell: The Emancipator
Ruán Magan
- Website
- IMDb
Irish Stew Links
- Website
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 10; Total Episode Count: 151
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For it’s 150th episode, Irish Stew podcast welcomes back a clear-eyed optimist for troubled times, Michael J. Dowling. Glucksman Ireland House is honoring him with the Outstanding Public Service and Lifetime Contribution to Public Health Award at its New York City Gala on Tuesday, March 3, 2026.
After decades of work transforming Northwell Health into an American healthcare leader, Michael has segued into a CEO Emeritus role, but it sounds nothing like retirement.
“Life is a series of changes, a series of journeys,” says the former top-class hurler from Knockaderry, Co. Limerick. “I have stepped down, but I haven’t stepped away. I could never retire. I enjoy the battles. I'm working at Northwell full-time for the next two years on the succession with the new leadership team.”
On the episode hosted by John Lee, Michael shares his well-honed views on compassionate leadership, how to address social media’s effect on youth mental health, the promise of healthcare progress, the impact of the Irish on U.S. history, immigration’s enduring value, why the US must continue to be a beacon for democracy globally, and his commitment to Irish America.
“I want to spend a portion of my time continuing to build and enhance the Irish influence in the United States and vice versa.”
Listening to the episode, it’s easy to see why New York University’s Glucksman Ireland House chose to honor Michael at its Gala at New York’s Mandarin Hotel. For Michael, the admiration is mutual.
“Glucksman House is at the center of Irish and Irish‑American studies. It reminds us about heritage, history, and contribution,” he says. “Loretta Glucksman is an icon, an extraordinary individual. And it's not just her work here in the US, it is her work in Ireland, too, and all she does to bring people together and promote a sense of humility, strength, and kindness to the world around us.”
What’s next for Michael Dowling? He tells of his work in youth mental health addressing the perils of “so many young people living in a virtual world and not living in the real world,” the book he’s writing on leadership fueled by optimism, and his plans to deepen involvement with Irish institutions in the US and in Ireland.
“We need more people to be spokespersons about the values of decency and respect and humanity and caring,” he says.
Irish Stew is off to DC this weekend to be the Podcast in Residence at the Solas Nua Capital Irish Film Festival, Feb. 26-Mar. 1. Filmmaker Ruán Magan, who has both a feature film and documentary in the festival, headlines the next episode of Irish Stew.
Links
Glucksman Ireland House
- Website
- Gala Tickets for Tuesday, March 3 at the Mandarin Hotel
Michael Dowling
- Northwell Health
- X
Irish Stew Links
- Website
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 9; Total Episode Count: 150
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Filmmaker Nuala O’Connor joins Irish Stew cohosts Martin Nutty and John Lee for a “Global Irish Nation Conversation” on her documentary In Time: Dónal Lunny, her filmic tone poem in black and white on the enigmatic innovator of Irish music.
Co‑founder of the seminal groups Planxty, The Bothy Band, and Moving Hearts, Dónal introduced the flat-back bouzouki to Irish music and broke through with new time signatures, revolutionizing the sound and status of Irish trad music without breaking its fundamental architecture.
Previously an RTÉ radio producer, Nuala is now an Emmy Award-winning writer and director whose work in music and arts documentary filmmaking spans more than three decades.
The director explains how the title In Time carries intertwined meanings that mirror the musician’s life and work. “You know sometimes things come to you for no reason and then they seem to be very reasonable after they’ve arrived,” she says of the name. “There’s the idea of time signature in music. Dónal explored time signatures previously unheard in Irish music and he has been at the forefront of Irish music for so long, you know, literally in time.”
The episode also delves into Dónal’s deep relationships with fellow musicians, his creative collaborations with his Planxty bandmates, and newer sonic explorations as he is still pushing boundaries in his late seventies.
He also pushed boundaries in his personal life which the film unflinchingly shows and the podcasters explore.
Nuala explains that she wanted to paint a portrait of an artist still very much in motion, not a nostalgic retrospective, a commitment captured powerfully in the film’s climactic scene where an ailing Dónal and his Planxty colleague Christy Moore reunite.
“I took Dónal out of hospital, drove him to where we shot that, and then put him in the car and brought him back to hospital after,” she says, “I honestly didn’t know, will he be here when the film comes out?
In Time: Dónal Lunny will screen on Day 3 of the Solas Nua Capital Irish Film Festival, Feb. 26 through Mar. 1. Irish Stew will once again be the festival’s Podcast in Residence and will record an episode on stage with filmmaker guests following the Fri., Feb. 27, 6:30 PM Northern Ireland Spotlight screenings of Three Keenings and No Ordinary Heist.
Links
Solas Nua
- Website
- Capital Irish Film Festival
- In Time: Dónal Lunny
Nuala O’Connor
- IMDB
South Wind Blows Productions
- Website
Irish Stew Links
- Website
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 8; Total Episode Count: 149
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In this conversation recorded at the 2025 Capital Irish Film Festival, host Martin Nutty sits down with two trailblazing Irish filmmakers who are pushing boundaries in their respective genres.
Aislinn Clarke discusses her groundbreaking Irish-language horror film Fréwaka, exploring how her childhood love of horror (she saw The Exorcist at seven!) and her father's commitment to preserving the Irish language converged into a unique cinematic vision. Clarke reveals the gift of discovering the perfect location for the film in Ravensdale Forest, and why horror fans have always embraced foreign language films. With international distribution through IFC Shutter and more projects in development, Clarke is proving that Irish-language cinema can compete on the global stage.
Tanya Doyle takes us behind the scenes of her five-year documentary odyssey Eat, Sleep, Cheer, and Repeat, which follows Ireland's cheerleading team to the World Championships in Florida. What began as a search for a film about women in sport became an intimate portrait of athleticism, identity, and belonging. Doyle shares the moment she knew cheerleading was the story—watching a young competitor vomit from sheer physical exertion—and defends the sport against anyone who questions its legitimacy. With 160 hours of footage to wrangle and characters lost to COVID shutdowns, the film became a testament to resilience both on and off screen.
Both filmmakers discuss the challenges of funding independent cinema in Ireland, the intimacy of the editing process, and the importance of creating spaces where diverse stories can flourish. Whether you're interested in horror, documentary filmmaking, Irish language revival, or women in sport, this episode offers rich insights into the craft and passion of contemporary Irish cinema.
Links
Films
- Preview: Eat, Sleep, Cheer, and Repeat
- Preview: Fréwaka
Aislinn Clarke
- IMDB
Tanya Doyle
- IMDB
- Griffith College
Solas Nua
- Capital Irish Film Festival
Irish Stew Links
- Website
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 7; Total Episode Count: 148
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Recorded at the 2025 Capital Irish Film Festival in Washington DC, this episode features a conversation with two Irish women who have both made significant transitions into film from other careers.
Kathleen Harris, a former Irish Times video journalist, discusses her environmental documentary Birdsong, which won the 2025 CIFF Audience Award for Favorite Irish Feature. Denise Deegan, a novelist, talks about her award-winning short, The Innkeeper.
Birdsong follows ornithologist Seán Ronayne as he attempts to record every bird species in Ireland, traveling to some of the country's most remote locations along the way.
The Innkeeper is a short comedy drama set around a school nativity play, which carries a quiet but powerful message about homelessness in Ireland.
Both guests left stable careers — Harris from journalism, Deegan from running a PR business — to pursue film making, and both talk candidly about the leap involved. A thread running through the conversation is how each approached social issues in their work: Harris structured Birdsong to balance wonder with concern about Ireland's biodiversity crisis, while Deegan deliberately withheld The Innkeeper's central point until the final moment. Neither wanted to lecture. Both wanted to leave the audience feeling something had shifted.
Links
Capital Irish Film Festival
Kathleen Harris
- Website
Denise Deegan
- Website
The Films
- Birdsong
- Website
- Preview
- The Innkeeper
- Preview
- IMDB
Irish Stew Links
- Website
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 6; Total Episode Count: 147
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Irish Stew wraps its Off the Beaten Craic in the Hidden Heartlands Series in Drumshanbo, the Co. Leitrim town rewriting the rural renewal playbook. What began as a desperate effort to save a shuttered jam factory has become one of Ireland's most remarkable community-led success stories.
At The Food Hub in Drumshanbo, cohosts Martin Nutty and John Lee hear from Cllr Enda McGloin and onsite manager Fergal McPartland how a voluntary local committee refused to let the abandoned jam factory slip away, spending years securing a long-term lease and funding while recommitting the site to food production rather than easier options like storage. The Food Hub now houses multiple thriving enterprises including The Shed Distillery, home of Gunpowder Irish Gin which put this Leitrim town on the global spirits map. Together, the Food Hub and the Shed have transformed Drumshanbo from a symbol of industrial decline into a vibrant food, drink, and tourism destination studied by other towns seeking renewal.
Inside The Shed, the podcasters hear how its managing director and founder P.J. Rigney and his team have fused global imagination with local soul in their distinctive gins, whiskeys and now vodka. At the distillery’s heart beats an Irish storyteller's instinct for character, place, and pride.
The podcasters get to see the magic happen on The Shed Distillery Tour, a popular hospitality experience made complete with a stop at the onsite Jackalope Café, a local foodie destination.
Now P.J. is restoring the town's historic Methodist Church as a community and visitor hub, continuing the ethos of regeneration that began with the Food Hub. He calls it a partnership of "guardian angels" between business and community, each nurturing the other through shared purpose.
This final episode of Off the Beaten Craic in the Hidden Heartlands captures the alchemy of curiosity and connection that defines Drumshanbo, a small town that turned crisis into creativity and built a legacy of craft, courage, and collaboration. From jam to gin, from empty factory floors to bustling innovation, Drumshanbo proves that when community and imagination meet, even the most hidden heartlands can become a global destination.
Irish Stew’s next destination is Washington, DC. Join them next week for the first of several episodes on Irish films featured by the Solas Nua Capital Irish Film Festival.
Links
The Food Hub
- Website
Cllr Enda McGloin
- Website
The Shed Distillery
- Website
- YouTube
- PJ Rigney on LinkedIn
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 5; Total Episode Count: 146
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Irish Stew’s latest “Off the Beaten Craic” adventure in County Leitrim discovers three new ways to slow down, tune in, and taste this corner of Ireland, through food, forest, and a gentle spin along the Jackalope Trail.
First, we meet Malaysian‑born chef and restaurateur Sham Hanifa. At age 20 he answered an ad to work in Ireland, arriving in Carrick‑on‑Shannon jet‑lagged and short on money, but today he anchors the local food scene with The Cottage, My Kitchen, and Buffalo Boy, blending Irish ingredients with his Thai‑Chinese‑Indian‑Malay heritage.
And he loves Irish Stew, though he was referring to the edible not the audio version.
“What I say is Irish stew is comfort food, packed with flavor and a good‑hearted dish,” he explains, insisting he won’t “mess around” with its unique Irish character even as he adds subtle Asian notes elsewhere on the menu. That respect for Irish produce interpreted with Asian flavors has turned Sham’s Leitrim restaurants into dining destinations
The episode moves next to the Drumhierny Woodland Hideaway, opened to guests in 2022 and featuring 11 self‑catering lodges tucked seamlessly into mature woodland. Sustainability, local partnerships, and wellbeing shape the experience, from an onsite café and private‑chef dinners to a sanctuary with seaweed baths, sauna, and cold plunge.
“They arrive stressed on Friday, and when you meet them on a Sunday they’re completely Zen, which I think is what we’re all about,” says co-founder and marketing manager Alison Moffatt.
The podcasters then roam towards Drumshanbo for a “slow adventure” on the Jackalope Trail with Eileen Gibbons of Electric Bike Trails. Inspired by seeing e-bikes on Ireland’s Greenway network, Eileen and her husband Seamus created guided rides that trade speed for stories—linking canal-side cycling with local heritage and the wider tourism scene.
“We take people along at a slow rate, stop along the way at interesting spots, all with a little bit of joke and a little bit of fun, and maybe even a bit of song,” she says.
The Jackalope Trail leads to The Shed Distillery of PJ Rigney, distillers of Drumshanbo Whisky and Irish Gunpowder Gin, part of Co. Leitrim’s innovative culinary incubator The Food Hub, both to be featured in the next and final episode of Irish Stew’s “Off the Beaten Craic” series.
Links
Sham Hanifa
- Website
- YouTube
- My Kitchen
- The Cottage Restaurant
Drumhierny Woodland Hideaway
- Website
- Alison Moffatt LinkedIn
Electric Bike Trails
- Website
Irish Stew Links
- Website
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
- Travel Partner: Tourism Ireland
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 4; Total Episode Count: 145
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It may be the smallest county in Connacht, the smallest by population in Ireland, with the smallest stretch of beach on the Wild Atlantic Way, but in their latest episode the Irish Stew podcasters learn that Leitrim is capitalizing on its offer of a great quality of life, relative affordability, entrepreneurial energy, appeal to a more mobile workforce, and its “slow adventure” approach experiencing its natural allure.
Arriving in Carrick-on-Shannon, the cohosts head to the offices of the Leitrim County Council, the local government organization committed to building an economically strong, creative and inclusive county, making Leitrim the best place to live, to work and visit.
Though County Council Chief Executive Joseph Gilhooly opened the doors to Leitrim for Irish Stew, for the interview he gave the floor to his able lieutenants, Director of Services David Minton and tourism officer Sinead McDermott.
You’ll hear how Leitrim’s economy is strong on small-scale entrepreneurship and growing sectors like fintech, food innovation, engineering, and renewables. They also detail the County Council’s integrated support system including the Local Enterprise Office, The Hive incubation hub, and the Carrick Campus for growing firms.
They share that tourists from across Ireland, the U.S, and Europe come for Leitrim’s authenticity, natural beauty, slower pace, farm to table food, tranquillity, and eco-tourism. They sense that climate change is subtly shifting European travel patterns northward, making Ireland a “cool” alternative to overheated southern Europe.
With Leitrim’s tourism value proposition top-of-mind, the podcasters head to the Landmark Hotel to meet with Sales and Marketing Manager Ciara Maxwell, who came to Leitrim for a one-year work experience 15 years ago and never left, which tells you everything you need to know about the pull of this place.
She tells how founders John and Ciaran Kelly envisioned a new riverside hotel that would be a real landmark looking out over “The Marina Capital of Ireland” and in the center of Carrick-on-Shannon’s lively weekend nightlife of pubs, shows, and restaurants.
There’s more tastes of Leitrim on Irish Stew next week, including the story of the Malaysian chef who’s upending the local food scene, the new woodland lodging hideaway set on 100 acres of Irish history, and the slow adventure e-bike option for traversing the Jackalope Trail to Drumshanbo, home of The Shed Distillery of P.J. Rigney.
Links
Leitrim County Council
- Website
- X
Leitrim Tourism
Sinead McDermott
Landmark Hotel
- Website
- YouTube
Ciara Maxwell
Irish Stew Links
- Website
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 3; Total Episode Count: 143
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Irish Stew Podcast is “Off the Beaten Craic” in Co. Longford for the sound of the low whistle and the sight of an Iron Age roadway at the Corlea Trackway Visitors Centre, located a half hour’s drive north from their home-away-from-home in Athlone. There they met their guide Noel Carberry who opens and closes the interview with his virtuosity on the larger, lower-pitched variation of the traditional tin whistle.
Noel is a 26-year-veteran of the Corlea Trackway Visitors Centre, a “life sentence’ as he jokingly calls it, but beyond the bog he’s best known as an expert musician of the uilleann pipes, the Irish tin and low whistles, and bodhrán.
Hebrings Ireland’s Iron Age dramatically to life through his expert commentary on the Corlea Trackway, the widest prehistoric road of its kind discovered in Europe. Laid down in oak planks between the autumn of 148 BC and the spring of 147 BC, this one-kilometer wooden roadway once stretched from dry land to dry land across the bog, a monumental and mysterious statement of power and belief in the Hidden Heartlands.
“What you’re talking about is a prehistoric planked road, for all the world like a railway track upside down, with planks of oak laid down on runners of ash, oak, or silver birch,” he says.
Noel tells of growing up in the nearby workers housing of Bord na Móna, the Irish agency which extracted peat to fuel power plants. That same industrial extraction uncovered the buried trackway in 1984, when milled peat operations stripped the bog down to the level of the ancient timbers and a worker with an interest in archaeology realized their importance.
For Noel, the ancient trackway may have been less a simple road than a display of dominance, possibly built with timber taken from defeated neighbors, their sacred oaks regarded as the reincarnation of ancestral spirits.
On view at Corlea are eighteen meters of preserved roadway saved from industrial destruction and maintained, presented and compellingly interpreted by the OPW, or Office of Public Works.
With tales of ancient kings, bog bodies, and spirited tunes like “The Rocky Road to Dublin” echoing through the Centre, Noel makes a compelling case that Ireland’s true story runs not just around the coasts, but through the deep, mysterious middle.
With thanks to Noel and the OPW, the podcasters depart for the final Off the Beaten Craic stops in the Hidden Heartlands series with episodes coming up next in County Leitrim.
Links
- Corlea Iron Age Roadway and Visitors Centre
Irish Stew Links
- Website
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 2; Total Episode Count: 144
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The Irish Stew podcasters venture across Westmeath one last time, to the county’s eastern reaches to explore the picturesque village of Tyrrellspass, where they once again find a story of community commitment…and a bog.
The community leader giving cohosts John Lee and Martin Nutty the grand tour of his charming town is Eugene Dunbar, a retired teacher who never retired from educating anyone who’d listen about the treasures unique to Tyrrellspass.
After meeting Eugene at the town’s centerpiece castle tower, the trio followed the signs to the Cloncrow Bog & Village Trail.
“I came here in 1972 as a geography teacher, and I was absolutely intrigued with the whole system of the bogs and having one so close to us here in Tyrrellspass,” he says. “It’s what they term an intact raised bog, with the same vegetation that would have been on it 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,000 years ago. So, you're looking at a unique landscape that hasn't changed in millennia.”
Eugene tells of how people moved from viewing bogs purely as fuel sources to recognizing them as vital carbon sinks and ecological wonders, driven locally by the volunteer effort known as ETHOS--Everything Tyrrellspass Has On Show. Refusing to be bogged down by bureaucratic challenges, Dunbar and the other ETHOS volunteers created the interpretive raised boardwalk through the local raised bog, which morphs into a trail through the highlights the village itself, culminating in its picture-perfect town green with its evocative 1970 Imogen Stuart sculpture of three school children representing the future of the new Ireland.
After a restorative pint (or maybe it was two) in the snug, welcoming Willie’s Bar, Eugene took the podcasters back to his inviting home, decorated with the paintings of his wife Josephine who served the trio tea and scones while the podcast recording began in earnest.
Add signature Irish hospitality to Everything Tyrrellspass Has On Show!
It’s off to Longford next week when Irish Stew adds a mysterious Iron Age road to its Off the Beaten Track Road Trip itinerary as they explore the Corlea Trackway, discovered in 1984 by workers digging peat in the local bog--yes, again with the bog!
Links
- Cloncrow Bog & Village Trail Website
- ETHOS
- Website
- YouTube
Irish Stew Links
- Website
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 1; Total Episode Count: 143
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In this end of years politics episode, Martin Nutty sits down with Ted Smyth, former Irish diplomat and president of the advisory board at Glucksman Ireland House, NYU, to discuss the political landscape on both sides of the Atlantic.
Smyth offers stark assessments of Trump's second term, characterizing it as an assault on American democracy with unchecked executive power. However, he finds hope in recent Democratic victories, particularly Zohran Mamdani's New York City mayoral win and gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, suggesting voters are experiencing "buyer's remorse" and seeking balance.
The conversation explores affordability as the defining issue for upcoming elections, with both American and Irish middle classes struggling with housing costs and basic expenses. Smyth criticizes Ireland's failure to address its housing crisis despite available resources, and discusses coordinated campaigns by right-wing media to destabilize Ireland and the EU.
On Ireland-Israel relations, Smyth advocates for focusing on a two-state solution rather than symbolic gestures, drawing parallels to Northern Ireland's peace process. He addresses concerns about Ireland's defense spending and the need for a more proactive public relations strategy to counter negative narratives in publications like the oped pages of the Wall Street Journal.
Smyth concludes with an optimistic call to action: support local communities, businesses, and cultural institutions. Whether in Dublin or New York, he argues that strength comes from grassroots engagement and maintaining democratic values during challenging times.
Ted Smyth Links
- Website
- Glucksman Ireland House
- UCD Clinton Institute
- BlueSky
- X
Irish Stew Links
- Website
- Media Partner: IrishCentral
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 39; Total Episode Count: 142
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Irish Stew couldn’t make it to Dublin, so cohost Martin Nutty and John Lee settled for the Dublin House, a venerable watering hole on New York’s Upper West Side, known for its low-key vibe, high quality pints and its 10-foot-tall neon sign in the shape of a harp that has been lighting the way to a great craic for decades.
The occasion was a meet-up over a pair of those pints for “Stew in Review,” a holiday retrospective on their 2025 season.
Martin reflected on the core message of the Joseph Kennedy III episode as the former US Special Envoy to Northern Ireland advocates for the healing power of civility over the destructive impulse of rage.
John notes for craic it’s hard to top the episode recorded in the cavernous, cacophonous Common Market with Belfast Night Czar Michael Stewart and Belfast Food Tours’ Caroline Wilson, and for raw, riveting emotions the episode with Northern Irish actors John Duddy and Ciaran Byrne as they relived their experiences of The Troubles.
That was one of two episodes of Irish Stew recorded live before a (paying!) audience as part of the Origin Theatre First Irish Festival, a 2025 highlight made possible by then artistic director Mick Mellamphy, an high-energy experience the pair hopes to expand on in the year to come.
With a pint or two oiling the conversational gears the pair shared recollections of The Irish Stew residency at the Solas Nua Capital Irish Film Festival, a standout episode with the groundbreaking Irish president Mary Robinson, the sense of commitment to community they found throughout their Off the Beaten Craic in the Hidden Heartlands Road Trip, the destination dining at Thyme Restaurant in Athlone, and the serendipitous stories they stumbled upon in their off-season Midlands ramble.
The podcasters also raise a toast to their travel partner Tourism Ireland, media partner IrishCentral, the Dublin House for welcoming them into their cozy confines, and, above all, the folks who lend their ears--the listeners. The episode wraps with a sneak preview of what’s to come in 2026, and, after settling their bar tab, the podcasters head back into the windy winter weather on West 79th Street, pausing for a selfie under the glowing green harp that heralds the Dublin House.
Irish Stew Links
- Website
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 38; Total Episode Count: 141
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In this season of giving, Irish Stew welcomes Pennsylvania-born lawyer-turned-nonprofit leader Sean Granahan, the president of The Floating Hospital, a 160-year-old New York charity with deep Irish roots that still cares for the city’s poorest families. Founded in 1866 out of Trinity Church in the wake of the Civil War Draft Riots, it first served emancipated Black families and post–famine Irish immigrants crowded into lower Manhattan’s notorious Five Points district.
In the episode, Sean connects those early Irish arrivals, once left to die of tuberculosis considered “the natural death of the Irish,” to today’s homeless families in New York’s shelters, many fleeing violence, eviction, or aging out of foster care.
Sean describes the organization’s founding mission as a “three-legged stool” of meeting immediate needs, sharing health education, and delivering care, a model that still guides its work as New York city’s largest provider of healthcare to families in homeless shelters and domestic violence safe houses.
He recounts the organization’s colorful maritime era, when their ships took kids and moms out for fresh-air harbor cruises while they received vaccines, essential services, and vital health education. Sean had to hit pause on that chapter after 9/11 when their vessel, the Lia, was retired to a dock well up the Hudson River. The Floating Hospital may not be floating now, but the work continues full speed ahead at its Long Island City base and satellite sites where 30,000 people are cared for annually, from pediatric and vaccination services to mental health and dental care. Sean insists that their clean, bright, dignified, welcoming clinics have as much an impact on patient outcomes as their healthcare services.
That ethos comes alive in “Candy Cane Lane,” a holiday pop-up where homeless moms and kids experience the joy of holiday shopping as they choose free new coats, pajamas, toys, and hygiene items.
With Mayo and Dublin roots, Sean tells how his high-flying corporate law career was rerouted when he volunteered to help the then struggling Floating Hospital, and how he and his staff navigate through shifting political headwinds and funding threats.
And after 20 years at the helm, he still dreams big, yearning for the day The Floating Hospital floats again! “The ship is magical,” he says of his quest to refit the Lia and sail it again. “If you want to get 500 kids vaccinated, all you do is say, ‘We’re going out on the ship on Friday,’ and you’ll have a thousand.”
The episode closes with a “season of giving” invitation to make a holiday gift to The Floating Hospital or join their “Tugboat Society” of small monthly givers keeping homeless moms and kids afloat.
But to really understand this uniquely Irish New York story, you’ll want to hear Sean tell it himself on Irish Stew.
Links
The Floating Hospital
- Website
- Threads
- BlueSky
Sean Granahan
Irish Stew Links
- Website
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 37; Total Episode Count: 140
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The Irish Midlands flow to the relentless rhythm of the River Shannon and along its banks the Irish Stew podcasters found themselves again, Day Five of their “Off the Beaten Craic in the Hidden Heartlands” wanderings, gazing across its broad expanse from the docks of the County Offaly town of Banagher.
There, cohosts John Lee and Martin Nutty met local historian James Scully and caught up with an old friend of John’s, Mark Boylan, who covers horseracing for The Irish Field, to explore the history, legend, music, and all that gives life and character to this small Shannon-side community with a population aspiring to hit the 2,000 mark.
James met us at the cozy, convivial Flynn's Pub on Main Street, but the craic there proved too mighty for recording purposes, so the trio beat a retreat to the hilltop Church of St Paul's for what proved to be Irish Stew’s first recording in a church (but not their last as you’ll hear in the final Hidden Heartlands episode).
A lifelong educator and noted local historian, James set about unraveling the history of the old Irish saying, “That Beats Banagher!,” in a book of the same name which he co-wrote with Kieran Keenaghan. In this richly illustrated volume they explore the murky provenance of “That Beats Banagher!” and how it entered Irish political and cultural lore. A beguiling spinner of the town’s stories, James shares tales of the earliest days of the town, the arrival of the international man of mystery from the 1600s Matthew de Renzy, the town’s unexpected literary links to Anthony Trollope and Charlotte Brontë, Banagher’s vibrant community life, and its status as a popular port of call for the river cruising crowd.
They started the day in a pub, absolved their sins in a church, and then retreated to a pub, J.J. Hough’s Singing Pub, a renowned destination for trad music fans and tourists alike run by Ger Hough, who IrishCentral called the most creative publican in Ireland.
There they met David and Mark Boylan who John got to know when the Breeders’ Cup flew the whole Boylan family to Kentucky so the then 14-year-old Mark could sing his Breeders’ Cup song before about 80 thousand fans at Churchill Downs for the 2011 World Championship race meet. Mark may be all grown up but he hasn’t outgrown his love of horses and of his hometown of Banagher which shines through in the closing segment.
And in such a small, tight-knit community it was no surprise to learn that James was Mark’s teacher at St Rynagh’s School.
Well, that beats Banagher!
Next week Irish Stew hits pause on their Off the Beaten Craic series to embrace the season of giving with the story of a New York City charity rooted in the plight of the impoverished Irish immigrants in the notorious Five Points district in our conversation with Sean Granahan, president of The Floating Hospital.
Links
James Scully
- Book: That Beats Banagher!
Mark Boylan
- The Irish Field
- X
Hidden Heartlands Travel Resources
- Ireland.com
- Discover Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands
Irish Stew Links
- Website
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 36; Total Episode Count: 139
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Ireland has no shortage of stately manors, but as Irish Stew hosts Martin Nutty and John Lee learned, no other historic property has a legacy like Co. Offaly’s Birr Castle Demesne, which for generations has been an incubator of breakthroughs in engineering and science.
With local historian and educator Brian Kennedy as their guide, the podcasters share the story of the Victorian-era, steampunk-style construction of timber, iron, and stonework that was the world’s largest telescope from 1845 to 1917. Built by William Parsons, the 3rd Earl of Rosse, “The Leviathan of Parsonstown” as it became known is a 20-foot-tall engineering marvel that enabled the Earl to map light-years distant nebulae with stunning accuracy that rivals modern Hubble telescope images.
Brian points out that the Parsons family's 400-year legacy includes what’s thought to be one of the world's earliest surviving suspension bridges on the grounds, Charles Parsons' invention of the steam turbine, and the work of photography pioneer Mary Wilmer Field, the 3rd Countess of Rosse.
Her 1850s glass plate photographs are preserved in Ireland’s Historic Science Centre at Birr, which not only tells the Birr science story in historical artifacts and interactive displays, but that of Ireland as well.
And Birr is still writing that science story today as it hosts the Irish station of the Europe-wide LOFAR radio telescope network, which in 2018 observed for the first time a billion-year-old red-dwarf, flare star.
Add botany and horticulture to the science mix with multi-generational botanical treasures on display across the expansive grounds including 17th-century box hedges (among the world's tallest), specimens from China and South America, and Victorian glasshouses under restoration.
“There's something in bloom every day of the year, throughout the whole year of plants from right throughout the world.” Brian says.
The conversation wraps with a discussion of the town's transformation from "Parsonstown" back to its original Irish name, its connection to St. Brendan's monastery, the charming town’s rich Georgian heritage, and things to see and do “off the beaten craic” in Birr’s environs.
But for Brian, it all starts with the Birr Castle Demesne, “Come early in the morning because one day is just not enough to take in all that the castle has to offer,” he advises.
Next week Irish Stew makes one more stop in Co. Offaly at the River Shannon town of Banagher where John and Martin record their first (but not their last) episode in a church!
Links
Birr Castle Demesne
- Website
- X
- YouTube
- TikTok
Hidden Heartlands Travel Resources
- Ireland.com
- Discover Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands
Irish Stew Links
- Website
- Episode Page: Brian Kennedy
- X
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 35; Total Episode Count: 138
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The poet Seamus Heaney once said, "I think of the bog as a feminine goddess-ridden ground, rather like the territory of Ireland itself."
And that territory is 14- to- 21 percent bog.
So, on their fourth day “Off the Beaten Craic in the Hidden Heartlands,” Irish Stew cohosts John Lee and Martin Nutty head to Shinrone in Offaly near the Tipperary border to the farm of Donie Regan, a demonstration site for Peatlands for Prosperity, the brainchild of Douglas McMillan and his Green Restoration Ireland Cooperative team.
Doug explains how centuries of peat extraction left expanses of degraded bogland, often dismissed as wastelands. But they’re fields of dreams for Doug who outlines how rewetting bogs halts carbon loss, restores biodiversity, and opens the opportunity to the wet farming techniques known as paludiculture.
Using Donie’s farm as a showroom for how paludiculture can restore economic value to bog land, Peatlands for Prosperity is testing potential hydrophilic cash crops such as bog berries, cranberries, even lettuce and celery, as well as common wetland plants like bullrushes and common reeds which can be renewable sources of building and packaging materials. Both believe wetland agriculture can offer farmers meaningful new income streams from both these kinds of crops and from earning carbon credits for maintaining carbon-sequestering bogs.
The conversation probes the challenges of farmer hesitancy, policy confusion, cultural ties to turf cutting, and how the demonstration site helps other farmers see the program’s potential.
Donie speaks passionately about witnessing wildlife return to his land, and the team discusses educational outreach, including bringing schoolchildren onto the bog to inspire the next generation of environmental stewards, the ecotourism possibilities of restored boglands, and how transforming Ireland’s peatlands could be a win-win for climate, biodiversity, farmers, and rural communities alike.
But let’s give Seamus Heaney the last word from his poem Bogland:
Our unfenced country
Is bog that keeps crusting
Between the sights of the sun
Next week Irish Stew reports from Birr Castle with a focus on the groundbreaking science done there, exemplified by the world’s largest telescope for 72 years, the mighty Leviathan of Parsonstown.
Links
Green Restoration Ireland
- Website
- Peatlands for Prosperity
- YouTube
- Bluesky
- X
Douglas McMillan
Hidden Heartlands Travel Resources
- Ireland.com
- Discover Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands
Irish Stew Links
- Website
- Episode Page: Peatlands for Prosperity
- X
How did Ireland become a food destination? Thanks go to chefs like John Coffey of Athlone’s Thyme Restaurant and Belfast’s Niall McKenna of the Waterman House, both past Irish Stew guests.
But ask those chefs that question and they’ll thank their lucky stars for the local producers who supply the fresh vegetables, fruit, meat, seafood, and dairy that make their cooking soar.
So Irish Stew went Off the Beaten Craic to Daingean, Co. Offaly, to talk with two farmers on the vanguard of Ireland’s organic agriculture boom in an historic Georgian farmhouse at the heart of Mount Briscoe Organic Farm.
Margaret Edgill set aside her marketing and event planning career in Dublin to take over Mount Briscoe, which her family has farmed for seven generations. Joining her for the conversation was her Geashill, Co. Offaly neighbor Pippa Hackett, also an organic farmer and Ireland’s former Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
Margaret describes the privilege of stewarding Mount Briscoe and the many ways she’s infusing renewed life and new ideas into the land with a mix of organic beef production, upscale B&B accommodations, a shade more rustic “glamping” experiences, artisan food production, memorable farm-to-fork experiences, and public programs designed to celebrate the traditions and vitality of rural life.
Pippa draws on her background in science and public service to champion greener, more sustainable farming practices, sharing insights shaped by her years on the farm and in government. “If you have a healthy environment and a healthy farm, you’re going to have healthy animals and produce healthy foods,” she says, adding that with organic farming, “There's a great sort of magic in it--you actually have to do less work to get more."
The pair delve into Ireland’s “Origin Green” brand, the ongoing debate between organic and conventional farming methods, the lopsided economics that farmers juggle, the benefits of Irish people consuming Irish produce, and how hands-on rural experiences can counteract the growing urban disconnect with what’s on their plates.
Margaret offers her “wellies-on-the-ground” perspectives as both a farmer and owner of an agritourism business adding to the Hidden Heartlands tourism mix, talking up Ireland's potential as a green island destination, sharing how North Americans come to Mount Briscoe seeking heritage, tranquility, and authentic farm experiences, how guests look to disconnect with a digital detox, and how as climate change is making traditionally hot destinations less appealing, she’s seeing first-hand the growing appeal “cool-cationing” in Ireland…even with its rainy days.
And it was a rainy day indeed when Irish Stew visited Mount Briscoe Farm, but to cohosts John and Martin, the lush fields looked all the greener for it.
Next week Irish Stew visits another Offlay farm and slogs through a bog to explore the innovative Peatlands for Prosperity initiative.
Links
Margaret Edgill
Mount Briscoe Farm
- Website
Pippa Hackett
- Website
Despite the “Off the Beaten Craic” theme to the current Irish Stew podcast series, on this episode hosts Martin Nutty and John Lee follow the well-worn track of history that flows through Athlone like the broad River Shannon.
Their guide is the affable Vincent Harney of Athlone Guided Tours, a well-researched, perceptive storyteller who peels back the layers of the Athlone story from atop Athlone Castle, while crossing the Shannon, and as they trod the ancient streets back into the very heart of Irish history.
Along with local history, Vincent shares his story of growing up in a big farm family in nearby Cornafulla, the post office his parents operated, his own time as postmaster, and lessons learned working the family farm.
“In the post office, I loved hearing the old people’s stories and hearing about their history. And we would know the history of the fields around us, like the one field given away for a loaf of bread during the famine,” Vincent recalls.
Inspired by those stories, Vincent started a new career leading historical walking tours to share how Athlone’s origins as a river ford placed it at the crossroads of Irish history, how Norman and Cromwellian armies both marched over its first timber bridge, about the accommodation built into the stone bridge for the gentry's sail boats, and why the railway bridge was considered an engineering marvel of its day.
Vincent reveals Athlone's surprising connections to the Titanic disaster with the sad tale of the ill-fated passenger Margaret Rice, whose body could only be identified by the shoes she wore, purchased from the venerable Parsons of Athlone in the red brick building that still stands today at the corner of Custume Place and Northgate Street.
Vincent spins a happier tale about Athlone native John McCormack, tracing the singer’s unlikely rise from a working-class family to global fame as one of the greatest tenors of all time.
The episode wraps with Vincent making a compelling case for visiting Ireland and coming to Athlone when you do, reminding us, “the history of Ireland is here in Athlone.”
Next week, Irish Stew talks organic farming and agritourism in Offaly with Margaret Edgill of Mt. Briscoe Farm and Pippa Hackett, former Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
Links
Athlone Guided Tours
- Website
- Tripadvisor
Hidden Heartlands Travel Resources
- Ireland.com
- Discover Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands
Irish Stew Links
- Website
- Episode Page: Vincent Harney
- X
- TikTok
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 32; Total Episode Count: 135
The oldest pub in Ireland, Europe…the world?
Lend an ear as we explore the legend and lore of Sean’s Bar with the pub’s official storyteller Timmy Donovan. A central character in the Sean’s Bar story for the past 37 years, Timmy flips the calendar back to AD 900 when Luain Mac Luighdeach set up an inn on the banks of the Shannon which would evolve over the centuries into the Sean’s Bar of today.
He points out the ancient wicker-and-wattle construction unearthed in the venerable pub’s plaster walls and the slanting floor that carried medieval floodwaters through the bar down to the nearby river as just two signs of the pub’s antiquity.
Of the eye-catching memorabilia layering the pub’s walls, Timmy may be the proudest of the Guinness World Record certificate proclaiming Sean’s to be the oldest pub in the world.
That and the monster trout on display that Timmy himself landed in the nearby Lough, evidence of the prime fishing that has long drawn anglers to the region.
Timmy tells the saga of the Vikings sailing up the Shannon deep into the Hidden Heartlands, how for local monks distilling whiskey was doing God’s work, why hundreds of police uniform patches festoon the pub walls, and how American football fans are beating a path to Sean’s door.
Sean’s Bar not only dispenses a full range of pints and pours, the legendary pub also serves its own Sean's Whiskey, now an integral part of the pub's identity, for which Timmy is a most compelling spokesperson.
The monks would be proud, Timmy.
Sláinte!
LINKS
Sean’s Bar
- Website
Hidden Heartlands Travel Resources
- Ireland.com
- Discover Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands
Irish Stew Links
- Website
- Episode Page: Timmy Donovan
- X
- TikTok
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 31; Total Episode Count: 134
Taste Ireland…more specifically, taste the Hidden Heartlands of the Irish Midlands through a completely original cuisine designed around the fresh local produce from surrounding farms, on offer at Athlone’s Michelin Bib Gourmand culinary destination, Thyme Restaurant.
Chef John Coffey conjures up his ever-evolving menu around the vegetables local organic farmer Shannon is pulling or plucking from her nearby farm that day.
Local flavors, regional aromas, beautifully presented courses all plated by the Chef/Owner himself, the lively chatter of diners sitting down to what they know will be a memorable meal, the warm welcome and flawless service from the staff and the understated, unstuffy, intimate surroundings combined to provide a multisensory sendoff to Irish Stew’s “Off the Beaten Craic" series, the audio chronicle of podcast hosts John Lee and Martin Nutty’s eight-day ramble through Ireland's Hidden Heartlands, starting in Athlone, the geographic heart of Ireland astride the River Shannon’s “brightly glancing stream.”
Chef Coffey relates how he opened Thyme in November 2007, just months before the financial crisis devastated Ireland's economy, surviving days with no customers, weeks of no salary, and months of operating with a skeleton crew. Maybe it was his unwavering commitment to hyperlocal sourcing that pulled him through. The menu changes constantly depending on seasonal availability of local produce—plums for three weeks, game in autumn, heritage potatoes in varieties like Purple Rain that supermarkets abandoned decades ago. Coffey's outlook is based on community interdependence, where farmers, butchers, and their families create a self-sustaining economic ecosystem.
Don’t look for Reality TV chaos in the kitchen, as Coffey creates an aura of focused calm in his domain, even when diners fill all of Thyme’s 56 seats.
On the podcast, Chef Coffey explains why he’s rejected expansion opportunities, so you’ll have to get to Athlone to sample his ballotine of quail with yuko leaf and heritage potatoes or anything else he creates.
So, lend an ear to Irish Stew as it begins its Midlands meanderings with a celebration of Ireland's culinary transformation and the growing appreciation for slower-paced, ingredient-focused Irish dining experiences that await in the Hidden Heartlands.
Go raibh an bia blasta!
LINKS
Thyme Restaurant
- Website
Shannon's Eco Farm
Hidden Heartlands Travel Resources
- Ireland.com
- Discover Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands
Irish Stew Social Media
- X
- TikTok
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 30; Total Episode Count: 133
Your cohosts are back from an eight-day road trip through Ireland's Hidden Heartlands, where instead of profiling a person, they went “Off the Beaten Craic” to explore a place - the Irish Midlands.
Some tourists might view it as "drive-through country,” as they motor west from Dublin to the Wild Atlantic Way, but John and Martin found just a fraction of what they’re missing in Offaly, Westmeath, Longford, and Leitrim. And by traveling at a leisurely “slow tourism” pace during the quieter fall “shoulder season,” they found little traffic, uncrowded restaurants, more of a local vibe to the pubs, and had legendary historic sites almost to themselves.
The peripatetic podcasters conversed with almost two dozen Midlands guests, capturing stories about local history, organic farming, biodiversity, greenways, Shannon river cruising, farm-to-table dining, slow adventure travel, hospitality, archaeology, astronomy, entrepreneurship, and civic pride, while at times going knee-deep into the distinctive bogs that shape the Midlands landscape.
Your hosts also brandished their selfie sticks to add sights to their sounds on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and TikTok.
The “Off the Beaten Craic in the Hidden Heartlands” series was made possible through the support of Tourism Ireland, which markets the island of Ireland overseas as a compelling holiday destination, and the guidance of Fáilte Ireland, the National Tourism Development Authority, with a tip of the hat to the Leitrim County Council for their warmest of welcomes.
Join us “Off the Beaten Craic in the Hidden Heartlands!”
Links:
Hidden Heartlands Travel Resources
- Ireland.com
- Discover Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands
Irish Stew Social Media
- X
- TikTok
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 29; Total Episode Count: 132
Guest Overview
John Davis, the inquisitive everyman, serves as the perfect foil to economist David McWilliams on Ireland's beloved David McWilliams Podcast. Known for his genuine curiosity and ability to ask the questions listeners are thinking, Davis brings a unique perspective shaped by decades in the music and media industries.
Episode Journey
Join Martin Nutty and John Lee as they trace Davis' fascinating career through sound - from the music studios of Dublin and London to international productions further afield. This wide-ranging conversation explores how a music industry veteran transitioned into becoming one-half of Ireland's most successful podcast duo.
Key Topics Explored
- From Studios to Airwaves: Davis' evolution from music production to broadcasting, including his formative years working on studio albums and film soundtracks.
- BBC World Service Years: His international media experience before returning to Irish shores.
- Podcast Genesis: The story of how a childhood friendship with David McWilliams sparked one of Ireland's most popular podcasts.
- Behind the Microphone: Davis opens up about his initial discomfort with being the voice behind the mic and facing live audiences at podcast events.
- The Magic Formula: How the natural chemistry between McWilliams and Davis creates their signature approach - making complex economics accessible without sacrificing substance.
Special Moment
The episode builds to a deeply personal and moving conclusion with Davis delivering a heartfelt "Seamus Plug" for As I Am, Ireland's leading autism charity. This emotional segment reveals a cause that holds profound meaning for Davis personally, offering listeners a glimpse into the man behind the microphone.
Why This Episode Matters
A rare, intimate look at one of Irish podcasting's most recognizable voices, exploring how genuine friendship, professional adaptability, and personal passion combine to create compelling audio content that resonates with tens of thousands of listeners weekly.
Links
- Seamus Plug: As I Am
- David McWilliams Podcast
- Music Extract: Love Shines - Dave Stewart And The Spiritual Cowboys
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 28; Total Episode Count: 131
With the Aer Lingus College Football Classic last month and Ireland’s first NFL game at the end of this one, Neale Richmond kicks off the episode with a timely gridiron tale.
“I'm not just a very old and average rugby player, but I'm the only member of the Irish Parliament who's played American football. I was a defensive tackle for the Dublin Rebels and proud holder of a Shamrock Bull medal from 2016,” says the Fine Gael TD for the Dublin Rathdown constituency and Ireland’s Minister of State for International Development and Diaspora.
The sport-mad Minister shares examples of the ways these imported American events boost Ireland’s economy and provide an ideal platform to advance his ministerial goals of fostering stronger international relations, diaspora engagement, and economic growth.
He tells of growing up in a Protestant family with Ulster-Scots roots, right down to his Orange Order grandfather, which hasn’t blunted his fatherly pride in his son’s embrace of Gaelic Football and the Irish language or his own commitment to a united Ireland.
“I'm a passionate United Irelander. I want our country to be united as an independent republic, as part of the European Union. I think that it’s in the interest of the over 7.2 million people of all backgrounds that live on this island,” he says, adding, “but one thing I'm really very clear about is that United Ireland will be different. It'll be a new Ireland; it won't be like the republic that I proudly live in today.”
He highlights the significance of Ireland's international aid programs particularly in Africa, the evolution of Ireland’s diaspora, and the necessity of supporting Irish citizens abroad, including the extension of voting rights for the diaspora in presidential elections.
He wraps with an unorthodox “Seamus Plug” for the United Nations, saying that despite its problems, the UN provides a critical forum for international dialogue and that the work of its agencies for Human Rights, Refugees, Family Planning for Women, and its World Food Program all remain vital.
Join us!
Links:
- Fine Gael Webpage
- X
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 27; Total Episode Count: 130
In something of an epilogue to our “Lost in Belfast” series, former U.S. Congressman and U.S. Special Envoy to Northern Ireland Joseph Kennedy III joins Irish Stew for a wide-ranging conversation on politics, peace, and public service. From the streets of Belfast to the tumult of Washington, Kennedy reflects on the lessons Northern Ireland can teach the wider world, the legacy of his famed family, and where his own journey is headed next.
Joe provides his deeply personal perspective on the remarkable transformation of Northern Ireland from conflict to cautious cooperation. While acknowledging the divisions that remain, he points to the extraordinary resilience of its people and leaders. For him, Northern Ireland offers a living example of what can be achieved when reconciliation and restraint guide politics, a message that resonates far beyond Ireland’s shores.
On a more personal note, Kennedy reflects on the deep imprint of public service in his own family story. He describes it as more of a calling than a career choice, whether through elected office, advocacy, or movements like the Special Olympics. His commitment continues through the Groundwork Project, an initiative supporting civic engagement in often-overlooked communities across America, seeking to rebuild trust between citizens and the political process through a strategy rooted not in messaging alone but in genuine listening and local empowerment, and through Citizens Energy, the green energy nonprofit his father founded.
Looking ahead, Kennedy sees promise in Belfast’s growth, from education and innovation to its growing spirit of community, bridging past struggles with future possibilities.
For Kennedy, service remains the thread tying it all together, whether in politics, community work, or renewable energy.
Join us for this Global Irish Conversation on politics, peace and public service in Belfast, Boston, and beyond with #JK3.
Links:
Joe’s “Seamus Plug”
- Wave Trauma Centre
Social media
- BlueSky
- X - Twitter
Groundwork Project
- Website
- X - Twitter
Citizens Energy Corporation
- Website
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 26; Total Episode Count: 129
Today, we hear the story of an American congressman who changed the lives of thousands of Irish people, the foundation created to honor his legacy, and the big event this fall that will celebrate that legacy.
To tell the tale, we have two Irish individuals who benefited from the Morrison Visa program, spearheaded by Congressman Bruce Morrison: Feargal O’Sullivan, CEO of the outsourced sales and marketing firm USAM, and Elaine Brennan, Executive Director of Global Strategic Partnerships for Northwell Health.
Since Morrison Visas helped thousands of young Irish people, Elaine, Feargal, and a stellar group of diaspora leaders created the Morrison Legacy Foundation and will honor the Congressman at the Morrison Visa 30th Anniversary Celebration, Wed., Oct. 1, at the legendary Rainbow Room, high atop New York’s Rockefeller Center.
Get all the details at the links below.
With that, we wrap until the fall when we’ll come back strong on September 7th in an episode with former U.S. Special Envoy to Northern Ireland, Joseph Kennedy III.
Talk to you then!
Links
Morrison Legacy Foundation
- Website
Elaine Brennan
- Northwell Health
Fergal O'Sullivan
- USAM Group
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 25; Total Episode Count: 128
In his third appearance on Irish Stew, historian Dr. Damian Shiels joins Martin Nutty for a wide-ranging and thought-provoking conversation. Now living in Finland, Damian shares the personal story behind his move abroad, driven by Ireland’s rising cost of living and the opportunities remote work provides.
The episode explores Damian’s latest projects, including "Transatlantic", a new podcast he co-hosts with Finn Dwyer, which dives deep into the historical connections between Ireland and America.
Damian also discusses his groundbreaking new book, Green and Blue: Irish Americans in the Union Military, 1861–1865. The culmination of 15 years of research, the book offers a powerful and detailed examination of the Irish experience during the American Civil War, revealing the socio-economic realities and identities of Irish soldiers in Union ranks.
Throughout the episode, themes of immigration, identity, and racism are explored, connecting past and present. Damian and Martin reflect on how understanding the history of the Irish diaspora can illuminate today’s pressing issues—from housing crises to evolving notions of Irish identity, both at home and abroad.
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 24; Total Episode Count: 127
The Smuggler is back and rhyming its way through Ireland, so we updated our earlier episode with actor Mick Mellamphy with news of his Irish tour of Ronán Noone’s award-winning one-man tour de force this July.
Set on a wealthy American island enclave and performed in rhymed verse, The Smuggler follows Irish immigrant Tim Finnegan as he’s pulled into the local criminal underworld after a fatal crash stirs tensions between locals and migrants.
It's a raucous, interactive experience, with the edge of a thriller and the serious subtext of immigration and identity, playing in Listowel, Cork, Belfast, and Dublin (details below).
With roots in both Dublin and Cork, Mick is a well-known New York actor and artistic director of the Origin Theatre who enjoys rockstar fame as the performance capture actor for the cheeky Irish gunslinger Sean MacGuire from the massively popular video game Red Dead Redemption 2, aka RDR2.
Mick leaves us with a wee sample of The Smuggler as he slips into the conflicted character of Tim Finnegan, but to get the full experience, catch Mick on tour in Ireland this July.
Original episode published January 2023
Links
The Smuggler
- Schedule and Venues
- St John’s Theatre, Listowel (July 11)
- The Cork Arts Theatre (July 16-19)
- The Harrison Hotel, Belfast (July 23-25)
- J.R. Mahon’s, Dublin (July 28-30)
Mick Mellamphy
- Origin Theatre/1st Irish Festival
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 23; Total Episode Count: 126
In this episode, host Martin Nutty chats with Declan Curran, actor, writer, and producer of the acclaimed short film Dear Imelda. Declan traces his creative path from creating teenage comedy sketches on YouTube to crafting award-winning short films that have screened at festivals worldwide. His growing success is highlighted by a recent distribution deal brokered by Network Ireland Television (NITV) with the Japanese streaming platform SAMANSA, expanding his reach to international audiences.
Recorded at the Capital Irish Film Festival in Washington, DC—hosted by Solas Nua—this conversation captures the vibrant, collaborative spirit of the festival. Declan discusses the realities of self-funding projects, the power of film festivals for emerging filmmakers, and the value of real-life connections in a digital age. He also reflects on the top-tier screening experience at venues like the AFI Silver Theatre and the support he’s found through family collaborations, particularly with his cousin Arón Holden, director of Dear Imelda.
Looking ahead, Declan talks about his aspirations to transition into feature filmmaking and the lessons he’s carrying forward from his indie film success.
Links
Declan Curran
- Website
- Filmography
- Dear Imelda (2024 - Trailer)
- Birthday (2023)
- Shall We Sit (2023)
- Shine (2021)
Solas Nua
- Website
- Capital Irish Film Festival 2025
Other Links
- SAMANSA
- Network Television Ireland (NITV)
- AFI Silver
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 22; Total Episode Count: 125
When you have a good story to tell, why not invite the world?
For our Lost In Belfast series finale, we convene in the Titanic Hotel’s grand vaulted hall, where the ill-fated ship was designed. Hundreds have gathered from across local communities and from around the globe for the Belfast International Homecoming—civic leaders, elected officials, business executives, investors, entrepreneurs, culture makers…and two peripatetic podcasters.
Co-host and a Belfast Homecoming Ambassador himself, John Lee spoke with the event’s creator Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, a former Lord Mayor, long-time publisher, and Irish Stew alum and Connla McCann, who organizes this and many other high-profile events on both sides of the Atlantic as co-founder and director of Aisling Events.
We glean their insights on the purpose, evolution, outcomes, and future of this much anticipated annual event (returning Sept. 25, 2025), and grab soundbites from Dan Dennehy--VP Council for American Ireland Relations, Bryan O’Dwyer, a New York lawyer dedicated to advancing Ireland’s cause in the United States, and Smuggling Nun Poitín’s Maura Clare, another past Irish Stew guest and a 2024 Belfast Homecoming Ambassador.
We also heard about the Homecoming’s sister event, the New York New Belfast Luncheon Conference, coming to the stately New York Athletic Club on Thurs., June 12. See the link below for last-minute tickets!
So, we are lost no more—we found our way home to Belfast.
We thank Tourism Ireland for all their support and Máirtín and Connla for inviting us to the Belfast Homecoming!
Links
- 2025 New York New Belfast Conference - Thu, Jun 12
- 2025 Belfast International Homecoming - Thu, Sep 25
- Aisling Events
Máirtín Ó Muilleoir
- Twitter/X
- Earlier Irish Stew episode
Connla McCann
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 21; Total Episode Count: 124
In the 10th episode of the Irish Stew Podcast's Lost in Belfast series, host Martin Nutty sits down with poet Linda McKenna. Together, they discuss poetry, history, and forgotten voices of Irish history.
Linda's path to poetry began almost by accident, but her talent was apparent, confirmed when she received the prestigious 2018 Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing. Recording from the Observatory room at Belfast's Grand Central Hotel, Linda opens up about her unique approach to poetry, drawing inspiration from historical archives and fragmentary records to illuminate the often-overlooked stories of women throughout history.
During this compelling discussion, Linda reads excerpts from her acclaimed collection Four Thousand Keys and offers insights into her upcoming work, which seeks to recover and amplify voices from Ireland's 1798 rebellion. Her poetry serves as both historical excavation and artistic expression, breathing life into stories that might otherwise remain buried in dusty archives.
Join Martin and Linda for a conversation that connects past and present, exploring how poetry can serve as a bridge between forgotten histories and contemporary understanding.
Links
- Linda McKenna page at Doire Press
Books
- Four Thousand Keys
- In the Museum of Misremembered Things
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 20; Total Episode Count: 123
In this episode of Irish Stew, host Martin Nutty connects with key figures from Solas Nua, a dynamic Washington, D.C.-based arts organization devoted to contemporary Irish culture. Recorded during the Capital Irish Film Festival, the conversation features:
- Kate Meenan-Waugh, Board Co-Chair
- Andrew Dolan, Executive Director
- Rex Daugherty, Artistic Director of Theater
Kate recounts her Irish upbringing, her background in education, and the path that led her to Solas Nua. Andrew delves into the opportunities and hurdles of running an arts organization without a permanent venue, highlighting the power of partnership-driven programming. Rex shares his journey of reconnecting with Irish heritage and describes how Solas Nua nurtures the growth of Irish theater and artists.
Together, they explore Solas Nua’s mission to promote Irish voices, innovative approaches to community engagement, and upcoming initiatives, including events spotlighting renowned playwright Enda Walsh.
As Solas Nua marks its 20th anniversary, the guests reflect on the organization's evolving impact, the significance of cultural storytelling, and the enduring influence of Irish arts in the U.S.
This episode is dedicated to the memory of Daniel Lee, the Irish King and beloved brother of John Lee.
Links
Solas Nua
- Website
- Twitter (X)
- Enda Walsh Festival - June 21 - 22
Kate Meenan Waugh - Board Co-Chair
- Profile at Solas Nua
Andrew Dolan - Executive Director
- NEA - Artful Life Interview
Rex Daugherty
- Website
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 19; Total Episode Count: 122
Join us in jail, or is it gaol, as in the Crumlin Road Gaol, the last Victorian era prison relic in Northern Ireland, now being put to better use as the home of the Belfast Distillery Company, working to revive the classic old McConnell’s Whisky brand and creating a major new hospitality and tourist attraction in the process.
We stop for “just the one” in this all-too brief episode, where CEO John Kelly lays out the twin goals for the distillery: “Restore the legend of McConnell’s Irish Whisky that was and will be again, and bring distilling back to Belfast.”
The 22-year veteran of Guinness and Diageo knows the spirits industry…and the neighborhood, having gone to school just over the prison wall, back in the bad old days of the Crumlin Road Gaol.
John shares insights on why Irish whiskey lost favor, how it is now roaring back, and the immersive experiences drawing visitors to this dramatic new distillery.
And BTW—it isn’t a typo—McConnel’s spells it “whisky” without the “e”.
Links:
McConnell's Whisky
- Website
- Twitter (X)
- YouTube
John Kelly
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 18; Total Episode Count: 121
When you’re in a UNESCO City of Music, you expect to hear some great sounds, which we did when we found our way to the Duncairn Centre for Culture & Arts to hear the Belfast singer, songwriter, performer, and musical explorer Suzanne Savage.
Hooked at age seven by an Ulster Orchestra concert, she picked up a violin at age eight. Within a few years, she was practicing classical music by day and gigging with Belfast bands by night.
Suzanne talks about her deep connections with Belfast and its music scene, her varied musical influences, and how she balances her artistic endeavors with practical considerations. Suzanne tells of her jazz influences, international experiences, noteworthy performances, and the important community initiatives she supports in Belfast.
In the Duncairn concert, she was backed by her Savage Five string ensemble for an evening of her contemporary art songs, a reminder that there’s more than Trad to be had in the first UNESCO City of Music on the island of Ireland.
Join us for a journey through the marvelous musical landscape of the stellar Suzanne Savage!
And thanks to the Belfast Music Society for their warm welcome.
Links
Suzanne Savage
- Twitter/X
- Bandcamp
- YouTube
- Performance: Singing Leonard Cohen with RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Savage Five
- Website
Seamus Plug - The People's Kitchen, Belfast
- Album: Kindness on the Streets
The Duncairn Centre for Arts & Culture
- Website
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 17; Total Episode Count: 120
This episode of the Irish Stew Podcast features a discussion with documentary filmmaker Alan Gilsenan and journalist John Walsh about their film 'The Irish Question.'
The film delves into the recent history of Ireland, the partition between North and South, and contemplates the concept of a United Ireland in the post-Brexit era. The conversation highlights the impact of Brexit, economic and cultural complexities, and the fragile peace established by the Good Friday Agreement.
The episode also touches on the importance of Truth and Reconciliation as a foundational step towards any potential unification. Recorded at the Capital Irish Film Festival in association with Solas Nua, this discussion pays homage to diverse Irish identities and urges a deeper conversation on Ireland's future.
Links
The Irish Question (Trailer)
Alan Gilsenan - Director
- Website: Yellow Asylum
- Wikipedia
- Twitter / X
John Walsh - Writer
- BlueSky
Solas Nua
- Website
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 16; Total Episode Count: 119
Former champion boxer John Duddy from Derry and one-time construction worker Newry’s own Ciaran Byrne share their unlikely paths to acting on stage and in film in part two of our first live podcast recording for Origin Theatre’s 1st Irish Festival.
The two friends delve into how their life experiences inform their performances, personal traumas from The Troubles, and the critical role of theater in post-conflict healing and education. Sharing compelling narratives throughout, Ciaran and John underscore the significance of their Northern Irish roots and the transformative power of storytelling, but don’t stint on the Irish craic.
Massive thanks to Origin’s Theatre’s artistic director Mick Mellamphy (who we featured in this 2023 episode) for envisioning our live podcast event and curating our stellar guest list, to the Northern Ireland Bureau for their generous support, to Bill Schultz for recording and editing the episodes, and to Jimmy and the crew at Ryan’s Daughter for their above-and-beyond hospitality.
Links
Ciaran Byrne
- Website
- IMDb
- X
John Duddy
- IMDb
Origin Theatre
- Website
The Northern Ireland Bureau
- Website
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 15; Total Episode Count: 118
After Origin Theatre’s artistic director Mick Mellamphy welcomes our paying (!) audience to the 1st Irish Festival’s first live podcast event, we introduce theatre makers, Derry’s own Labhaoise Magee of Fair Play Productions and Big Telly Theatre’s Crissy O' Donovan who was raised in Dublin, worked in GB, and is now based in Northern Ireland.
Fair Play brought Sinéad O'Brien's "storytelling masterclass" No One is Coming to Origin 1st Irish this year, while Big Telly staged the immersive Granny Jackson’s Dead.
Labhaoise and Crissy talk about their theatrical journeys, how storytelling can process collective memory, how theater can promote democratic culture in post-conflict Northern Ireland, and the transformative power of dramatic arts in fostering connections and understanding.
Join us Upstairs at Ryan’s Daughter for our first live podcast recording, made possible by the support of the Northern Ireland Bureau.
Links
Labhaoise Magee
- IMDb
Fair Play Productions
- Website
- X
Crissy O' Donovan
Big Telly Theatre
- Website
- YouTube
- X
Origin Theatre
- Website
The Northern Ireland Bureau
- Website
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 14; Total Episode Count: 117
We found the right guides for Belfast’s burgeoning food and festivities scene in Michael Stewart and Caroline Wilson.
Caroline is a lawyer-turned-serial-entrepreneur of food and drink experiences. She founded Belfast Food Tour, co-founded Taste and Tour, Ahoy Belfast, Fooday and Belfast Gin Fest and she’s on the Board of Visit Belfast and The Strand.
A well-known man about Belfast, Michael Stewart, spent close to 40 years in hospitality--and was he ever hospitable to us, helping us arrange for the lion’s share of our #LostinBelfast interviews.
A past president of the Belfast Chamber, Michael now reigns as Belfast’s Night Czar, tasked with promoting the nighttime economy of the City Center, Linen, Cathedral, and Belfast One Business Improvement Districts.
We met the mad duo at The Common Market, an indoor international street food festival, open to all--including dogs--in a cavernous old fruit market in the Cathedral Quarter, with our mics picking up all the background craic in this on-location recording session.
There’s a seat for you at the table, so join us!
Links
Michael Stewart
- Bar Czar
Caroline Wilson
- Taste and Tour
- X
- Taste and Tour
- Ahoy Befast
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 13; Total Episode Count: 116
Join us as we get “Lost Outside of Belfast” when we take a 25-minute cab ride from the city center to Hinch Distillery in bucolic County Down. With Head Distiller Will Stafford as our guide, we explore the sensory journey of whiskey making from the meticulous process of mashing, fermentation, and distillation to savoring the heady aromas of the “angels’ share” seeping from the aged wooden barrels shacked ceiling-high in the cavernous Hinch whiskey warehouse.
Next, Claire McLernon guides us through a tasting of Hinch's range of whiskeys and its Ninth Wave gin, highlighting the different flavor profiles achieved through the distiller’s alchemy and artistry.
Founder Dr. Terry Cross then joins in to share what it takes to succeed in the increasingly competitive whiskey business and talks up the business opportunities he finds at the Belfast International Homecoming, a yearly marquee business event that your co-hosts attended the previous evening, which we’ll explore in a future Irish Stew episode.
Pull up a stool and join us for a happy hour at Hinch.
Hinch Links
- Website
- LinkedIn
- Hinch
- Dr. Terry Cross
- Will Stafford
- X
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 12; Total Episode Count: 115
We commemorate the 100th Anniversary of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby this week with Patrick O'Sullivan Greene, author of Gatsby: Death of an Irishman.
Patrick guides us through F. Scott Fitzgerald's troubled Midwest upbringing, his quest for status, his ambivalence towards his Irish heritage, the sociopolitical climate of early 20th-century America, and the careless Jazz Age excess portrayed in Gatsby.
Patrick peels back the intricate layers of Fitzgerald's character, revealing the underlying themes of identity and self-rejection in his work, his shifting views of Irish issues, and how his personal battles influenced his writing and contributed to his tragic life.
The episode also touches on Patrick’s own Irish heritage and his journey from business and finance to writing.
We end the conversation as The Great Gatsby ends, with the novel’s closing line, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Links:
Patrick O'Sullivan Greene
- Website
- BlueSky
- X
Gatsby: Death of an Irishman
- Amazon
- TheBookshop.ie
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 11; Total Episode Count: 114
In this episode of the Irish Stew Podcast, host Martin Nutty discusses his experience celebrating St. Patrick's Day at the American Irish Historical Society, meeting its executive director, Dr. Elizabeth Stack. Despite her success in revitalizing the society, news of her removal for cost-saving measures casts a shadow on its future.
The episode reissues a conversation from July 2024, when cohosts John Lee and Martin Nutty met Dr. Stack at AIHS to discuss her background, her efforts in promoting Irish American history, and the Society's then-state. The conversation also explores the importance of storytelling, historical preservation, and community involvement in sustaining cultural institutions.
Links
Irish Stew Blog Post, which will be updated as new information becomes available
- Turmoil Revists the American Irish Historical Society
Elizabeth Stack
Articles on the Latest Turmoil at the American Irish Historical Society
- Irish Echo: Firing and Resignations Rock the AIHS
- Irish Echo: AIHS Board Issues Statement After Firing, Resignations
- Irish Central: American Irish Historical Society faces new "transition"
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 10; Total Episode Count: 113
Join us as Larry Kirwan spins us back to the vibrant, violent New York City of the 1980s and the lives of the mostly undocumented Irish who called a patch of turf there home, in his novel Rockin’ The Bronx.
Best known as the frontman for the legendary Irish-inflected rock & roll band Black 47, Larry delves into themes of immigration, Irish and Hispanic cultural intersections, the shifting fortunes of the navvies and the nannies, the unnamed scourge of AIDS, Reagan-era politics, and his creative process in writing plays, novels, and music.
“I could tell you how to write a novel, and how to write a play, basically in five minutes each,” he says. “With songwriting, I still don't understand it. It's that moment when the hammer hits the anvil, and sparks fly.”
Now the Wexford native is combining his songwriter and playwright skills in a new musical on labor organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
And stick around for Martin’s reading of a Rockin’ The Bronx passage reminiscent of the closing section of James Joyce’s “The Dead.”
Links
Book Orders:
- Fordham University Press: Rockin’ The Bronx
Larry Kirwan
- Wikipedia
- Black 47
- Celtic Crush with Larry Kirwan
- Celtic Crush Facebook
- Prior Irish Stew Episode
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 9; Total Episode Count: 112
“St. Patrick’s Day Today, Hungover Tomorrow.”
Seeing that slogan on a St. Patrick’s Day T-shirt sent William Spencer Reilly on a mission to “reclaim the day” from negative stereotypes to what is best about Irish culture. So, he created the Sober St. Patrick’s Day® Grand Celebration, a culture-rich, family-friendly, attractively priced, alcohol-free way to enjoy the “great day for the Irish.”
We delve into Bill’s life in theater production, how it served him in developing Sober St. Patrick’s Day, the movement’s early supporters including the Consulate of Ireland in New York, the event's growing success, the dangers of binge-drinking associated with St. Patrick’s Day, the champion Irish musicians and dancers highlighting this year’s program, and his plans for future Sober St. Patrick’s Day expansion.
As Bill says, “I’m not anti-drink, I’m anti-drunk. Sober St. Patrick’s Day is about all the best things about the Irish, just without the alcohol.”
As this episode drops, tickets are still available but act soon because the event sells out every year!
Links
Sober St. Patrick's Day
- Website
- YouTube
William Spencer Reilly
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 8; Total Episode Count: 111
Join us in the Queen’s Quarter at the former derelict buildings that Anthony and Andrea Kieran transformed into Belfast’s stunning five-star boutique hotel, Regency House.
Their story intertwines personal histories with The Troubles (including when Anthony was the victim of two bombings in one day in South Armagh), their serendipitous meeting in Washington, D.C., his work for NASA, their decision to move to Belfast, their unplanned venture into the hospitality business, and the peak experience of welcoming President Bill Clinton and Senator George Mitchell to their hotel.
Bringing a platter of Belfast Baps for us, Executive Head Chef Michael O’Connor tells of his early cooking experiences in West Belfast, surviving the high-pressure kitchens of London’s top chefs, the role of locally sourced foods in driving Belfast’s restaurant renaissance, and the challenge of creating just the right menu for Regency House.
And he’s taken a shot at fast food with his signature Braised Beef Shank Burger—which takes two-and-a-half days to prepare!
With a unique blend of American and Northern Irish perspectives, a commitment to personalized hospitality and community investment, Andrea, Anthony, and Chef Michael offer an intimate look at Belfast’s past, present, and future, one that’s ever more welcoming to visitors.
So, join us in the President’s Suite of Belfast’s beguiling boutique hotel, Regency House.
Links
Regency House
- Website
Anthony Kieran
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 7; Total Episode Count: 110
Join us for the first stop on Day 2 of our Lost in Belfast Road Trip as we visit the magnificent City Hall to meet Lord Mayor Micky Murray.
The city’s youngest and first openly gay Lord Mayor shares refreshing new perspectives on his changing city, saying “Where Belfast is now and where we're going is a lot more exciting than what's happened over the last 50 years.”
The Lord Mayor talks about his political journey, Alliance Party affiliation, priorities in office, LGBTQ+ community efforts, and favored social justice initiatives such as addressing homelessness through the innovative Complex Lives strategy.
The conversation highlights his city's growth, increasing diversity, and the exciting future he envisions for Belfast’s people.
Given that the Lord Mayor serves just one year, every hour is precious, so we much appreciate the hour he spent with us…and now with you.
Links
- Belfast City Council Page
- X
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 5; Total Episode Count: 109
The third stop on our “Lost in Belfast” series is the city’s oldest cultural organization, The Linen Hall Library, located in an 18th-century building across the street from City Hall and a reminder of Belfast’s days as “Linenopolis” when it dominated the global linen trade.
Our conversation with director Julie Andrews delves into the library's rich history since its establishment in 1788, its role as a neutral space for political and cultural dialogue, and its extensive collections, including its signature Northern Ireland Political Collection of ephemera and artifacts gathered during The Troubles. “Politically, we show no allegiance. There’s something in our collection to offend everyone,” Julie says.
She shares insights into the library's innovative projects, ongoing initiatives to ensure the organization stays relevant, challenges inherent in operating a not-for-profit institution, the library's community engagement, its diverse events, and potential future expansions.
Join us at a beacon of Belfast history, The Linen Hall Library!
Links
The Linen Hall
- Website
- YouTube
- X/Twitter
Julie Andrews
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 5; Total Episode Count: 108
For the 2nd year in a row, Irish Stew hosts Maedhbh Mc Cullagh, the director of the Capital Irish Film Festival, who discusses the festival's offerings, the audience's response, and the challenges and rewards of organizing such an event in Washington, D.C.
Eva Birthistle joins John Lee and Martin Nutty to discuss her directorial debut, Kathleen Is Here, a gripping psychological thriller. The conversation explores the ideas behind the film, along with Eva's move to the other side of the camera.
The episode continues with Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Mary Robinson's story is brought to life in Mrs Robinson and will be the feature presentation on the first night of the film festival. Martin explores the former president's early background and her current efforts to address the climate crisis through Project Dandelion.
Film Links
- 19th Capital Irish Film Festival - (Feb 27 - Mar 2, 2025)
- Mrs Robinson
- Kathleen Is Here Preview
Mary Robinson Links
- Project Dandelion
- The Elders
- Wikipedia
Eva Birthistle Links
- Wikipedia Profile
- IMDB
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 4; Total Episode Count: 107
Gerry knows gin from his time behind the bar and from sipping his favorite tipple from the other side of the stick.
But he found his perfect gin, though he could imagine just how it would taste, a taste he finally captured in his now award-winning Jawbox Gin.
Join us as Gerry tells us how the idea for creating a gin just wouldn’t let him go, the Belfast stories behind the Jawbox name and striking logo design, how he managed to time the Jawbox launch just as the gin category was taking off, how The brand has soared through “Graft & Craft,” the origin of his signature Belfast Swerve—plenty of ice, a generous measure of Jawbox, a wedge of lime, all topped with a key ingredient Gerry proudly says was invented in Belfast.
He talks about the steady progress he sees in his city, how his hometown is becoming a “must-visit” city for tourists, the warmth they feel from the people of Belfast, and the “lovely new buzz in the city.”
Our juniper-forward friend from the Falls Road closes with his ”Seamus Plug” for Belfast’s amazing chefs and dedicated purveyors of fresh local food that have ignited Belfast’s dining scene.
All music to the ears of the folks at Tourism Ireland who helped make our “Irish Stew Gets Lost in Belfast Road Trip” possible! Chart your course to Belfast and beyond at https://discovernorthernireland.com
Links:
Jawbox Gin
- Website
- X
Gerry White
- X
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 3; Total Episode Count: 106
Join us in the first leg of our “Irish Stew Gets Lost in Belfast Road Trip” in the vibrant Cathedral Quarter at its prime culinary destination Waterman House as we explore the recipe for restaurant success with Chef and Founder Niall McKenna.
Niall dishes on his culinary journey from West Belfast, training under influential chefs like Paul Rankin, the evolution of his multiple restaurant ventures including James St. and Hadskis, and the buzz surrounding his Waterman House Cookery School.
For Niall it’s all about cooking with local ingredients, drawing inspiration from regional food traditions, unpretentious dining experiences, and a staff trained in the art of hospitality.
The episode wraps with a deep dive into Niall’s signature dishes (later sampled by Martin and John in a return visit) and his gorgeous new cookbook, What's It All About.
Thanks to Niall for his hospitality and to Tourism Ireland for their unflagging support of our efforts to share contemporary Belfast stories with our Global Irish audience.
Links:
Niall McKenna
Waterman House
- Website
James St.
- Website
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 2; Total Episode Count: 105
Star Trek said it would happen in 2024, but for Paddy Cullivan, 2032 will be the year of Irish Unification. Through hot takes on Irish history and AI-fueled visions of Ireland’s future, Paddy charts the course to unity in 2032 through his antic, visionary one-man show I Can’t Believe It’s Not Ireland, on the eve of its US Tour.
Paddy is best known for fronting The Camembert Quartet on Ryan Tubridy’s Tubridy Tonight and then The Late Late Show, playing with everyone from Sinead O’Connor to Russell Crowe to Michael Bublé. But he later shifted focus to innovative one-man multimedia shows, including Solutionism, The Joy of Brex, and his historical entertainments The 10 Dark Secrets of the Irish Revolution and The 10 Dark Secrets of 1798.
In I Can’t Believe…Paddy provides a fresh new interpretation of Ireland’s past from St Patrick to partition and invites the audience to think big with him in envisioning a welcoming, inclusive, and dynamic future united Ireland. The US tour opens in San Francisco on Mar. 1, with stops scheduled for Kansas City, Portland, ME, Boston, New York, and more.
Martin and John also preview their upcoming “Irish Stew Gets Lost in Belfast Road Trip,” featuring a dozen episodes recorded in and around Northern Ireland’s rapidly transforming capital city. And do forgive them for a little humblebragging—they just got back from Dublin where they celebrated winning Bronze in the Irish Pod Awards Best Hosting Duo/Trio category and taking home the Gold as the 2024 Best Society & Culture Podcast.
Open your ears to a new way to understand Ireland’s past and future with this Irish Stew sample of Paddy Cullivan’s I Can’t Believe It’s Not Ireland.
Paddy Links:
- Website
- Twitter/X
- YouTube
Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 1; Total Episode Count: 104
Ted Smyth, former diplomat, C-Suite executive, and current President of the Advisory Board of Glucksman Ireland House NYU, returns to Irish Stew for a fourth annual end-of-year discussion on American and Irish politics.
Topics covered
- The Democratic Party post loss of the White House and the US Senate
- The US news media and the election
- The Irish election and the housing crisis
- Ireland's diplomatic clash with Israel
- The return of the Northern Ireland Assembly
Ted Smyth Links
- Website
- Glucksman House Gala
- BlueSky
Episode Details: Season 6, Episode 23; Total Episode Count: 103
Founded by actor/philanthropist Paul Newman in 1994 to “press play” for children affected by serious illness, Barretstown serves thousands of young people and families at its magical County Kildare castle and beyond with impactful programs across Ireland and the UK.
Our guest Dee Ahearn has been the driving force behind the Barretstown success story, joining in 2010 as CEO after an international career in marketing and communications with a stint as chairperson of the Make A Wish Foundation Ireland.
In this holiday episode Dee shares heartwarming stories of transformation, saying:
“Many parents will say that when they're on the drive out the gates of Barretstown, the conversation with their children is when can we come back? Why do we have to leave? This is better than Disney World! And the teenagers want to know how quickly I can come back, what age I need to be to become a volunteer. ”
But the serious fun of swimming, canoeing, horseback riding, arts & crafts, and putting on plays rests on a foundation of solid governance, a quality that attracted our additional guest Tony Dunne, Bank of Ireland’s US CFO, COO & US Country Manager, to chair the friend-raising and fundraising-focused Barretstown Foundation USA.
The conversation underscores the importance of community and international support, including the cross-Atlantic support from American families and volunteers, and wraps with Dee’s invitation to you to get involved and help Barretstown provide even more “serious fun.”
Links
Barretstown
- Website
- Donate
- YouTube
- TwitterX
- TikTok
Barretstown Foundation USA
- Year End Appeal
Dee Ahearn
Tony Dunne, CFO, COO & US Country Manager at Bank of Ireland US
Episode Details: Season 6, Episode 22; Total Episode Count: 102
In this episode of the Irish Stew Podcast, host Martin Nutty welcomes back Maurice Casey to discuss the exciting developments in his life since his last appearance. Now a Research Fellow at Queen's University in Belfast, Maurice talks about his first book 'Hotel Luxe, An Intimate History of Communism's Forgotten Radicals'. The book has garnered garnered critical acclaim and was shortlisted for an An Post Irish Book Award in the Hodges Figgis History Book of the Year category.
Maurice shares the fascinating origins and research process behind 'Hotel Luxe,' including uncovering the life of Wexford woman May O'Callaghan whose sufragette origins led to a key position in post revolutionary Russia's Comintern. The story focuses on Moscow's delapidated Hotel Luxe in the mid 1920s and the network of revolutionary connections May O'Callaghan established at the eponymous residence. The episode explores the significance of these revolutionary lives in today's context and Maurice reveals his next project focused on a vegetarian cafe in 1930s London that was a hub of anti-Nazi activity.
Hotel Lux Links
- Linktree
- Publisher Page: Footnote Press
Maurice Casey Links
- Website
- Archive Rats SubStack
- BlueSky
- Academia.edu
Episode Details:
- Episode 21 of Season 6
- Episode 101 of Irish Stew Podcast
Only 11% of podcasts make it to episode 50 and only 6.4% get to 100.
So, excuse The Stew if they’re feeling a wee bit chuffed to drop episode 100 today.
For this milestone show, co-hosts John Lee and Martin Nutty are on the receiving end of questions from Wexford’s own, attorney Shelley Ann Quilty-Lake, who grills the pair on their four-year journey, their podcast concept, the show’s evolution, their changing interview approach, and how they collaborate. They reflect on the podcast’s dynamic guest lineup from astronauts to archaeologists, standout moments in the first 99 episodes, what they see as their role in the Irish diaspora, and share the buzz from their recent “Irish Stew Gets Lost in Belfast Road Trip 2024” (episodes dropping mid-Jan.), the first, they hope, of many road trips across Global Irish Nation.
And they manage to humble brag about being on the short-list for three 2024 Irish Pod Awards—Best Society & Culture Podcast, Best Hosting Duo/Trio, and Best Editor (thanks to the Stew’s secret weapon, audio guru and inaugural guest Bill Schultz).
With thanks to Shelley Ann for her deft interrogation and deep appreciation for their intriguing guests and loyal listeners, Martin and John look forward to dishing out many more servings of Irish Stew for you.
Links
- Irish Stew Full Episode Listing
- Team Irish Stew Bios
- Bill Schultz Episode
Shelley Ann Quilty-Lake
Episode Details Season 6 - Episode 20
Cady Coleman splashes down on Irish Stew to help us explore“The Final Frontier” through the pages of her new book, Sharing Space: An Astronaut's Guide to Mission, Wonder, and Making Change.
Part memoir, part chronicle of the astronaut’s life, part manifesto for the power of mission, Sharing Space explores the significance of collaboration, diversity, and making the most of your missions in bringing people together to meet common goals. Through candid reflections and storytelling, “Astro Cady” tells tales that will inspire anyone, especially women and young people, to contribute to positive global change.
Our episode launches in Ireland under the giant planet Earth rotating at the end of the Trinity College Library Long Room and later touches down in Ireland at its earthiest at the National Ploughing Championships.
Join us on a trip from Ireland to the stars with the astronaut who played Paddy Moloney’s tin whistle and Matt Molloy’s flute while floating high above the Global Irish Nation in Space.
Links:
- Website
- Sharing Space Book Site
Social Media
- Twitter/X
- Seamus Plug: Cady Coleman public speaking
- Previous Irish Stew episode: Irish American Astronaut & Musician
Episode Details: Season 6, Episode 19
In this special check-in episode of the Irish Stew Podcast, host Martin Nutty welcomes back author Cauvery Madhavan to discuss her new novel, 'The Inheritance.' Cauvery shares the inspiration behind the novel, which weaves together stories from the Tudor conquest of Ireland and the more recent 1980s. Set in the Beara Peninsula, a place close to Cauvery's heart, the book explores themes of history, place, and identity while touching on the struggles of everyday people during turbulent times. The episode provides insights into the writing process, the research involved, and Cauvery's personal connection to the setting of the novel.
The InheritanceIt’s 1986 and 29-year-old Marlo O’Sullivan of London-Irish stock has just found out that his sister is his mother. To steady his life, he moves to Glengarriff, to a cottage he has inherited, in the stunning Beara Peninsula. When a neighbour dies unexpectedly, Marlo takes over his minibus service to Cork. There is nothing regular about the regulars on the bus – especially Sully, a non-verbal 6 year old, who goes nowhere but does the journey back and forth every day, on his own. Marlo is landed with this a strange but compassionate arrangement, fashioned to give the child’s mother respite from his care. Sully’s obsession with an imaginary friend in the ancient oak forests of Glengarriff slowly unveils its terrible secrets – a 400-hundred-year-old tragedy reveals itself.
Links
- Website
- The Inheritance
- Original Irish Stew Episode (July 2021)
Healthcare thought leader Michael J. Dowling returns to Irish Stew to discuss his new book The Aging Revolution: The History of Geriatric Health Care and What Really Matters to Older Adults, the launch of Northwell Studios to tell stories that humanize health care, and why he sees gun violence as a public health priority.
Last on Irish Stew in April, 2021, the Limerick-born Northwell Health CEO shares insights into the progress of geriatric healthcare, the societal challenges posed by an aging population, finding the one thing that matters to older adults, and the role of immigration in a graying world.
“We all want to age, nobody says I don't want to get older. So, we should have respect for people as they get older because we will be there someday ourselves,” he says.
Michael also tells how the new Northwell Studios will bring fresh storytelling to healthcare today, building on the success of the acclaimed Netflix documentary series Lenox Hill and Emergency NYC, and the Academy Award-shortlisted Covid-19 documentary The First Wave.
We wrap with Michael’s advocacy for viewing American gun violence as a public health crisis and how corporate America is embracing this new thinking.
To catch Michale Dowling’s infectious optimism, join us on this check-in episode of Irish Stew.
Links
- Website
- Book: The Aging Revolution
- Northwell Health: Michael Dowling
John Connell traveled far from Ireland in his 20s, and early in his career, his work yielded accolades in journalism and filmmaking. Yet happiness and contentment proved to be elusive. Returning to the family farm in Longford, one of Ireland's heartland counties, provided a restorative space to pursue a career as an author.
Three books followed, notably The Cow Book, which achieved critical acclaim; despite those successes, the way forward became unclear until an extended trip on the Camino de Santiago revealed the possibilities of another project that added deeper meaning to his life.
Join cohosts John Lee and Martin Nutty as they talk with John Connell about his latest book, The Lambing Season, and how life as a shepherd revealed new truths and understanding of what it takes to live well.
LinksSocial Media
- Twitter/X
Books
- The Lambing Season
- The Cow Book (The Farmer's Son)
- The Running Book
- The Stream of Everything
Seamus Plug
- Conor Hammersley
Our Irish Stew Drinks Party is back with PJ Rigney, founder of The Shed Distillery--home of the breakout star of the burgeoning Irish gin category, Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin, along with its Sausage Tree Irish Vodka, and Drumshanbo Irish Whiskey.
The magic happened when PJ rolled the dice after an innovative career in the global drinks industry to strike out on his own.
“To build a distillery is one thing, to create the product is another thing, but to create a way of communicating to consumers to build a brand is another thing entirely,” he says.
PJ wanted his distillery to be in the wild, un-manicured heart of rural Ireland, a place of curiosity & inspiration, surrounded by nature, immersed in rich history. He found it all in the beautiful village of Drumshanbo Co.Leitrim, on the shores of Lough Allen, at the foothills of Sliabh an Iarainn (The Iron Mountain).
His Shed Distillery is now a major contributor to the Leitrim economy and a draw for spirits enthusiasts and tourists worldwide.
Join us as we explore the role of innovation and storytelling in spirits sector success straight from the curious mind of PJ Rigney.
Links
The Shed Distillery
- Website
- X/Twitter
- YouTube
Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin
- Website
PJ Rigney
Irish Stew delves into the rich world of Irish American literature through the eyes and pen of guest John Kearns, a New Yorker by way of Philadelphia and a relentless storyteller in short stories, novels, plays, poetry, screenwriting, and song.
Our conversation explores John’s creative processes, the importance of maintaining cultural roots, the differences between Irish American identities in Philadelphia and New York, and his long run as the curator of the monthly Irish American Writers & Artists Salon. From an early age, he’s always been writing, inspired by his family story, cultural heritage, and his deep connection to Irish literature.
He shares the creative process behind his novels The World and Worlds and his play Boann and the Well of Wisdom, a poetic drama inspired by Boann, the Irish goddess of poetry who created the River Boyne. John talks about the challenges bringing Boann from script to stage and his satisfaction at seeing it take top honors at the recent Origin Theatre 1st Irish Festival.
And John’s taking Boann and the Well of Wisdom on the road, to Ireland. Catch it if you can!
LinksJohn Kearns Social Media
John Kearns Publications
- Boann and the Well of Wisdom: Irish Tour Fundraiser
- Website
John Kearns Books (Amazon)
- The World
- Dreams and Dull Realities
- Worlds
In this episode of Irish Stew, hosts John Lee and Martin Nutty welcome Julie Breathnach-Banwait, a poet and child psychologist. Julie shares her unique journey from her Connemara home (Ceantar an nOlieán) off the west coast of Ireland to the island of Tasmania off the south coast of Australia.
Julie discusses her deep connection to the Irish language, her published works, her latest poetry collection, Split Bones (Cnámha Scoilte ), and her experiences living in Tasmania. She reads a poignant bilingual poem exploring themes of emergence and transformation. The episode delves into Julie's nuanced prose poetry, her creative process, and how writing in Irish helps her reconnect with her roots while living far from her birthplace.
Julie Links
- TwitterX
Split Bones (Cnámha Scoilte )
- Publisher: Bobtail Books
- Amazon USA
- Amazon UK
This episode of Irish Stew features an in-depth discussion with Dr. Elizabeth Stack, the Executive Director of the American Irish Historical Society (AIHS).
Dr. Stack discusses her journey from Listowel, County Kerry, to her academic career in history and her role in developing the Irish American Heritage Museum in Albany and revitalizing the AIHS.
Recorded at the AIHS's historic Fifth Avenue headquarters in New York, the conversation delves into the importance of preserving Irish American history, the challenges of maintaining the society's landmark building, and the efforts to engage younger generations in Irish heritage. Dr. Stack also reflects on the broader themes of immigration and community integration, emphasizing the continuing relevance of these issues today.
LinksElizabeth Stack
American Irish Historical Society
- Website
In New York for the annual New York New Belfast Conference, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir swung by the Irish Stew Global Headquarters for a transatlantic conversation with co-host John Lee.
In this episode, the Belfast Media Group and Irish Echo publisher tells of growing up during The Troubles, watching gun battles on his Belfast street, his move into politics, the less-than-warm reception he got as a Sinn Féin Belfast City Councillor, the superpower he discovered during his eventful year as the Lord Mayor of Belfast, and his tireless efforts to reach across divides, connect communities, and build bridges.
“When I had to reach out to the other side--sometimes that was tough--but every time I did I was met halfway--not 50 percent of the time, not 70 percent--every time,“ he says. “Every initiative we did reaching out to the Protestant or Unionist people, they responded with generosity and grace.”
He reflects on personal challenges, the conundrum he found waiting for him in the Lord Mayor’s office, his fondest memory from his one-year term, the electricity in the air of the new Belfast, the ongoing need for social justice, the imperative to grow economic opportunity, the indispensable contributions of Irish America, and reason the Northern Ireland Hospice earned his “Seamus Plug,”
And you’ll hear the curious story behind the remarkable Robert Ballagh portrait of him that broke the mold in the “Dome of Delight.”
LinksSocial Media
- Twitter/X
Business Interests
- Belfast Media Group
- Irish Echo
- Aisling Events
Seamus Plug
- Northern Ireland Hospice
Vibrant Vivienne Sayers O'Callaghan is an Irish Gen Z entrepreneur, Irish language and culture advocate, and NYC social media influencer rapidly rising to the “top of the heap” as Frank Sinatra croons in “New York, New York.”
Viv mixes lively chronicles of her New York adventures with spoon-sized servings of the Irish language and Irish culture, a formula which has earned her almost 40K Instagram followers while her 153K TikTok followers have given her posts over 2.3M likes!
Originally from rural County Cork, Vivian tells of attending an Irish-language girls' boarding school, her foray into classical music conducting, how much she learned starting her own plant business, her inroads into the New York Irish scene, cultural adjustments she’s made as a young Irish woman in New York, and the surprising response her Irish language content is getting from jaded New Yorkers.
Her energy is infectious and once you catch the bug from listening to this lively episode, follow her antics and adventures on social media and enjoy the ride through Viv’s eyes!
Links
- Instagram: @vivienne_in_nyc
- TikTok: @vivienne_in_nyc https://www.tiktok.com/@vivienne_in_nyc?lang=en
Is this one of our author episodes or should it fall into our Irish Drinks category because your co-hosts have grabbed a table by the pot-bellied stove at New York’s legendary McSorley's Old Ale House for a conversation with author, cultural creator, and impresario Charles R. Hale.
Charles is known for curating lively artistic salons, producing eclectic concerts, and presenting original performance pieces that blend music, imagery, video, and storytelling.
We focus on his deeply personal new book Untangling the Shadows: Searching for the Voices of my New York Irish Ancestors. Part memoir, part family history, and something of a detective story, the book traces his search in New York and Ireland for the clues to “untangling the shadows” of his family’s stories.
Over light and dark ale, we delve into his Irish roots, family history, his unlikely path to a creative life, and the diverse art forms he explores.
Why McSorley’s? Charles wrote parts of his book at the same table we’re sitting at, the place is dripping with Irish American history, and McSorley’s has been the muse of artists ranging from famed chronicler of New York Joseph Mitchell to Ashcan school painter John Sloan. Everyone from Abe Lincoln to John Lennon has passed through McSorley’s swinging doors since it opened in 1854. It remains a welcoming refuge where one good ale inevitably leads to another…if you follow their one golden rule:
Be Good or Begone.
We were—Sláinte!
Charles Hale Links:
Websites:
- Charles R. Hale
Social Media:
- Facebook group: NYC: Its Culture, History, Music, Theatre, Film, Art & People - hosted by Charles R. Hale
Book Purchase Link:
- Amazon
McSorley's Old Ale House
- Website
Writer, performer, and force of nature, born Morag Prunty, but best known by her pen name Kate Kerrigan whisks us from London where she grew up with an Irish identity to Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way where she’s living with an English accent.
In this episode, Kate spins tales of idyllic childhood summers in Mayo, the dynamics of being Irish in England during the turbulent 70s and 80s, her challenges in navigating the complex terrain of her Irish identity, and her late-in-life recognition of the obstacles and superpowers in her ADHD.
An in-demand London magazine editor despite dropping out of school at age 15, Kate became a successful novelist with the New York Times bestseller Ellis Island to her credit. Now she’s taken her act to the stage, earning raves for her acclaimed one-woman show, Am I Irish Yet?, which dives into her “feels Irish but sounds English” dilemma in a performance resonating with audiences in Ireland, the UK, and from anyone not living where they were born.
Kate’s next goal is to bring this tour de force to the world’s capital of people not living where they were born—New York City.
Join us for a deeply personal exploration of identity, belonging, and cultural heritage, along with more than a bit of craic with the irrepressible Kate Kerrigan!
Links:
Websites:
- Kate Kerrigan
- Am I Irish Yet?
- Circus 250: Am I Irish Yet?
Instagram:
- @katekerriganauthor
- @amiirishyet
Other Social Media:
- Twitter/X
- LinkedIn: Morag Prunty
In this episode, cohosts John and Martin dive into the world of Olympic shot putting with their guest, Eric Favors, an athlete representing Ireland.
Born and raised in Rockland County, New York, with a rich Irish heritage, Eric shares his journey from trying various sports to specializing in track and field. He discusses the intricacies of shot put, a sport that demands not just brute strength but finesse, technique, and a fine balance between power and agility. Eric also touches on the importance of understanding the technical aspects of shot put, his training regimen, diet, and the mental fortitude needed for competing at the highest levels.
The conversation covers his personal background, experiences growing up in an Irish-American enclave, the evolution of his career, the challenges of maintaining an athletic lifestyle, and his aspirations for the Olympics. Additionally, Eric and the hosts explore the avenues of dealing with the pressures of professional sports, the rigorous drug testing protocols in athletics, and how social media and YouTube play a role in connecting with fans and showcasing the athlete's journey. The episode concludes with Eric's future plans, both within and outside of his athletic career.
Links
- YouTube
- Twitter/X
Irish Stew goes to Canada for a most “Global Irish Nation Conversation” with Jackie Gilna, who’s been Irish in Dublin, Spain, the Netherlands, and now she's Irish in Canada's capital, Ottawa. And through a new venture, she's Irish all around the world.
Jackie launched We Are Global Irish this year to showcase Irish innovation, connect Irish businesses and organizations globally, drive opportunities to and from the island of Ireland, and to engage the Irish diaspora and anyone with an affinity for Ireland. Her “WAGI” platform is an online center for networking, collaboration, and commerce within the international Irish community.
We Are Global Irish is a natural outgrowth of a career that included founding and leading the Irish Canada Business Council and co-founding and leading the Ireland Canada Chamber of Commerce.
Jackie talks of balancing the Irish storytelling culture with the need for direct communications skills in international business, how “Plastic Paddy” thinking is “sand in the gears” for the Irish diaspora, the case for diaspora representation in the Oireachtas, and the bid by Chairman of New York’s St. Patrick's Day Foundation Hilary Beirne to earn the National University of Ireland panel nomination to Seanad Éireann.
Jackie closes with a heartfelt “Seamus Plug” to support your local hospice for children in Ireland or abroad. And she welcomes you to join the We Are Global Irish movement!
Links:
We Are Global Irish
- Website
- Twitter/X
Jackie Gilna
- Twitter/X
Settle in for a spirited episode of Irish Stew with two pioneering women in the Irish spirits industry, Alice Carroll--the proud Limerick distiller and co-founder of Foxes Bow Whiskey, and Maura Clare--the Queen of Poitín and creator of the Smuggling Nun brand.
They swap notes on their journey into the spirits business, the challenges and opportunities of operating in traditionally male-dominated sectors, their innovative approaches to reviving and reshaping perceptions around Irish Whiskey and Poitín, how they crafted their distinctive flavor profiles, and the intriguing backstories of the Foxes Bow and Smuggling Nun names.
The conversations delve into the unique qualities of their spirits, their signature cocktail creations, the importance of women in the evolving Irish spirits industry, and who they’d most like to serve their libations to. Paging Beyoncé!
Join us for the story of two women forging ahead in the Irish drinks industry--Alice, gaining shelf space globally for Foxes Bow in a crowded Irish Whiskey category, and Maura opening new markets for a newly legal elixir with her Smuggling Nun Poitín.
Sláinte!
Links
Alice Carroll & Foxes Bow
- Website
Maura Clare & Smuggling Nun
- Website
Michael Meade spent over 20 years on Wall Street and then stepped away from the pressured world of high finance to do something totally different. Some, in his circumstances, may have opted for plenty of time on the golf course and cracking open a few brews, that’s not the kind of person Michael Meade is.
Intrigued by a visit to Ireland, Michael wanted to build a business that would connect to his Irish roots, work with a famous brewing dynasty, revive Ireland's oldest brewing brand and return beer making to Kilkenny, the home of red ale.
It has, and will continue to be, a journey for a son of Buffalo, one of America's most Irish of towns. Michael's partnership with the Smithwick family, the revival of Sullivan's Brewing in Kilkenny, an award winning beer developed by brewmaster Ian Hamilton, is a tale of both passion and the value in building a great team, that combination just might yield Ireland's next great export company.
Michael Meade's Links
Sullivans Brewing Company
- Website
As Chief Executive of the Western Development Commission (WDC), Allan Mulrooney is a tireless advocate for the Western Region of Ireland, promoting social and economic development for the counties of Donegal, Leitrim, Sligo, Mayo, Roscommon, Galway, and Clare.
Why go west? Allan points to the region's mix of the old and the new, how it fosters a work-life balance, the contrast of beautiful natural areas and vibrant cities, its expanding broadband internet and innovation-spurring connected hubs--and some of the best surfing in the world!
Growing up in Strandhill, just west of Sligo, Allan first paddled out into the surf before he was a teenager—the water was cold, but then the sport wasn’t cool. It sounds pretty cool when Allan tells of traveling the world with a few surfboards and a guitar on his back.
Talking to Allan, you see career threads spinning out in all directions—surf bum, web publisher, social enterprise entrepreneur, community advocate, business development executive, communications professional—and all those threads come together in his leadership role at the WDC, where he and his team work to tell the region’s compelling “Work Smarter, Live Better” story.
Join us as we head west with Allan for an audio tour of the scenic beauty, appealing lifestyle, expanding business ecosystem, dynamic innovation hubs, vibrant cities and peaceful towns, growing business opportunities, emerging career possibilities, growing economy, and all that’s best about the West.
But if surfing is your draw, Allan cautions it takes “more courage or madness” than he has to tackle the forty- and fifty-foot “mutant” waves off Mullaghmore Head!
Links:
Allan Mulrooney
- Twitter / X
- Websites:
o gostrandhill.com (Co-Founder at)
o gostrandhill.com/strandhill-indonesian-relief-fund (SIRF Charity)
Western Development Commission
- Website
- Twitter / X
In the first of our “Irish Libations” series, we welcome Michael McKillop, who branched out from the 36-year-old Glens of Antrim Potatoes business to launch Glens of Antrim Distillery with its Lir line of Irish Whiskeys, amidst bucolic surroundings in Cushendall, Northern Ireland.
We get a professional’s view of the growing, shipping, and marketing of Ireland’s favorite crop, and how his company is taking on the potato crisp business with its Glens of Antrim and Shindig brands with creative new flavors (Roast Beef & Mustard!) and packaging, including boxes and 10-pound bags!
We learn how he revived the Lumper, the potato variety associated with the crop failure of “Black 47,” and how his Lumpers entered the curriculum of schools across the island in lessons about An Gorta Mor.
Knowing it would be a gamble, Michael rolled the dice in creating his line of whiskey, with Green Crest, Red Crest, and Black Crest versions of his Lir brand, a labor of love, a tribute to his family's heritage, and to the stunning Glens of Antrim region.
He rolled the dice again in planning a new distillery to strengthen the company’s ties with the local community, create job opportunities in the area, and launch a new tourist destination. A handsome structure it will be, and after a long journey the project got the go-ahead just after we recorded this episode.
Michael shares stories of why he hates sheep, his adventures delivering potatoes with his father around Northern Ireland, the business reasons for moving into whiskey, the challenges of launching a distillery, why he’s committing to pot-still whiskey, and the benefits of the founders’ cask trade.
We wrap with a wee, warming, amber dram of Lir Green Crest. Sláinte!
Links
Michael McKillop
Glens of Antrim Distillery
- Website
Glens of Antrim Potatoes
Glens of Antrim Crisps
- Website
Shindigs Boxed Potato Crips
- Website
Launching Season Six, we go behind the scenes of the woman-strong Irish film Lies We Tell, a brooding tale of angels and demons, light and shadow, manners and mores, family secrets and family crimes, which The Guardian called “a tightly laced, elegantly cut gothic period drama.”
A total rethinking of Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1864 novel Uncle Silas, the film centers on Maud Ruthyn,brilliantly portrayed by the rising young star Agnes O’Casey, great-granddaughter of the playwright, Sean O'Casey, who is trapped in the sprawling family estate Knowl (filmed at Ardgillan Castle in County Dublin) and by “the law being made and enforced by men.”
The Guardian called her delivery “as sharp as a steak knife” and Screen International wrote, “A singular performance by Agnes O’Casey gives the pretty period piece a serrated edge.”
Our episode starts with a prelude fromMaedhbh Fiona Mc Cullagh, director of Washington, DC’s Solas Nua Capital Irish Film Festival, which kicks off on Feb. 29th with Lies We Tell. Then Director Lisa Mulcahy and screenwriter Elisabeth Gooch talk about how they transformed a century-and-a-half-old Gothic period drama into a compelling woman-centered story relevant to today. We learn why Elizabeth found the 1864 Maude so annoying and Lisa talks about the budget pressures that led to the film’s signature candle-lit ambiance, creating what Film Journal called “a tale of flawlessness and immersive beauty.”
Then you’ll meet Agnes O’Casey and hear about her UK upbringing, her Trinity College Dublin theatre training, her embrace of the Sean O’Casey lineage, her TV breakthrough in Ridley Road, her recent roles in films with the likes of Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates, Laura Linney, Stephen Rea, and a Cillian Murphy film yet to be released, and the challenges of being on camera in almost every scene of Lies We Tell.Join us to meet the makers and learn the backstory of the brilliant, woman-forwards Lies We Tell.
Links:
Lies We Tell
- Website
- IMDb
Agnes O’Casey
- Wikipedia
- IMDb
- Portfolio Showreel
Lisa Mulcahy
- Website
- IMDb
Elisabeth Gooch
- IMDb
Maedhbh Fiona Mc Cullagh
Solas Nua Capital Irish Film Festival
When we last talked with Dan Mulhall, he was Ireland’s Ambassador to the United Stares. Since then, he retired after a 44-year career in diplomacy, but he’s been busier than ever as we learn in this check-in episode with Martin Nutty focused on his new book on W. B. Yeats.
Recent invitations to New York University, Cambridge, and Harvard, provided opportunities to engage with students and pursue research into Yeats, a poet that he’d turned to throughout his diplomatic career. Early on, Dan realized the power of Yeats’s poetry, how the words of one of Ireland’s most important cultural icons could open diplomatic doors that were closed to other nations.
Dan’s love of Yeats’s words and his understanding of the poet's role in Irish history is now told in “Pilgrim Soul: W. B. Yeats and the Ireland of His Time.”
Join us as Dan explores the many aspects of the enigmatic poet’s life and how his legacy continues to be relevant in a turbulent world.
Links
- Pilgrim Soul: W. B. Yeats and the Ireland of His Time
- United States
- Ireland
With a computer programming background and an instinct for reporting, Malachy Browne is on the vanguard of a new form of data-driven news coverage that is revitalizing journalism.
Co-founder and enterprise director of the New York Times Visual Investigations team, Malachy is pioneering the use of digital sleuthing, collecting and analyzing troves of video and audio, satellite images and other data, and creating 3-D reconstructions of crime scenes and geopolitical events to hold the powerful to account and deconstruct important news events.
These efforts have earned two Pulitzer Prizes, an Emmy, and other top-tier accolades for Malachy and his team.
Not bad for a Limerick lad from the village of Broadford, population 276!
He’d earn his master’s in international relations at the University of Limerick after getting his bachelor’s degree in engineering at University College Dublin.
Malachy tells of navigating between his core computer competency and his journalistic instincts (which he “blames” on his uncle, the legendary journalist Vincent Browne) which would lead him to Storyful, where he’d collaborate with past guests Mark Little, David Clinch, and others in creating the emerging innovative data-driven style of reporting.
Join us for an inside look at the way Malachy and his team are telling the world’s most critical stories—from the Arab Spring to the January 6th Insurrection—in an entirely new way.
Malachy Browne Links
- X/Twitter
New York Times Links
- Visual Investigations
- Malachy Browne
- Day of Rage: How Trump Supporters Took the U.S. Capitol
Ted Smyth, former diplomat and C-Suite and current President of the Advisory Board of Glucksman Ireland House NYU, joins Martin Nutty for a discussion on Irish and American politics.
What does the recent November 2023 American mid term election presage for 2024?
How differing are the American and Irish views on Gaza?
How should we understand the recent Dublin riots and the relationship between that violence and the competition for public resources?
These are some of the questions asked in Ted's 4th appearance on Irish Stew and he tells us how he thinks the upcoming election in 2024 are going to play out on both sides of the Atlantic
Ted Links:
- Website
- Glucksman Ireland House NYU Gala - March 5, 2024
Fin Dwyer of Irish History Podcasts pays a return visit to Irish Stew. We last hosted Fin two years ago. Since then, Fin has continued to fascinate his listeners with in depth episodes on a broad range of Irish History topics. Despite this frenetic pace, Fin has found time to publish a book titled: A Lethal Legacy - A History of Ireland in 18 Murders.
We'll be talking about two cases detailed in the book and what they can tell us about how Ireland has changed over the past 200 years. We'll also find out what Fin has in store for his listeners in 2024
Links
- Irish History Podcast
- A Lethal Legacy (Amazon)
Join us in a westward journey to the Irish enclaves of Butte, Montana and on to a chicken coop on Maryland’s Eastern Shore as Marybeth Shea guides us along little-known paths of Irish migration and through little understood profession of technical communications.
She describes herself as a humanist and cites her Catholic education, specifically with the Jesuits, as foundational to her worldview and her career.
She’s now a professor of English in the Professional Writing Program at the University of Maryland and a technical writer who draws on the Irish storytelling tradition to bridge the gap between scientific specialists and the rest of us.
It was Marybeth’s research for a technical writing project that took her into that chicken coop as part of her hands-on research to develop the storytelling needed to get buy-in from poultry farmers on ways to decrease their ammonia output.
It’s a wide-ranging conversation that adds to our understanding of the complexity of Irish immigration and the growing importance of effective technical communications.
Links
- University of Maryland Professional Writing Program
- Seamus Plug: Ethnicity and Family Therapy
So why learn Irish?
"Studies have shown that learning your native language, learning any language, but especially your ancestral tongue, brings feelings of comfort and freedom. And especially when considering our past and our heritage, learning Irish is very revealing and very healing," says our latest guest Mollie Guidera, the Irish language teacher for Global Ireland.
She grew up “with Irish in her ears all the time” and gave her first Irish lesson at age seven to a visiting American cousin. And even though her Irish language school expelled her for uttering one sentence of English, her love for the language grew.
She’s taught over 6,000 students Irish online for a decade, currently through her engaging online global Irish language school simply named Irish with Mollie, a “blossoming community of worldwide Irish speakers, people from every background, every age, and just people who love Irish and are willing it forward.”
Add co-host John Lee to the student roster--he registered after finding Mollie on Instagram and TikTok. With about 150,000 social media followers, she’s a leading Irish language influencer, spreading awareness of Irish in refreshing new ways.
“We're hearing the echoes of our parents and grandparents and Irish writers in the Irish sounds and in the syntax and in the words themselves. It is such a tender and humorous language, replete with poetry and magic. It brings to life so many funny and quirky kinds of realizations and revelations.”
Join us for an episode of Irish language “realizations and revelations” with Múinteoir Mollie.
Links
- Website
- TikTok
- In the Irish Times
Join us as we travel from Ireland all the way to New Zealand to explore a vision of Ireland from centuries ago in our conversation with Brian O’Sullivan.
He’s an author, cultural researcher, strategic analyst, and founder of Irish Imbas, the only Irish publisher specializing in fiction and non-fiction based on the ancient Irish cultural knowledge and belief patterns of authentic Irish mythology.
Hailing from West Cork, Brian lived in the UK and France before following his heart to New Zealand which he finds “a bit more like Ireland, more comfortable, like a comfortable shoe.” From this distant vantage point, he’s writing fiction that brings to life the Iron Age Ireland of Fionn mac Cumhaill, Liath Luachra, other legends from Ireland's deep past.
His Beara Trilogy, Fionn mac Cumhaill Series; and Irish Woman Warrior Series turn ancient Irish cultural concepts into page-turning tales of action, adventure, blood, passion, and conflict.
“You can't have a real sort of sense of where you are if you don't understand the context of how you got there in the first place. If you get your head around the history and the cultural belief systems, you’ll get a much better perspective on where you are and where you could go in the future,” he says.
For his Seamus Plug, Brian hopes you’ll try his popular Liath Luachra series and watch for his work-in-progress to teach what mythology is, what it isn't, and how it can be personally relevant.
Links:
- Irish Imbas
- Website
- Beara Trilogy
- Fionn mac Cumhaill Series
- Irish Women Warrior (Liath Luachra) Series
A Trinity College graduate in economics and politics, he represented Irish business abroad, led The Ireland Funds for almost two decades, and now Kingsley Aikins combines his fervor for networking and diaspora engagement in the mission of The Networking Institute.
“Kinger,” as he’s known to his friends, talks of how rugby became his global passport and the lucky break that landed him in Sydney, Australia to represent Enterprise Ireland and the Industrial Development Authority (IDA). Finding he “didn’t know a sinner” in the Southern Hemisphere, he started what has become one of the largest Irish business networking organizations in the world, and how that initiative helped him network his way into leading the groundbreaking diaspora initiative that became The Ireland Funds.
Now his Networking Institute is helping people network their way to their full potential and nations from India to Nigeria to tap the power of their diasporas.
His “Seamus Plug” is a call to action for Ireland to position itself “as an absolute center of excellence for diaspora engagements, the epicenter for this subject around the world¸ the thought leader in this space.”
Join us for a warm, witty, quotable, and thought-provoking conversation with networking and diaspora thought leader, Kingsley Aikins.
Links
Kingsley Aikins
The Networking institute
- Website
From New Jersey to Sligo, Wales, London, Germany, to touring the globe and then to New York, Roger Clark stamps his passport as a leading citizen of the Global Irish Nation.
And to millions around the world, he is an icon.
An actor, filmmaker, voiceover artist of over 150 audiobooks, Roger’s claim to global fame is his performance-capture portrayal of the cowboy antihero Arthur Morgan in the massively popular action-adventure video game, five years in the making, Red Dead Redemption 2, a.k.a. RDR2.
Roger takes us into the increasingly sophisticated world of gaming, why performance capture is so much more than just voiceover, the challenges of a 2,000-page script, and why he feels his RDR2 experience was more like being on stage than in a film, how video gaming now dwarfs the film industry, and the cult celebrity status he now enjoys as the alter-ego of Arthur Morgan.
“It's a real privilege to be able to have such a large, appreciative audience for something that you've done. I still pinch myself up and down both arms now and I'm very, very grateful,” Roger said.
But there’s a lot more to Roger Clark than one iconic role. His short film Hazardousis on YouTube, he’s in rehearsals for A Man for all Seasons in the role of Henry the Eighth, and on Mon., Oct. 30 he’ll headline New York’s Origin Theatre Gala as the winner of the George C. Heslin Artistic Leadership Award for his outstanding work in the theatre, film, and motion capture industries.
Wouldn’t Arthur Morgan be proud.
Links:
- Origin Theatre Gala tickets
- IMDB
- X/Twitter
- YouTube
- Cameo
- Damn Handy Indigogo
In this Global Irish conversation, we search for the true origins of Western Civilization with a most global of guests, Naoíse Mac Sweeney, author of The West: A New History in Fourteen Lives.
Her father is from Cork City, her mother is Malaysian Chinese, she grew up in London, studied the Greek and Roman world, and is a professor of classical archaeology at the University of Vienna. And to make her even more global, her husband is from Malta, which we visited in our episode with Malta’s ambassador to Ireland, Giovanni Buttigeig.
She tells of how both Greek and Irish mythology pulled her into the ancient world, through the lure of the ancient Greek diaspora communities, her fascination with Troy, and her growing realization that “Western Civilization”—the concept of a single cultural inheritance extending from ancient Greece to modern times—is really a figment of our collective imagination.
In The West, our award-winning guest thoroughly debunks that figment through the stories of fourteen figures who each played a role in the creation of the Western idea—from Herodotus, a mixed-race migrant, to Phylis Wheatley, an enslaved African American who became a literary sensation. From these narratives, a more nuanced, expansive, and intriguing view of the West emerges.
Naoíse wraps up Irish Stew with the most unexpected “Seamus Plug” to date, which got your co-hosts thinking of approaching Dunnes Stores for sponsorship.
And we’ll happily endorse her comment early in the conversation, when she said, “part of the joy of following Irish Stew is to hear the origin stories of so many people in the diaspora.”
Links:
- The West: A New History in Fourteen Lives
- Smithsonian Magazine: “The Myth of the ‘Dark Ages’ Ignores How Classical Traditions Flourished Around the World,”
- University of Vienna: Naoise Mac Sweeney
- Seamus Plug: Dunnes Strores, Helen James plates
Growing up in The Troubles in Northern Ireland, Jane Ferguson spent most of her life reporting on the global troubles in Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Gaza, Syria, and Afghanistan, reporting for CNN International, Al Jazeera, PBS Newshour, The New Yorker and other outlets, always finding the human stories in inhuman wars and all revealed in her unflinching new memoir No Ordinary Assignment.
The least surprising part of her memoir is when she wins the George Polk Award, an Emmy Award, and an Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award for her stellar reporting.
Jane takes us back to her young “hillbilly” childhood in County Armagh, growing up in a rural Protestant farming family, where security checkpoints along the roads and military helicopters in the skies was for her, normalcy.
She escaped this normalcy through the pages of National Geographic, running her fingers over its maps, and the inspiration on women war correspondents she saw reporting from the front lines.
Jane’s is a life lived through culture shocks, from a rustic Irish farm to a bucolic New Jersey prep school, from the ancient civilization of Yemen to the futuristic world of Dubai, from finding her tribe among the war correspondents at Kabul’s colorful Gandamack Lodge, to staying with her tribe to the bitter end in the fall of that city years later.
With fear as her ally, she wills herself into some of the most dangerous places on earth, balancing her sense of service with her ambition, looking at each conflict through non-sectarian eyes, feeling privileged to tell the human stories amid geopolitical turmoil.
She is largely off the road now, teaching at Princeton University while continuing as a PBS NewsHour - Special Correspondent and contributor for The New Yorker.
On Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023 at 7:00 pm, The National Humanities Center will host “An Evening with Jane Ferguson,” at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
So much of Jane’s “beat” spun out of the tragedy of 9/11, so it was particularly meaningful that we recorded our episode with her on the anniversary of that somber day.
Links
- Website: Jane Ferguson
- Book: No Ordinary Assignment
Seamus Plug
- National Humanities Center: An Evening with Jane Ferguson
Social Media
- Twitter / X
Our Global Irish conversation with award-winning author Jane Delury centers on her second novel Hedge, a bildungsroman of an Irish American woman in her forties named Maude pursuing a career in the esoteric field of garden history, looking for clues in the past under the mounting challenges of the present.
The theme of bringing a garden back to life threads through this novel of marital strains, infidelity, family secrets, personal discovery, endurance, and perseverance. Along the way, Jane leaves hints of her Irish roots, with mentions of porter cake, St. Patrick’s Day, the Clancy Brothers, and Maude’s family home in a neighborhood known as “Little Ireland.”
Jane tells Irish Stew of her family roots in Cork, Mayo, and Sligo, her trips to Ireland, and her pride in her Irish citizenship.
We discuss the symbolism of the garden, her literary influences, her love of short stories (she has one coming out soon in the Georgia Review), her first novel The Balcony and her experience publishing with the innovative Zibby Books.
And she drops a few intriguing hints about what’s coming next, mentioning a “thing” she’s working on that she realizes is evolving into a novel and how she’s writing something new about her Irish Catholic upbringing.
Her Seamus Plug is a call to support the exceptional work of Strength to Love II, a community-based program on a 1.5-acre Baltimore farm offering workforce development and employment to community residents and citizens returning from incarceration.
So, join our compelling conversation with novelist Jane Delury, read Hedge, and stay tuned for what Jane has coming next!
Links
- Website
Join us on a stroll along North Circular Road from Phoenix Park to the Dublin
Docklands with our guide Luke McManus, the documentary filmmaker of the
award-winning North Circular which opens in New York City on July 28th.
Rendered in graphic black & white over a soundtrack of local North Circular
musicians, the film gives voice to narratives from the history of the city and
nation, from colonialism to mental health, from women’s liberation to the
battle to save the legendary folk revival venue the Cobblestone Pub from the
wrecking ball.
Growing up in Bray, the home of Ardmore Studios, Luke recounts that first
moment he realized that he was a director, why Humphrey Bogart holds such
a lofty position in his pantheon of film greats, and the many ways to make a
living in film.
Co-host John Lee diverts him into a conversation about horse racing which
Luke explored in his film about the legendary ‘chaser Arkle and his TV series
on the women in the sport, Jump Girls. Martin Nutty gets Luke talking about
Crainn na hÉireann (The Trees of Ireland), the documentary series he did
with past guest Manchán Magan .
But the centerpiece of the episode is North Circular, where Luke celebrates
the beauty in urban grit, the serendipity found along the street, the
juxtaposition of squatters and the shadows of skyscraping construction
cranes, and the expressive power of music to honor the tragic and celebrate
the spirit, all ending on an exuberant high note provided by Irish women in
music and sport.
Step off with us on our trek through North Circular with Luke McManus
LinksWebsites
- North Circular - Film website
- Luke McManus - Personal site
- Luke McManus - Vimeo
Luke's Social Media
How can a kneecap bone change the history of Ireland?
We answer that question during our conversation with Dr. Ruth Carden, a paleo zoologist with a particular interest in the animals that roamed Ireland over the last 50,000 years.
Ruth's research focuses particularly on the skeleteal remains of those animals, since that is all that usually remains after the passage of time. Find out what Ruth can learn from a single bone and how adavanced laboratory analysis can yield multiple clues on the nature of the animals that she researchs.
We discuss how a single knee bone or patella, found by Ruth, in a poorly labeled collection, has changed the date of the earliest continuous human habitation in Ireland. Before that discovery, it was thought the earliest modern human settlers of Ireland dated to 7,900 BCE. Ruth's work has pushed that date back to soemwhere between 10,860 and 10,641 BCE.
In addition to deep prehistoric research, Ruth is also coordinating the Viking Dublin Dogs project, a grassroots effort which seeks to understand the nature of dogs in Ireland over a thousand years ago and how they interacted with their humans. The project is supported by a number of Irish schools which are supporting and learning about this kind of scientific research.
Cohosts John Lee and Martin have decided to support Ruth's Viking Dublin Dog project and hope we can encourage our listeners to sponsor research on a single dog. We have decided to name our dog Seamus Plugson, although in truth we don't know if this Seamus is a male or a female. Through the money gathered, Ruth will be able to determine the gender of the dog and more importantly provide a date indicating exactly when that dog lived
If you want to help support our fundraiser you can find the Irish Stew Viking Dublin Dog at this link => https://gofund.me/d346d5c3
Both Ruth and your Irish Stew cohosts will be thankful for your support as we attempt to put some flesh back on Seamus Plugson's bones
Ruth's Links
Websites:
- Viking Dublin Dogs
- Irish Cave Bones
Social Media:
- Twitter: Ruth Carden
- Twitter: Viking Dublin Dogs
- Twtter Irish Cave Bones
- Facebook Viking Dublin Dogs
- Facebook: Irish Cave Bones
- Instagram: Ruth Carden
- LinkedIn: Ruth Carden
- Mastodon: Ruth Carden
Our latest global Irish conversation goes behind the scenes of the globe’s most significant international organization, the United Nations, courtesy of Ireland’s Ambassador to the UN, Fergal Mythen.
He didn’t rise to one of Ireland’s most significant diplomatic postings without an impressive diplomatic career behind him.
Fergal has worked on Irish-Canadian, Irish-Latin American, Irish-Caribbean, and Irish-British Affairs, including Brexit. He was on the European Community monitoring mission to the former Yugoslavia, and joined the representation of Ireland to the European Union in Brussels.
We discuss his growing up in an Ireland on the cusp of change, what the opening of free second level education meant to him, the lessons he learned at the embassy in Rome about looking after people in real need, the challenges of the peripatetic diplomatic life, and his takeaways from six months representing Ireland on the UN Security Council.
He has a clear-eyed view of the UN, saying, “it's imperfect, but it can try its best to prevent hell on earth.”
He’s enjoying New York’s vitality and its surprisingly warm welcome, getting to know the Irish-American community, and weekends spent getting his children out to play Gaelic sports.
Speaking of sport, his “Seamus Plug” is a call to action to ensure a pathway for young girls and women to stay actively involved in sport and to raise awareness of the UN’s sustainable development goals.
Our conversation opened with a quote from John F. Kennedy which the Ambassador feels is spot on: “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.”
Links
- Website: Permanent Mission of Ireland to the UN
- Twitter: Ireland’s UN Ambassador
- Twitter: Ireland’s UN Mission
- Twitter: Fergal Mythen (Personal)
When Seamus Heaney wrote, “Walk on air, against your better judgement,” he could have been writing about Pauline Turley.
From Newry to New York, Pauline has paired hard work with serendipity to arrive at her pivotal role charting the impressive trajectory on New York’s Irish Arts Center from a cramped tenement building to its expansive new home.
She tells of how winning the Green Card lottery led this Trinity College Drama and Theatre Studies grad to depart for New York on something of a lark, of hustling her way into work in bars and restaurants, and of picking up the telephone book to discover the Irish Arts Center, where two weeks after starting work she’d find herself in charge of the whole thing as its executive director.
And the IAC would be her professional and spiritual home for the next 26 years and counting, first as its executive director and for the past 16 years its vice chair with Aidan Connolly bringing his government and non-profit management chops to the executive director role.
Imagine the patience, ingenuity, energy, collaboration, and cajoling that went into conceiving and then realizing the dream for a new home for Irish arts in New York. And as opening day approached, Pauline had another major project in gestation, her daughter Lily who conveniently held off her arrival until after Pauline had wrapped up the year’s IAC Gala.
The migration from its old home has opened new possibilities for Irish arts in New York, with bigger venues for music and dance, spaces for visual arts, and new ways to play a growing role in the multicultural vitality of the city. IAC is a place where you could find the punk rock musical Good Vibrations from Belfast’s Lyric Theatre on the main stage, while in a studio space around the corner a decidedly non-punk crowd is having good craic with traditional Irish set dancing.
From The Troubles in Northern Ireland to the triumph of the Irish Arts Center in New York—join us in our conversation with the “Muse of Irish Arts in New York,” here on Irish Stew.
For Tickets to “Good Vibrations: A Punk Rock Musical” (June 14-July 16, 2023) go to: https://irishartscenter.org/event/good-vibrations-a-punk-rock-musical
Links
Pauline Turley
Irish Arts Center
- Website
Join us as we pick up the conversation with Doug Devaney who interviewed us last fall on The Plastic Podcasts.
A talented podcaster, Doug’s also an actor, writer, journalist, and self-proclaimed "songster, funster, punster, hamster." In this episode we delve into the core concept of The Plastic Podcasts, which centers around the notion that “we all come from somewhere else.”
Doug explores Irish diaspora narratives in England by engaging in lively discussions with actors, activists, artists, writers, academics, builders, and singers, while offering a platform to often overlooked people, including those with both African and Irish roots, as well as members of the Traveler community.
We explore why Doug believes that discussing Irishness necessitates addressing Britishness, how Irish Americans differ from the Irish in England, and why they use terms like London Irish or Birmingham Irish instead of Irish English or Irish British.
We delve into Doug's deep connection to his Irish identity despite growing up in England with an English mother, his County Clare roots, the instinctual bond among Irish people in England, the downplaying of Irish heritage in England during the 70s and 80s, his shift away from pursuing a career as a TV-inspired “verbose crime-busting lawyer” his ventures into playwriting, his commitment to preserving the stories of the Irish diaspora, and the backstories of his highly personal one-man plays.
Doug's talent for captivating storytelling, inventive writing, free-spirited performance, engaging conversational style, and mastery of the comic aside, make him a savory new ingredient for our Irish Stew.
But we never did find out about the hamster thing.
Links
The Plastic Podcasts
- Website
- Episodes:
- Irish Stew on The Plastic Podcasts
- Anthony Ekundayo Lennon
Doug’s Social Media
For Dublin’s own David Clinch, media is serious business. He’s been working on the front lines of innovative journalism and the complete overhaul of the news business for the past 30 years.
He jokes that he’s been called “the Zelig of the media,” an “accidental journalist” popping up in key roles at the companies driving the changing media landscape, including ITN News in London, CNN where he helped manage the CNN International Desk in Atlanta and pioneered the use of social media for international newsgathering, a direction he pursued to help our previous Irish Stew guest Mark Little build Storyful, the social media news agency at the intersection of media and technology.
Currently, David concentrates on the core elements that enable journalism to thrive, particularly the financial underpinnings that sustain modern news media. He serves as the VP of Partnerships at Mather Economics, assisting companies in formulating sustainable business strategies and curating the influential “Mather Report. As the founder and consultant for Media Growth Partners he’s helping keep small news organizations viable, while developing a framework for capturing the value of local news reporting.”
Born in England to Irish parents, David stayed there just long enough to develop an English accent that was “beaten out of me” he jokes when the family moved to Dublin. He studied at Belvedere College and Trinity College Dublin, saying “it was your fate if you were a Clinch in Dublin at that time.”
David shares how Bono opened up his world view, his start in media with a pirate radio station, why he was told he’d never work for RTE, how he found his way into television, his move to Atlanta to work for the emerging global news powerhouse CNN, the growth of digital forensic journalism, why he’s so concerned with establishing the value of local media, and his open invitation to anyone in media to show them the framework he’s building to build local media through what he calls “organized laziness.”
Join us for “a short history of the future of news,” with media innovator, David Clinch.
Links
Websites
- Mather Economics
- Media Growth Partners
Social Media
- LinkedIn: David Clinch
- Twitter: David Clinch
- Twitter: Mather Economics
- Twitter: Media Growth Partners
For Richard Donavan running the grueling 26.2 miles of the Boston Marathon was only a way to stretch his legs before getting up the next morning to run across America…for the second time. Running seven marathons on seven continents in seven days sounds impossible, so he did it in under five.
Richard is also the first person to run marathons at both the North and South Poles and now lures other likeminded athletes to join him in some of Earth’s most extreme endurance races, including the North Pole Marathon, Antarctic Ice Marathon, Volcano Marathon, and World Marathon Challenge (7 Marathons 7 Continents in a leisurely 7 Days).
Where to next? Space. His Space Athletics Federation is hoping to stage a race in space by early 2026.
Quite a journey for an economist from Mervue, County Galway.
On Irish Stew he tells of the trauma that led to his embrace of ultra long-distance running, improvising his way to becoming the first person to run a marathon at the North Pole, the friend who motivated his two cross U.S. runs, dodging coyotes while running across the American West, overcoming the mental and physical challenges of running in some of the world's harshest environments, and his push into the final frontier of extreme sports in space.
Join us in a conversation that spans the continents and looks to the stars with our guide to the exquisite loneliness of the long-distance runner, Richard Donovan.
Links
Websites
o World Marathon Challenge
o Ice Marathon
o Space Athletics Federation
Social Media
o Twitter - Richard Donovan
o Twitter: Space Athletics Federation
o LinkedIn
o Facebook - Antarctic Ice Marathon
Seamus Plug
o Triumph Foundation
For over 25 years Manachán Magan has been at the forefront of Irish cultural affairs. He first rose to public attention with the 1996 launch of Irish language television now known as TG4. Together with his brother Ruán, Manachán produced a ground breaking series of television programs exploring indigenous cultures across the globe
Since those early days, Manachán continues to drive the cultural conversation through multiple mediums. He has proved to be an accomplished journalist, theatrical performer, podcaster and author. The recent publication of 32 Words For Field and Listen To The Land Speak is redefining how Irish people interact with their ancient language and culture
Join us as we explore Manachán’s deep rooted Irishness and how he has carved out a space in public consciousness that differs from his extraordinary family. How he chooses to live a life unbounded by modern day conventions through the exploration of his unique perspective
Manachán Links
- Website
- Alamanac Of Ireland
From “The Island of Malta and the Ireland of Malta,” Malta’s Ambassador to Ireland tells Irish Stew of the unexpected connections between the island nations of Ireland and Malta, especially for his hometown of Floriana.
Ambassador Giovanni Buttigieg traces the Irish connection back to an 1895 visit to Floriana by an Irish Cardinal who went to Rome to advocate for the sainthood of one of their own, and a 1905 football match when the Royal Dublin Fusiliers gave the Floriana side their green and white striped jerseys, colors the Floriana Irish, as they are still known, wear to this day.
The ambassador relates how football helped renew the Irish connections when Malta “turned green” as thousands of Irish fans set up base camp for flights to Sicily for the 1990 World Cup matches there. The Irish have been coming back ever since as tourists who fill Malta-bound planes to capacity.
He tells of his time as Consul for Malta in New York and as Deputy Permanent Representative of Malta to the United Nations, how reading an Irish poem a day prepared him for his dream posting to Dublin, presenting his diplomatic credentials to President Michael D. Higgins, Ireland and Malta’s shared legacy of British colonial rule, whether he is related to that other Buttigieg…and why he likes Irish weather.
Ambassador Giovanni Buttigieg— “Maltese by birth, Irish by the grace of God.”
Links
- Embassy of Malta in Ireland
- Visit Malta
A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, Barbara Walsh started her career in Galway as a newspaper photographer and has gone on to work for newspapers and magazines in Florida, Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire.
While at the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, Barbara reported on the notorious murderer William Horton Jr. and Massachusetts’ flawed prison furlough system, a series that played a crucial role in the U.S. Presidential election where George H. W. Bush defeated Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, changed Massachusetts sentencing laws, and won a Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting in 1988.
“The Horton story also taught me that journalists have tremendous power and responsibility to inform, to tell stories that need to be told,” she said.
A raft of other journalism awards would follow, as would several children’s books, one illustrated by renowned artist Jamie Wyeth.
But she faced the most challenging story of her life when she asked her father about his childhood pain. The process led to heartrending odysseys: one into a deadly Newfoundland hurricane and the lives of schooner fishermen, mostly of Irish descent, who relied on God and the wind to carry them home; the other, into a squall stirred by a man with many secrets, a grandfather who remained a mystery until long after his death, all captured in her book August Gale.
We talk about how as a child she preferred writing over talking, how she rebounded from failing her final college journalism paper, her dread of deadlines, the state of journalism today, the Irish experience in Newfoundland, her connection to her Irish heritage, her travels to Ireland, and the two “guardian angels” she met on the ferry to Belfast who diverted her from a perilous path.
Links:
·Website: https://barbarawalsh.net
·Twitter: https://twitter.com/BarbWalshAuthor
· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/barbarawalsh.author
· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barbaraawalsh
·Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Barbara-Walsh/author/B005TL1RRA
· August Gale: A Father and Daughter's Journey into the Storm on indiebound.org: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780762761463
He’s the quintessential New York Irish cop who rose up through the ranks from walking a beat to becoming a highly-ranked detective. He’s also a respected leader of New York’s Irish American community and a man at the center of a major controversy playing out now in New York as the American Irish Historical Society’s irreplaceable Beaux-Arts townhouse home on Fifth Avenue in New York City was put up for sale.
Brian always seems to be in the middle of it all, from his roots amidst a big Irish family, as a cop keeping the peace as a detective during some grim times in New York, in the middle of important peace-building efforts in Northern Ireland, and now in the middle of efforts to save the AIHS.
Brian came into the AIHS as Chairman of the Executive Council, hoping to air out the old building, welcome Irish arts and culture, and return the 125-year-old organization to relevance. And the work was well underway when his situation there became untenable.
The situation soon became vastly more dire as the AIHS announced its plans to sell its landmark building and move its collection to who knows where.
Join us as Brian talks of his Irish American childhood, his adventures scurrying across rooftops in pursuit of “perps,” how he got to know the people in the neighborhoods he served, and the effort to save the AIHS, and the breakthrough when New York attorney general Leticia James blocked the building’s sale.
All that and a bit of “paddywackery” too.
Links for Brian McCabe
- Bylines on the Irish Echo
American Irish Historical Society Articles
- Plans afoot to block the sale of the American Irish Historical Society in New York - Debbie McGoldrick
- The Battle For the Future of the American Irish Historical Society - Niall O'Dowd
- On a Storied Stretch of Fifth Avenue, a Symbol of Irish America Reels - Dan Barry
- Attorney General James Announces Plan to Preserve and Revitalize the American Irish Historical Society
Growing up with one foot in Dublin and the other in Cork, Michael “Mick” Mellamphy now has a foot in Ireland and one in New York, where he’s in starring in Ronán Noone’s The Smuggler at the Irish Repertory Theatre, part of the Origin Theatre’s 1st Irish Festival he curated, on stages around NYC for Jan. & Feb. 2023.
And he still made time to sit down with us a couple of hours before The Smuggler’s final dress rehearsal before opening night a few hours later.
But as well known as Mick is in the New York theater scene, but for avid gamers he’s famed as the performance capture artist of the cheeky Irish gunslinger Sean MacGuire from Rockstar’s hugely popular video game Red Dead Redemption 2.
It all started when his grandmother took him to the Cork Opera House to see a Christmas “panto” – the traditional holiday season performance of songs, gags, comedy and dancing – and told him “you could be up there, doing that for a living.”
Mick shares tales from the Irish stage, his early days in New York, his time bartending at and later owning the popular New York pub Ryan’s Daughter, his first forays into New York theater, why he likens his video game work to performing on the stage, while sliping into an impressive array of accents along the way.
Join us for an engaging conversation with a Global Irish Citizen of stage, screen, and video games, Michael Mellamphy!
Links
- Origin Theatre/1st Irish Festival:
- Origin Theatre Twitter
- The Smuggler at the Irish Repertory Theatre
Veteran diplomat and C Suite executive, Ted Smyth, joins Martin Nutty, on The Stew for the third time. With the conclusion of the final election of the US Midterm election season, it seemed like a good time to take the political temperature of not just the United States, but also of Northern Ireland and the Western European democracies.
Ted is a member of the Irish Americans for Biden committee and has a thoughtful take and matters political which spans both sides of the Atlantic. Join Ted and Martin as they chew the fat on what just happened and what to expect in 2023
Speechwriter, novelist, essayist, and now memoirist Peter Quinn returns to Irish Stew to share tales from his home borough of New York City and beyond, captured in his new book, Cross Bronx: A Writing Life.
Join us as Peter spins stories from his rise up through Irish American middle-class respectability in New York’s northernmost borough, The Bronx, which Quinn describes as “a small-scale Yugoslavia. Ethnic enclaves were interspersed amid areas in which, though physically mingled; groups lived psychically apart. We thought of ourselves in terms of neighborhoods and parishes.”
Quinn charts his shift from collaborative but anonymous work as a speechwriter at the highest echelons of political and corporate America, to his solitary, but no longer anonymous work writing Banished Children of Eve, Hour of the Cat, and other novels, and finally to the inward-looking, self-reflecting, warts-and-all odyssey of writing his memoir…a gift to his family and to us.
We drive along Peter Quinn’s personal Cross Bronx Expressway, though the twists and turns of his Irish American life, his family dynamics, his pull towards history, his dedication to the written word, his perceptions of the Irish in America, a few salty anecdotes on New York notables, and though it all, his on-again, off-again, ultimately eternally “on” love story with “The Girl from Hot Dog Beach.”
Cross Bronx: A Writing Life is available at Fordham University Press and all major booksellers, including Amazon.
In a way we’ve been teasing this episode since our first, as we’ve treated you to a wee taste of Rosa Nutty’s music at the opening of every Irish Stew episode. Now we go beyond the snippet and follow Rosa through the emotional landscape she travels in song.
Her first album after a five-year absence from the recording studio, World So Blue is getting rave reviews, like this from The Irish Times:
“Now she’s back with a long-in-gestation debut album that weaves a kind of spell that will calm the jittery nerves of this weekend’s ghosts and spirits… this sense of optimism in the face of impending gloom seals whatever abrasions may have resided in Nutty’s creative mindset over the past three years.”Join us as Rosa tells of her bilingual Irish-English childhood, her immersion in the visual arts, the influences on her songwriting, the power of letting go, her “semi-live” recording style, and the exhilaration of live performance.
And as she traces her journey from rural North County Dublin to rural Cavan, we’ll also hear all-too-brief segments from several of her songs.
Despite what she jokingly calls her “sad girl music,” there’s optimism in her atmospheric songs, best expressed in the title song “World Still Blue,” a hopeful sense that despite the turmoil and hardships of this world, from another perspective, say the perspective of an astronaut looking back on to earth from space, our world can still be “blue, calm and full of potential.”
Links
· Linktree: https://linktr.ee/rosanutty
· Website: http://www.rosanutty.com/
· Twitter: https://twitter.com/RosaNutty
· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosanutty/
· Bandcamp: https://rosanutty.bandcamp.com/album/world-still-blue
· Merchandise: https://rosanutty.bandcamp.com/merch
Gregory Harrington has stayed busy since our initial episode back in February 2022. Since that conversation, the accomplished violinist released a recording titled Gregory Harrington: Live From The Irish Repertory
Join Martin Nutty as he chats with Gregory about the risks of recording beloved traditional Irish tunes as a classically trained violinist. Learn how Gregory approaches the recording of music outside classical repertoire and how he approaches the challenge of bringing something fresh to each musical crossover recording.
Gregory Harrington Links
- Website
Gregory Harrington Live From The Irish Repertory
- Bandcamp
- Spotify
- Apple
- YouTube: Irish Repertory
In times past, the Irish language (Gaelic) was thought by some to be a mark of backwardness. In this episode, husband and wife team, Colm Bairéad and Cleona Ní Chrualaoi reveal how Ireland's native tongue provided entrée to the world of movie-making leading ultimately to the creation of An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl), Ireland's nominee for the Best International Feature Film Oscar.
While there are a number of hurdles to jump before the final five Oscar nominees are announced, there is little doubt that An Cailín Ciúin is meeting with approval from both general audiences and film critics, racking numerous awards at film festivals around the globe beginning with a Grand Prix award at the Berlin Film Festival in February
We talk with Cleona and Colm about how the Irish language shaped their lives, sometimes in not the most comfortable of ways. We track their paths through Irish Radio and TG4 (Ireland's Irish Language TV Channel) where they met and how they resolved to make a feature-length fiction film using their Inscéal production company.
Join us as we go behind the scenes in the making of An Cailín Ciúin and how things seemed to pull together in a special way despite significant challenges
Colm & Cleona Links
- Twitter
- Cleona
- Colm
- LinkedIn
- Cleona
- Colm
- Inscéal - Colm and Cleona's Production Company
- Colm's Website
An Cailín Ciúin Links
- Preview
- IMDB
- Wikipedia
Our 50th episode comes to you on the most ancient of Irish holidays - Halloween or Oíche Shamhna (eee-ha how-na) in Irish/Gaelic. It is the night that celebrates the transition from the old to the new Celtic year. That transition point, between the present and the past, was a space where the Celts believed the spirits or pucaí (pook-ee) of the past roamed.
Halloween seems a particularly appropriate date for us to introduce Neil Jackman, a man with an insatiable interest in Ireland's mysterious past and whose mission is to make "the past present". We talk with Neil about his work on the foreboding hill which overlooks Dublin where a sinister brooding building stares down on the capital city and where 18th-century aristocratic members of the Hell Fire met for their debauched revelries.
While we talk with Neil about the Hell Fire and its far deeper past, we also explore his background from the North West of England and how he came to live in Ireland with a hazy understanding of his ancestral past. We trace his career through an archaeological boom and bust period which in turn led to the foundation, along with his wife Róisín Burke, of the innovative Abarta Heritage. Abarta has worked with multiple stakeholders of Ireland's past including the Office of Public Works, the Heritage Council, and the National Museum of Ireland. Always, Abarta has been focused on deepening the public's understanding of the island's rich historical legacy.
Not to be just historical, we will talk with Neil about his Puffin obsession and the otherworldly site where his twin interests collide. You'll just have to listen to the podcast for more.
Neil Jackman Links
- Abarta Heritage - Audio Guides and Heritage Services
- Amplify Archaeology - Podcast
- Tuatha - for those looking for a deeper understanding of Ireland's past
Our 49th episode features one of our most global of guests–Deirdre Ryan, a world class athlete who competed for Ireland on the global stage and who is now raising the bar for Irish food.
Born in County Dublin, Deirdre studied business and Italian, then worked, studied and trained in Milan. To train and work in Germany, she learned to speak German and she’d go on to work in Belgium, Switzerland, and the UK before returning to Ireland full time.
Along the way, she soared to new heights rolling backwards over the high jump bar, ever higher, culminating in a sixth-place finish in the 2011 world championships (later moved up to fifth when a Russian athlete was banned) and set the Irish record when qualifying for the 2012 Olympics in London, competing there despite training setbacks from injuries.
As she trained, she developed an interest in food, nutrition and sustainability, making her a natural fit for Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, where she is helping the Irish agriculture and food sector “clear the bar” to a greener future as the Director of Sustainability & Quality Assurance for Bord Bia’s Origin Green initiative.
Join us for a story of sustained excellence in business and athletics, and of sustainability in the Irish food sector in our “Global Irish Nation Conversation” with Deirdre Ryan.
Links
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deirdreryanireland
Bord Bia:
- Website - https://www.bordbia.ie
- Twitter - https://twitter.com/Bordbia
Origin Green:
- Website - https://www.origingreen.ie
- Twitter - https://twitter.com/OriginGreen
From a dairy farm in County Offaly to the C-Suite in a global branding agency, her university days in Ulster during The Troubles, her internship with Enterprise Ireland that brought her to New York, her work bringing foreign direct investment and thousands of jobs to Ireland, her MBA from Harvard Business School, her rise in the world of marketers where she is regularly named one of the profession’s most influential global voices, her launch of a #GlobalIrish movement built on the hashtag #WearingIrish that helped jumpstart the world of Irish fashion and design while further burnishing the Irish brand…Margaret Molloy may not have done it all–but she’s getting close.
We learn of the strategy, serendipity, and simplicity that shaped her career, her role as the global chief marketing officer of the leading branding agency Siegel+Gale, the meaning of “brand,” how the best brands are rooted in simplicity, the power of a personal brand, the importance of a diversity of personal brands, and Tourism Ireland as an exemplar of #BrandIreland.
A confirmed New Yorker now, Margaret keeps strong ties to Ireland, has mentored many aspiring Irish professionals in New York, brings a vibrant Irish voice to the American c-suite and to podcasting through her How CMOs Commit, and still is guided by the lessons learned back on the farm.
Join us for a most #GlobalIrishNation conversation with one of its most compelling citizens, Margaret Molloy.
Margaret Links
- Podcast: How CMOs Commit
- Siegel+Gale: Company Bio
Wearing Irish Links
- Website
It wasn’t planned this way, but we recorded our episode with writer Brian McDonald on Sept. 11, a date that looms large in his new book Five Flights Up, which traces the Irish American story of four generations of the Feehan family in the Fire Department of New York, the FDNY, a story which would tragically culminate with the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
From the days just after the horse-drawn firetruck, to the devastation of the 1970s when the Bronx was burning, to the unspeakable tragedy of 9/11, to the culture-busting department of today, a Feehan has worn the shoulder patch of the FDNY. The tale shines the spotlight on the career of William M. Feehan, the only person to have held every rank in the FDNY including Fire Commissioner, who died in action at “Ground Zero” in the 9/11 attack.
Born in the Bronx and raised in the Irish enclave of Pearl River, NY, Brian shares stories of his Irish roots, his police officer father who was the focus of an earlier book My Father’s Gun, and colorful tales from his years serving drinks to the denizens of Elaine’s, New York’s unlikely literary and celebrity hangout, captured in the pages of his Last Call at Elaine's.
A Fordham University and Columbia School of Journalism graduate, McDonald contributes to such publications as The New York Times, teaches writing and journalism, has authored multiple books, and co-wrote with Malachy McCourt Death Need Not Be Fatal.
Join us as we see the Irish experience in New York, the social history of the city, and the human stories of 9/11 through the eyes of the Feehans of the FDNY.
Brian McDonald Links:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brian.v.mcdonald
- Publisher: https://bit.ly/3QMYEWM
- Amazon page: https://amzn.to/3LmuFnm
Flor MacCarthy was born in West Cork and shares memories of one of Ireland's most idyllic regions. Her childhood was one rich in the indulgence of curiosity, filled with books, history, and fueled by a Russophile father.
A Trinity College degree in French and Art History led unexpectedly to a career in journalism. Flor worked for 16 years at RTE, Ireland's national broadcaster, reporting on both domestic and international news.
Following her successful career at RTE, Flor took up the position of Politics Presenter at Oireachtas TV which afforded the opportunity to continue her journalistic career while providing enough space to pursue literary ambitions. The President's Letters, An Unexpected History, released in 2021 has proven to be a highly successful product of her expanded brief.
Join Flor and hosts, John Lee and Martin Nutty, as they discuss the surprising, amusing, and, sometimes infuriating correspondence lurking in the archives of the Irish Presidency.
Flor's Links
- Seamus Plug: West Cork History Festival
- The President's Letters: An Unexpected History of Ireland
- Oireachtas TV
Growing up in a Dublin home with no TV, Aedín turned to books, reading them aloud, drawing out the characters, and letting the words wash over her, which is how at age ten she managed to read James Joyce’s intimidating novel Ulysses.
She was drawn to the rhythms and music in the words of the great writers, no surprise coming from a home with her avid reader mother and her father, Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains.
But she’d feel the lure of the stage and after early acting experiences in Dublin she ventured to London and found success, ironically, considering her upbringing, on television. But New York beckoned, where Aedín has acted in a string of Off Broadway plays often at the famed Irish Repertory Theatre. She has also worked to amplify the voices of women on the stage through the Fallen Angel Theatre Company she founded, focused on Irish and British plays by and about women, which she often performed, directed, or produced.
We talked to Aedín as she was concluding her successful Irish Rep run of Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom, which she and Colum McCann adapted from the closing section of Ulysses, directed by John Keating, with music by Paddy Moloney. It’s a one-woman show where Aiden never leaves the stage for 90 minutes, electrifying for the audience, exhausting for Aedín.
But not so exhausting that she doesn’t want to stop channeling the spirit of Molly Bloom as she and Colum are working to take the show on tour to Ireland and the UK.
And for the second time, Aedín gifts Irish Stew with a passage from Yes!, so be sure to stay to the end when she brings Molly to vibrant life performing the “Mulvey’s Letter” section of Molly Bloom’s Soliloquy.
Links:
- Website: http://www.aedinmoloney.com/
- Fallen Angel website: https://www.fallenangeltheatre.org/homeofficialsite
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/AedinMoloney
- Fallen Angel Twitter: https://twitter.com/FallenAngelNY
- Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom: https://irishrep.org/show/2021-2022-season/yes-reflections-of-molly-bloom-3/
Our conversation with the warm and welcoming Elaine Ní Bhraonáin takes us from her childhood in South County, Dublin, to New York’s lively Irish scene, to bucolic Ballymoney on the north Wexford coast where she and her husband raise their three healthy children after three difficult pregnancies.
She talks about being raised in a home where the paternal language was Irish and the maternal tongue was English, growing up as an Irish language “geek” who would earn B.A. and M.A. degrees in Irish language.
Her urge to “break out of the bubble” landed her in New York, where she dove headlong into the city’s thriving Irish scene and taught Irish at the Irish Arts Center. She studied the Irish of New York and tracked the “boundary markers” they used to express their identity, leading to her PhD thesis on Irish identity in the U.S.
Though she still identifies herself as an “Irish New Yorker,” she knew when it was time to return to Ireland. Settling in Ballymoney, she and her husband Dean set about raising a family, but it was not to be easy. Elaine shares the challenges of three difficult pregnancies, especially the premature birth of their second child Odhrán, the medical battles he faced but against all odds triumphed. Elaine now aids other mothers and families facing similar battles through her advocacy for the Irish Neonatal Health Alliance.
While she is raising her three sons, she is teaching Irish in Dublin for Notre Dame University and is working on turning her scholarly PhD on Irish identity in the U.S. into a book more accessible to the public.
When she does, we hope she’ll join us again on Irish Stew.
Links
- LinkedIn: Elaine Ní Bhraonáin
- Irish Neonatal Health Alliance
We’re not sure what’s more impressive—that Larry Kirwan originated and co-wrote the Broadway hit Paradise Square, or that his early band with Pierce Turner was banned from the notorious New York punk rock club CBGB for being “too demonic.”
Larry talks of how his unusual childhood in Wexford and his need to maneuver through different points of view--Republican vs Free State, Catholicism vs Atheism, Irish vs British—laid the foundation of an artistic vision that could see the world through the prism of others.
A quest for adventure brings Larry to the U.S. where he dives into the underbelly of New York, Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a hard-edged, multi-cultural neighborhood where somehow he thrived. And though he didn’t know it at the time, Larry had already started doing his field research for the play that became Paradise Square.
But before Broadway, there was Black 47, the band he formed with Chris Byrne in 1989 that would tour the country, guest star on top TV shows, and record music for 25 years. Larry shares the origin of the band’s name, his approach to songwriting, how the music came together on stage, and tales from the rock and roll road.
But while he was writing music, he was writing columns, essays, memoirs, novels, and plays. One of those plays was Hard Times, set in New York’s ultimate interracial melting pot, the downtown neighborhood Five Points in the run-up to the disastrous Civil War Draft Riots. A Broadway producer who saw it at the intimate Cell Theater brought it to Broadway where it is now running on a grand scale as Paradise Square.
We wrap up with a look into his latest novel, Rockaway Blue, set in the aftermath of 9/11 in a world of Irish American cops and firefighters on the fringes of NYC.
This fall Larry will receive the Eugene O’Neill Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish American Writers & Artists. It’s always a hell of a party, so we hope to see you there!
Links
- Wikipedia: Larry Kirwan
- Paradise Square
- Black 47
- Rockaway Blue
- Celtic Crush:
- Website
- Irish American Writers & Artists
Our Bloomsday episode with the engaging James Joyce scholar John McCourt takes us to Italy for the first time, specifically its outpost across the Adriatic Sea, Trieste.
“There, I can safely say I discovered James Joyce,” McCourt says of Trieste. “Having encountered him occasionally in Ireland, I found myself in the city that had been his home for ten years.”
After earning his BA, MA, and PhD. from University College Dublin, McCourt launched an international academic career, focused mainly in Italy–at the Università Roma Tre, Università di Macerata, where he is Head of the Department of the Humanities, and as a researcher and lecturer in Università di Trieste.
The president of the International James Joyce Foundation and founder of the Trieste Joyce School, McCourt has written a bookshelf’s worth of volumes on Joyce, most recently Consuming Joyce. Part a study of how Joyce was perceived in Ireland, part social history, this book uses the changing interpretations of Ulysses to explore the religious, social, and political changes sweeping Ireland. The Literary Review called the book "scandalously readable” while The Irish Times wrote "This book was crying out to be written.”
Join us as we explore his circuitous route to an academic career, the colorful cosmopolitan town of Trieste that McCourt feels so influenced Ulysses, his experience of Italy where he’s perceived as a “britannico,” the funny side of Ulysses, and his perception of Bloomsday as “a dressed-up alternative to St. Patrick’s Day.”
Books by John McCourt
- Consuming Joyce: 100 Years of Ulysses in Ireland
- James Joyce in Context
- James Joyce: A Passionate Exile
- The Years Of Bloom: James Joyce in Trieste 1904-1920
Links for John McCourt
- University of Macerata Page: Profile Page
- Twitter: @mccourtitaly
- LinkedIn: Profile Page
- The Trieste Joyce School: Home Page
- International James Joyce Foundation: Home Page
Our new season of Irish Stew opens with trailblazing journalist Mark Little, a former RTÉ newscaster working to make sense of social media.
Coming from a family where there was a daily scrum over who got the newspaper first, armed with “premature cynicism” and blessed with an insatiable curiosity for what made the world work, journalism beckoned and after graduating Trinity College he landed a job with RTÉ, Ireland’s national broadcaster.
In this episode he shares stories from his “eyewitness to history” vantage point on some of the biggest news stories of his time as RTÉ’s first Washington correspondent and later host of Prime Time.
And somehow he found time to write three books.
He explains why he switched gears and dove into the uncharted waters at the intersection of global journalism and digital media with his tech startup Storyful, the first social media newswire created out of the need to break the news faster and use social content to add context to reporting.
He’d sell Storyful to News Corp about five years later, and after leadership roles at Twitter, he and Áine Kerr founded a new company in Dublin called Kinzen with the mission to protect every online community and public conversation from disinformation campaigns and harmful content.
Join us for an entertaining, occasionally sobering, and always engaging tour of the global media world with one of its true pioneers, Mark Little.
Links
- Kinzen Website: https://www.kinzen.com
- Mark Little’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/marklittlenews
- Kinzen’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/WeAreKinzen
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marklittlenews
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Little_(journalist)
Books
- 2002 - Book: Turn Left at Greenland - in search of the real America
- 2004 - Book: Zulu Time - When Ireland Went to War
- 2009 - Book: The New America
Martin Nutty's Favorite Paid Media SitesPer Mark Little's Seamus Plug - he encourages the support of small/local media which contribute to a rigorous news environment. Some of you might know Martin has a serious news habit, Here is a list of the sites he subscribes to, or supports
- New York Times
- Washington Post
- Irish Times
- The New Yorker
- The Atlantic
- The Guardian
- Talking Points Memo
- WNYC - Local New York National Public Radio Affiliate
- WNET (Channel 13) - Local New York PBS Affiliate
Liza Donnelly: New Yorker Cartoonist & “Very Funny Ladies”Irish Stew’s favorite cartoonist is back to tell you about her just-published book, Very Funny Ladies: an in-depth celebration of women cartoonists who have graced the pages of the famous magazine from the Roaring Twenties to the present day.
And you learn that somewhere between way back then and now a gender gap opened up at the magazine as women cartoonists disappeared from its pages, a gap finally bridged by Liza and two other women who broke through to get their comedic art published and pave the way for many more very funny ladies to come.
Join us for the latest from Liza!
Liza Links
- Liza’s original Irish Stew episode: https://www.irishstewpodcast.com/s2e3
- Very Funny Ladies: The New Yorker’s Women Cartoonists,
- Oblong Books (signed copies available)
- Amazon
- Website: https://lizadonnelly.com/
- Medium
We last spoke with Ted Smyth back at the start of 2021. A lot has happened in the world of politics in the intervening period. Ted’s experience on both sides of the Atlantic in the worlds of diplomacy and corporate life make him a thoughtful and well informed commentator on recent Irish and American developments.
Join Martin Nutty as he talks with Ted about the current state of American politics and how the Irish American community continues to be one of the more important constituencies within tgr Inited States. . Ted also discusses the impact of the Brexit protocol on the fragile Good Friday Agreement and what we should be looking towards to insure that peace continues to be maintained in Northern Ireland.
You can catch our original episode with Ted where we talk in greater detail about his career and background: https://www.irishstewpodcast.com/s2e2
We first sat down with Liverpudlian, Jack Byrne back in Season 2 when we talked about his first novel: Under the Bridge. You can catch that episode here: Jack Byrne: Mystery Writer.
Now Jack is back with the second installment of his Liverpool Mystery Series - Across the Water which continues the story of Paddy and Vinnie Connolly. The action moves from Liverpool to Wicklow as Vinnie traces the story of his long-deceased father against a backdrop of corruption and political violence.
Join Martin Nutty in conversation with Jack as they talk about the new book and how the violence of The Troubles touched Jack's family in the worst possible way.
Links
- Book 1: Under the Bridge
- Book 2: Across the Water
Season III of Irish Stew concludes with our conversation with a very Global Irish citizen, Dan Mulhall, Ireland’s Ambassador to the United States and your guide to one of the classics of Irish literature through his recently published Ulysses: A Reader’s Odyssey.
Join us as we tour the world with one of Ireland’s top diplomats as he wields Ireland’s soft power and uses Ireland’s culture to open doors and strengthen ties.
And from one diplomatic posting to the next, he lugged one weighty tome, James Joyce’s Ulysses, a literary classic he’ll turn to repeatedly, finally writing Ulysses, a Reader’s Odyssey his highly personal guidebook through the novel’s often difficult terrain, highlighting central character Leopold Bloom as an “ambassador for our day.”
We touch on Ireland’s ability to build bridges among countries, its seat on the UN Security Council as Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s border, the global admiration for Ireland’s peacekeeping forces, and telling Ireland’s story in the US to officials on both sides of the aisle, and always come back to how culture is Ireland’s passport to the world today.
Along the way Dan favors us with a reading from Ulysses paired with a passage from his book that explores that section.
The episode ends with a special treat, part of the closing chapter of Ulysses, “Molly Bloom’s Soliloquy,” brilliantly performed by actress Aedín Maloney, well known for her interpretation of this piece.
NB: This episode was recorded on Feb 3, 2022 almost three weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Sadly the hope of reducing the then building Ukrainian border tensions did not come to pass.
Dan Mulhall Links
- Biography at the Department of Foreign Affairs
- Ulysses: A Reader’s Odyssey book links
- New Island Books
- Amazon
- Embassy of Ireland USA: Twitter
Aedin Maloney Links
- Fallen Angel Theatre Company
In this episode, we reach for the stars with Irish American astronaut Dr. Cady Coleman, a veteran of two Space Shuttle missions and 159 days in orbit on the International Space Station (ISS).
Cady says she’s one-quarter Irish on both sides, but that it adds up to much more than half. When not exploring outer space, she’s exploring Irish music on the flute and tin whistle, even playing with the Chieftains. On St. Patrick’s Day, she live-streamed her playing a tin whistle from Paddy Moloney and an old wooden flute from Matt Molloy while floating in space aboard the ISS as a way of sharing her cosmic experience with them and the entire Global Irish Nation.
We discuss her journey into the exclusive ranks of space travelers, the drama of the mission aborted six seconds before liftoff, the sights and sounds of the International Space Station, and “the grief in leaving” space and adjusting to life back on earth.
As this episode airs, Russia has invaded Ukraine with Putin, even threatening the safety of the ISS, but Cady talks of the cooperation among all nations involved with the space station and the international structures in place to ensure this orbiting outpost remains neutral territory.
Oh, she also was a consultant for Sandra Bullock on “Gravity,” dueted with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull from the ISS, has done several TED Talks, is a successful keynote speaker, hosts the outstanding podcast Mission Interplanetary, and plays with fellow astronauts Stephen Robinson and Chris Hadfield in the musical group Bandella, and is featured on an Irish postage stamp!
Let's light this candle!
Cady's Links:
Website: Cady Coleman
Twitter: Astro_Cady
Facebook: Astrocady
Instagram: astro_cady
Podcast: Mission Interplanetary
Video: St. Patrick’s Day from the ISS
From Carnegie Hall to Lambeau Field, Gregory Harrington elevates the Global Irish Nation Conversation through his music.
Born in Dublin, based in New York City, he is redefining the classical violin virtuoso for the 21st century, pairing his expressive lyricism, tonal beauty, and impeccable musicianship with his uncanny ability to transform film scores, jazz standards, rock and pop music into compelling violin concert pieces.
Gregory talks of performing in a hard hat and safety vest for construction workers and how he warmed up 80,000 freezing Green Bay Packers fans with his electrifying rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner.
“No matter what stage it is–stage in the broadest meaning of the word–it’s about making connections, making a difference, making one person in the audience feel something that inspires them,” he says.
With his wide-reaching appeal, he’s performed for presidents and vice presidents, celebrities, heads of state, the United Nations and millions of music fans around the globe.
Virtuoso, musical explorer, entrepreneur, collaborator, innovator…and it all started at, of all places, at the Dublin Horse Show where as a boy he first saw and heard the violin…and it was love at first sight.
Links:
- Website: GregoryHarrington.com
- Twitter: HarringtonMusic
- Facebook: HarringtonViolin
- YouTube: GregoryHarrington
- Instagram: HarringtonViolin
- Spotify: Gregory Harrington
- Soundcloud: Gregory Harrington
In this episode we explore the “roots” and “routes” of the Irish diaspora for a very “Global Irish Nation Conversation” with CEO Patrick Greene and Historian-in-Residence Maurice J. Casey Ph.D. of Dublin’s EPIC: The Irish Emigration Museum, voted Europe’s leading tourist attraction the last three years running.
Patrick shares how an apprenticeship in archeology led him into a lifelong international career at the forefront of the movement to make museums more vibrant, relevant, and engaging for visitors.
Maurice describes himself as an “expert in histories of hope, solidarity and the Irish abroad,” and tells of his efforts to include a more diverse range of experiences in the telling of the Irish diaspora story.
We learn how EPIC transformed a vaulted warehouse basement into 20 galleries of immersive sights, sounds, and stories that connect with both the Irish diaspora and the people of Ireland exploring their emigration story.
Join us for a lively discussion on the rich history of emigration from Ireland and the lesser-known story of immigration into Ireland through the lens of EPIC: The Irish Emigration Museum.
Links:
EPIC: The Irish Emigration Museum
- Website
- Irish Family History Center
- Gift Shop
- YouTube
- TikTok
John Patrick Greene, CEO & Museum Director
Maurice J. Casey, Ph.D., DFA Historian in Residence
- Website
Despite growing up with no TV in a rural upstate hamlet, Kristen Shaughnessy would go on to become a fixture in New York TV news as reporter and anchor with the 24-hour news station New York 1.
Kristen was on the frontlines of the non-stop news coverage of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and she takes us back to the grim reality that emerged that fateful day, sharing poignant details and discussing the journalistic challenges of reporting on this unprecedented tragedy.
We talk about the state of journalism today, the need to explore a range of viewpoints, and we delve into the toxic intersection of ageism and sexism that too often leads older workers, especially older women, to be pushed to the sidelines or shown the door.
With Irish roots stretching back to Galway, Kristen was named to Irish America Magazine's "Top 100" list, chosen as one of the "Top 50 Irish American Power Women,'' and of the "Top Media 30."
After our conversation with Kristen, we can see why.
Links:
- TED Talk
Born in the Irish America hotbed of Buffalo, New York, Jennifer Petoff lives in Dublin now. Following a career that has taken unexpected twists. A holder of a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford University, we talk about women in STEM and how Jennifer made her way to Dublin, where she works in the SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) field. Jennifer is also one of four editors of Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems, a highly successful publication in the world of SRE.
While Jennifer is busy in her day job, she also created Sidewalk Safari, an expansive travel blog featuring her travels in Ireland and locales further afield over the past ten years. Her posts display a keen photographic sensibility notable for their focus on colorful or unusual doorways likely cultivated by Dublin's famous Georgian Doors.
Jennifer's Business Links
- Business Unit: Google SRE
- LinkedIn: Profile
- Book: Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems
Jennifer's Travel Links
- Travel Blog: Sidewalk Safari
- Twitter: Sidewalk Safari
- Instagram: Sidewalk Safari
- Facebook: Sidewalk Safari
- Pinterest: Sidewalk Safari
On this serving of Irish Stew, we travel from Manhattan (pop. 1.6 M) to Inisheer (pop. 250) to explore the sights, sounds, haunting landscape, natural history, and vibrant culture of the Aran Islands with our affable tour guide—Irish language advocate and sean-nós singer, MacDara Ó Conaola.
MacDara guides us over the common ground all three of the Aran Islands share, what makes each one distinct, and makes a compelling case for extending your day trip to Inisheer into an overnight stay.
Along with his love of the Irish language, he shares his hopes and frustrations in keeping it a vital part of Irish life, while giving co-host Martin Nutty a chance to practice his Irish.
We talk about the history of sean-nós and hear his contemporary take on the ancient form in a song tinged with anticipation, longing, and hope on the horizon.
But it’s not all sean-nós for MacDara whose musical tastes embrace hip hop, rap and the Beatles.
Join us for an engaging conversation with our man of Aran and check the links below to learn more of his music and Irish language efforts.
And though he may not know much about the Irish language or sean-nós, props to co-host John Lee for mastering the Irish goodbye.
MacDara Links:
Personal website is: www.macdara.com
Gaelic Green Tongue www.gaelicgreentongue.com
Peign is Peadar Project: www.peggyandpeter.org
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeiginP
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/macdara-%C3%B3-conaola-88b46b13/
Love Token - MacDara's Album on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Love-Token-Macdara/dp/B011E4RBOS
Through her work on the award-winning The Coastal Atlas of Ireland and on harvesting the power of ocean winds, our guest Val Cummins is a compelling advocate for embracing the potential off Ireland’s shores.
Just named the best Irish-published book of the year, and weighing in at a hefty 10 pounds/4.5 kilos, The Coastal Atlas of Ireland is an unprecedented exploration of Ireland’s coastline and a labor of love for this trained marine geographer with a PhD in coastal management.
Simultaneously, she’s leading the way for offshore wind power development as the Emerald Project managing director and Simply Blue Group director, working to generate electricity from Ireland’s dependable ocean winds though floating turbines positioned out in the Celtic Sea, over the horizon, and out-of-sight of Ireland’s shores.
Get on board as we sail around Ireland’s coast and out to sea where Ireland’s energy future lies, in this particularly “green’ episode of Irish Stew.
Links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/vcummins24
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/val-cummins-phd-aa9a8537
Simply Blue Group: https://simplyblueenergy.com
Floating wind background: https://simplyblueenergy.com/floating-wind
- Emerald Project: https://simplyblueenergy.com/emerald
The Coastal Atlas of Ireland is available from Cork University Press at https://www.corkuniversitypress.com/CoastalAtlas-p/9781782054511.htm and many other booksellers including Amazon
Colin Broderick likes to tell stories, needs to tell them, be they dark, dank, and dangerous, be they bright, affirming, and knowing.
It’s all there in his new film A Bend in the River, his highly personal tale of a writer returning to his native County Tyrone still in the shadows of “The Troubles,” confronting the life and loves he left behind and writing as if his life depended on it, with boxer-turned-actor John Duddy in the title role, and featuring Kathy Kiera Clarke of Derry Girls fame.
After Tyrone came New York, where Colin says he felt free for the first time, including the freedom to let alcohol and drugs take him to the dark side, unflinchingly related when we discuss his memoir of a drinker’s life, Orangutan, a story thankfully very much in Colin’s past.
And he got others to tell their Irish-American stories in The Writing Irish of New York, his just re-released curation of essays on the rise of Irish American writers with contributions from Irish Stew guest Peter Quinn, Colum McCann, Larry Kirwan, Malachy McCourt, Mary Pat Kelly, Dan Barry, Seamus Scanlon, John Kearns, Honor Molloy and more.
Join us for Colin’s very global Irish story, with its origins in England, it's Northern Ireland narrative, and it's tale of downfall and redemption in NYC.
Links:
Website: https://www.colinbroderick.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/colin_broderick
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Colin-Broderick-372018999547166
Film: A Bend in the River
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11C9W2inJQI
- Available on several platforms including Amazon Prime: https://www.amazon.com/Bend-River-John-Duddy/dp/B09FS14ZG8
Film: Emerald City: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yLtp6W9M0k&t=42
Clare McGee wears multiple hats, most notably as a principal of Innovate-NI, a management consulting company established 2016 in Derry, Northern Ireland. Along with cofounder Dr. Barney Toal, the company focuses on small business development, entrepreneurship, digital and social innovation projects.
Clare is also a cofounder of AwakenHub, a social enterprise organization whose mission is to level up opportunity, access and connectivity for women founders throughout the Island of Ireland by removing barriers to scale, investment and success.
Learn how Clare's efforts may significantly redraw the map of Derry through her participation in the Eden Foyle River whose goal is to create a shared space for all the people of Ireland's fifth largest city
Clare McGee's Links:
- Innovate-NI
- AwakenHub
- Eden Foyle River
For Paul Finnegan it all goes back to his hometown of Galway City, “a small city but I refuse to call it a town” he says and a “crucible of many great things,” notwithstanding its reputation for being “where ambition goes to die.”
But Paul explains why, despite his love for “The City of Tribes,” he traded “one great city for another'' and moved from Galway City to New York City, where he embarked on a career as a career changer--becoming the executive director of the Emerald Isle Immigration Center, working in the software and foodservice industries, and enjoying an 11-year run as the executive director of the New York Irish Center, dedicated to “Community, Culture & Care” for the Irish and beyond.
After over a decade, though, it was time for another career change. Paul’s now the director of business development for the oldest Irish news source in America, the Irish Echo, and is the producer and presenter of Centerpiece NY, his lovingly produced podcast chronicling “the lives of long-standing members of New York's Irish community, in their own words”...
...making him Irish Stew’s bitter crosstown rival for New York-based, Irish diaspora-themed podcast supremacy!
And in January Paul will add “president of the Irish Business Organization of New York” to his resume.
Not bad for a guy from Phoenix...as you’ll discover in this episode.
Links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Paul_NY
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-e-finnegan
Irish Echo: https://www.irishecho.com
Centerpiece NY: https://www.centerpieceny.com
Centerpiece NY Twitter: https://twitter.com/CenterPieceNY
Irish Business Organization of New York: https://www.ibonewyork.org
How much of our history would remain buried if not for a few intrepid explorers of the past?
In this episode we explore little known Irish diaspora stories buried in cemeteries over 1,300 miles apart in Colorado and Georgia.
Drawing on his research of an abandoned cemetery high in the Rocky Mountains, historian Prof. Jim Walsh tells the tale of the Irish miners who migrated to work hard and die young in Leadville, Colorado, the highest incorporated town in America.
Archaeologist and historian Damian Shiels returns to Irish Stew to take us deeper into the saga of the Irish in America’s Civil War with stories of the thousands of the Irish in the Union Army forced into the Confederacy’s brutal Andersonville Prison and the hundreds who are confirmed buried there.
Damian honors these migrants through his online Andersonville Irish Project, while Jim is working to build the Leadville Irish Miners’ Memorial in hopes that their stories might continue. Both guests reveal the plight of migrants with few options in life doing their best to survive, themes that resonate still today.
Prof. James Walsh:
- Bio: https://clas.ucdenver.edu/newdirections/james-walsh
- Leadville Irish Miners’ Memorial: https://www.irishnetworkco.com/leadville-irish-miners-memorial/
- GoFundMe to support the creation of the the Irish Miners Memorial: https://www.gofundme.com/f/memorializing-irish-immigrants-in-unmarked-graves
Doctor Damian Shiels:
- Irish in the American Civil War
- Anderson Irish Project: https://irishamericancivilwar.com/andersonville-irish/
- You can support Damian's work at: Patreon
Natalie Nugent O’Shea takes us from St. Paul, Minnesota, around the world with Riverdance, to Dublin to start a family, and then back home to St. Paul where she’d co-found a home for Irish arts and culture in the Midwest, the Celtic Junction Arts Center.
She tells us of her arm’s-length relationship to Ireland until moonlighting as a lighting designer for a touring production of Riverdance, falling in love not only with the music and dance, but also with one of the original Riverdancers, her eventual husband and co-collaborator in the O’Shea School of Irish Dance and Celtic Junction Arts Center, Cormac O’Sé.
Serving as the Celtic Junction’s executive director since its founding in 2010, Natalie oversees a vibrant shared space for Irish dance, music and theatre, Irish literature and language, an Irish heritage library and cross-cultural performances which in 2018 was named the Best Cultural Center by Irish Central.
Natalie also shares a heartfelt look into the hidden history of the Irish in Minnesota, especially the settlement known as the Connemara Patch, and the Irish culture that made the trek with them and how it mixed and mingled with the other cultures they encountered.
“Until we understand what is outside of us, I think we can't understand our own culture,” she says.
Join us for an insightful and passionate conversation on Irish arts and culture, thriving in the Midwest of the U.S.
Links:
Natalie Nugent O’Shea
· Twitter: https://twitter.com/natalienoshea
Celtic Junction Arts Center
· Website: https://celticjunction.org
· Twitter: https://twitter.com/celticjunction
· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CelticJunction
· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/celticjunctionartscenter
WASSUP?
Season III of Irish Stew is WASSUP!
We launch with an episode on the Irish ad man responsible for the memorable Budweiser commercial that had people around the world shouting WASSUP--Vinny Warren.
Vinny takes you from his native Galway to London, New York, Boston and finally Chicago, relates why his time as a bartender would later prove so valuable, how being a Central Park carriage driver fit into his unorthodox career strategy, his near death experiences with both the mafia and a mountain lion, how he stalked his way into his dream job, and the moment in Galway he realized that WASSUP had gone global.
Vinny tells us about starting his own agency Escape Pod where he did his most meaningful project, Metro Gun Share Program, a sly commentary on America’s gun culture and a fundraising vehicle for gun control advocacy.
Vinny may have sold Escape Pod but he’s still very much in business at vinny.warren.com.
Maybe we can get him for the Irish Stew ad campaign!
Links:
- Website: www.vinnywarren.com
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinny_Warren
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinnywarren/
- WASSUP? Commercial: https://www.vinnywarren.com/project-1
- Metro Gun Share Program: https://www.chicagonow.com/reflections-chicago-life/2018/05/the-metro-gun-share-program/#image/1
Emer Rocke gives an insider’s perspective on the lives of those most global of Irish citizens, the people of Ireland’s diplomatic corps. The Deputy Ambassador of Ireland to the United States at time of the interview, now Director of U.S. and Canadian Relations, Emer discusses the rewards and challenges of the diplomatic life, how Ireland punches above its weight in the international arena, why other countries view Ireland as an “honest broker,” how convening is a key soft power, its current role as a member of the U.N. Security Council, and how Ireland is viewed in Washington under the Irish-friendly Biden administration.
Dublin “born, bred, and buttered” but with rural Clare and Donegal roots, Emer relates the happy accidents that led her into the Department of Foreign Affairs, her early stages work on the Irish government’s diaspora outreach, her eventful first few weeks as the Director of British Irish Relations when the U.K. voted to Brexit, and lockdown diplomacy in Washington, D.C.
An advocate for diplomatic corps diversity, she looks at the progress that’s been made and the work still to be done, and uses her “Seamus Plug” to advocate for increased mental health awareness and supporting services.
Emer Rocke Links:
Janet Behan carries on the family tradition of creativity in both her acting and writing. The London-born daughter of Dublin-born playwright Brian Behan & Celia Behan, great niece of the songwriter Peadar Kearney (author of Amhrán na bhFiann, the Irish National Anthem), and niece of the writers Dominic Behan and Brendan Behan.
On this serving of The Stew, she tells of a deprived but happy childhood “that took a bit of recovering from” and how “playing the fool” to ease family tensions led her to the stage and screen. Trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama , she is known for her roles in National Theatre productions and in the popular TV series EastEnders.
“I’ve always had a fear of being ordinary, just an ordinary human Behan,” she says quoting her uncle Brendan.
She channeled the spirit of her uncle in writing Brendan at the Chelsea which caught the eye of Adrian Dunbar who’d go on to direct and star in it’s Lyric Theatre of Belfast production which earned rave reviews in an Off-Broadway run. Recently she realized she was old enough to play her indomitable grandmother, which she did in the recent film Kathleen and Me.
Janet tells us of being too Irish for the English and too English for the Irish, saying “I think of myself as somebody who is always on her knees, begging and pleading to be allowed into Ireland...culturally and psychologically.”
Janet Behan Links:
- Representation
Cauvery Madhavan adds Indian spices to this serving of Irish Stew as we trace her journey from Chennai, India to Sligo, Ireland, to County Kildare, and travel back with her to India to explore Irish stories there through her epic novel The Tainted.
We talk of race and color in India and Ireland, the Anglo-Indians who were often more Irish than Anglo, the bonds Indian students forged with Irish revolutionaries, the dearth of spices in Sligo, the political scene in India today, how she and her family view their blended nationalities, and which flag they’d plant on the top of Mt. Everest.
Arriving in Ireland on Valentine's Day over three decades ago, Cauvery says that despite the Irish weather, she's been in love with the country ever since.
The episode wraps with a fusion of Indian/Irish music in the form of the classic “Carolan's Favorite Jig,” performed by the noted veena virtuoso Nirmala Rajasekar from Cauvery’s hometown of Chennai.
Cauvery Madhavan’s links:
Website: https://www.cauverymadhavan.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CauveryMadhavan
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madhavancauvery/
Her publisher: https://www.hoperoadpublishing.com/authors/cauvery-madhavan
Nirmala Rajasekar’s links:
Website: https://www.nirmalarajasekar.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nirmalarajasekarveena/
A legal advocate for immigration in America, Irish-born, Chicago-based Fiona McEntee is a recognizable media-friendly face and voice in the U.S. immigration conversation through interviews by MSNBC, BBC, CNN, The New York Times, Politico, The Chicago Tribune…and now Irish Stew.
She is the founding and managing attorney of McEntee Law Group which represents individuals, families, and some of the world’s leading musicians (including the Coronas), artists, athletes, and entrepreneurs.
As a proud Irish immigrant and naturalized U.S. citizen, Fiona has dedicated her career to the advancement of immigrants’ rights from lobbying in Washington, D.C., to suing the Trump Administration over the controversial travel ban.
Inducted into the Chicago Irish-American Heritage Center Hall of Fame in 2019, Fiona recently published Our American Dream, a children’s book on immigration.
Fiona McEntee links:
· Bio: https://www.mcenteelaw.com/fiona-mcentee
· Twitter: https://twitter.com/USVisaLawyer
· LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fionamcentee/
· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/usvisalawyer/
· McEntee Law Group website: https://www.mcenteelaw.com/
· McEntee Law Group Twitter: https://twitter.com/McEnteeLawGroup
· Our American Dream children’s book: https://www.ouramericandreambooks.com/
Dublin born Paddy McGrath represented his native country at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. For many, that pinnacle achievement would represent an end point to the pursuit of glory in an athletic career. Most, who chase perfection in the hammer throwing circle, leave the sport for more lucrative endeavors. While Paddy hung up his hammer glove some 20 years ago, he has continued his involvement in the sport giving back to an event that provided him a college education in the form of an athletic scholarship to Manhattan College in New York.
Hear how Paddy become one of the gurus of hammer throwing and how one of his charges may make a trip to the Olympic podium in Tokyo
Paddy McGrath Links:
- New York Hammer Squad
Fin Dwyer has always been interested in history. He grew up in Castlecomer, Kilkenny surrounded by the vestiges of the past and so when he went to college, he pursued this passion, graduating with a master's degree in archaeology. However, the best laid plans often go awry, the freshly minted graduate started out in his chosen field only to have his career prospects crushed by the financial downturn of 2008. Coincidentally, Fin was stricken with a health crisis that left him unable to work as an archaeologist.
While attempting to recover from his illness, Fin opted to harness his interest in history to the newly emerging field of podcasting. What started out as a distraction from his illness morphed into an alternative way to pursue his passion for times past. Join John Lee and Martin Nutty as they chat with Fin about his career and how an understanding of history is crucial in navigating the unsettled political times we live in
With the republication of his epic novel Banished Children of Eve, the Bard of Hastings-on-Hudson Peter Quinn joins us for a sometimes serious, occasionally irreverent, always insightful look into the global Irish identity from the Irish American perspective. We follow the immigrant’s evolution from the “Paddy” of the famine Irish who washed up on U.S. shores and into Banished…to “Pat” in dogged pursuit of the American dream, to the brash urban swagger of ”Jimmy” personified by actor Jimmy Cagney and NYC Mayor Jimmy Walker. We hear how Peter’s Albany exile as the lead speechwriter for governors Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo, sparked the drive to write under his own name, first in Banished, and later in Looking For Jimmy: A Search For Irish America and his mystery trilogy--Hour of the Cat, The Man Who Never Returned, and Dry Bones...all with one central, recurring character: New York City.
For a 30% discount on the newly republished Fordham University Press edition of Banished Children of Eve, go to https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823294084/banished-children-of-eve/and enter BANISHED30 at checkout (offer expires 6/30/21).
Sorcha’s story takes us back and forth across the Irish Sea and Atlantic Ocean as she sets her course towards storytelling and journalism on radio and TV for RTE, Newstalk, BBC and CBS. With a step into the unknown she landed at the New York Film Academy earning a diploma in filmmaking and acquiring the skills she’d deploy most notably in “Passing It On: Ballymun Kickhams” for RTE 1, her telling of the improbable tale of a hardscrabble urban gaelic football team, described in the Irish Times as “a quietly moving programme about community, belonging and kindness.”
Despite a childhood in Dublin far from the Gaeltacht, Sorcha grew up in an Irish-speaking family, immersed in traditional music and imbued with a social consciousness that informs her creative work.
Sorcha's Links:
Growing up in rural poverty in Co. Limerick, Michael Dowling was surrounded by a “cacophony of nos.”
Fortunately for Dowling there was no better motivation than being told he couldn’t do something.
That spirit and a prodigious amount of hard work propelled him through University College Cork, success on the hurling pitch, further education and a professorship at Fordham, a long run as director of Health, Education and Human Service for his mentor Gov. Mario Cuomo, to his role today as the self-described “health care optimist” who leads New York State’s largest health care system and largest private employer as CEO of Northwell Health.
Dowling tells an epic immigrant’s tale in his new memoir “After the Roof Caved In: An Immigrant's Journey from Ireland to America” and in conversation with Martin Nutty and John Lee on this episode of Irish Stew.
Website: www.michael-dowling.com
After the Roof Caved In: Amazon
Leading Through a Pandemic: Amazon
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Jack Byrne grew up in Liverpool, the son of post WWII Irish emigrants. In his first novel, Under the Bridge, Jack takes the Liverpool of his parent's era to craft an engrossing mystery featuring the post war Irish and their struggles as they try to make there way in a country that at times is hostile to their presence.
We talk with Jack about his life, the challenges of writing and publishing a book when coming from a working class background, what it was like to be both Scouse and the son of Irish emigrants along with his plan for future books
For more on Jack and his work => Jack Byrne Blog
A brick came through the window and an idyllic life in the Co. Donegal resort town of Buncrana was shattered as The Troubles spilled over from Derry with the realization that “This can end.”
Working to ensure that it doesn’t end for Irish art, culture, and history in America, Turlough McConnell committed to a creative life. As a writer, producer, curator and as president/CEO of Turlough McConnell Communications, he continually creates original landmark culture projects that interpret the Irish experience in America.
In this episode, we explore Turlough’s journey from Donegal to Dublin, London, and finally to New York, his shift from corporate to culture, why the famine looms over all his creative work, why he regards Archbishop John Hughes--a.k.a. Dagger John--as the greatest Irish immigrant ever, his admiration for James Joyce and Eugene O’Neill, and why he wishes he could be our previous Irish Stew guest Ted Smyth.
Join us as we explore a life lived in the creative space with a leading interpreter of “Ireland in American” in this episode of our “Global Irish Nation Conversation.”
Turlough Links:
“Seamus” Plug: History Loves A Parade: 260 Years of the St. Patrick's Day Parade - Online on Wed, March 17, 2021, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM ET
· Website: Turlough McConnell Communications
From when her mother gave her a book of James Thurber’s cartoons, Liza Donnelly has expressed her wit and rising political consciousness through pencils, pens, watercolors, and now through her live drawing on an iPad at the Oscars, the Democratic National Convention, other marquee events for CBS.
On this episode, Liza traces her journey from Washington, D.C. to New York, with an impactful year-long layover in Rome, where she explored a new sense of freedom and immersed herself in the arts, especially the drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci.
In New York she used her artistic skills behind the scenes at the American Museum of Natural History. But her goal always was to get her cartoons in The New Yorker which she did through dogged determination despite all the rejections—but she’ll tell why she needed to go out on the streets of New York to sketch parking meters before the magazine published her first cartoon.
Liza reveals how the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sparked her growing political consciousness and why she saw her art as the best way to add her voice to the cause.
While it was in New York that Liza began to feel Irish, that feeling intensified in her first trip to Ireland where she found a warm welcome, new inspirations for sketching, and a kinship with the people from a shared passion for politics and love of poetry—because for Liza Donnelly cartooning is a form of poetry.
Viewing life as “something of a random walk,” Ted Smyth went from rural to urban, to international, from leadership roles in diplomacy to C-suite roles in Fortune 500 companies, to a rich post-corporate career in Irish American community leadership.
On this episode of Irish Stew, Ted describes his journey from a protestant farming community in Co. Westmeath, to “finding his place” in Trinity College Dublin, an intellectual “petri dish” that fostered his growing social justice focus. That led him to Ireland’s diplomatic corps and his work on conflict resolution in Northern Ireland and Irish America engagement in the peace process.
Settling stateside, he forged an enviable business career instilled with his social responsibility ethos and is now in his “Act III,” he serves the Global Irish Nation through his writing, speaking, and volunteer service, including his roles as president of the advisory boards of both Glucksman Ireland House and UCD Clinton Institute.
Shaunagh Connaire is an award winning journalist who has reported from some of the most challenging and troubled spots on the globe. In her most recent venture, a podcast called Media Tribe, she has shifted her focus towards highlighting the work of critically acclaimed journalists and media executives, providing a forum to tell the story behind the story
Shaunagh will be Irish Stew's guest on the first episode of season 2. For more on Irish Stew, please visit: https://www.irishstewpodcast.com
Ruth Cannon BL is a Dublin based barrister specializing in property and probate law. Ruth acts as a guide in giving an introduction to both the the esoterica and arcane that constitutes the Irish Legal profession and it's history on this episode.
Together with cohosts John Lee and Martin Nutty, Ruth details the state of the Irish Law and why this third decade of the 21st century is an exciting time for the profession especially as the impact of Brexit is felt.
We also discuss some of the extensive content Ruth has been published on her blog: Stories of the Four Courts which features tales of pioneering barristers, duels to the death and even a ghost story
Alison McKenna shares tales from acting on the stages of the Abbey, Gate, and Royal Shakespeare Company, traces her journey as a producer for the theatre and cultural programming such as New York’s centerpiece 1916 Centenary commemoration, and demonstrates why she’s an in-demand voiceover artist in the burgeoning field of audiobooks.
Along the way she tells us why tap dancing’s loss was acting’s gain, how fitting into a particular costume was the opportunity she needed to win her first role at the Gate, the cheeky comment that helped her land a part at London’s National Theatre, how Hozier ended up performing at one of her events, and why Ireland needs to embrace its “culture makers,” now, more than ever.
Learn more about Alison McKenna at http://alison-mckenna.com
Thanks for listening and we welcome your comments and reviews at: https://www.irishstewpodcast.com
For 10 years, Damian Shiels has mined the American Civil War pension files to tell the staggering story of Irish participation in that conflict. This archive is the richest source of early 19th century Irish social history. John Lee and Martin Nutty talk with Damian about his herculean work, his love of history and how that fits with his career in archaeology. For more on Damian's work visit his amazing blog at: https://irishamericancivilwar.com
Don't forget to subscribe to Irish Stew Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and you can visit www.IrishStewPodcast.com to get the latest on our work and provide feedback on our efforts.
Ciarán Cannon is the elected TD (Irish Member of Parliament aka Dáil Éireann) for the Galway East constituency. Ciarán served as Minister of State for the Diaspora and International Development from 2017 - 2020. John Lee and Martin Nutty talk with Ciarán about the importance of the Diaspora to Ireland, the Irish word: Meitheal, the difficult decisions that elected officials are sometimes called upon to make and Ciarán's abiding interest in music.
Please feel free to leave comments on this episode on the associated episode page at www.IrishStewPodcast.com
Geoff Cobb is a New York City school teacher, a blogger, a columnist and a historian with a focus on the lesser recorded histories of the personalities and neighborhoods that constitute the seething ferment that is New York City. Our conversation focuses on Geoff's upcoming book detailing the lives of Irish New Yorkers who left a mark on the city and the state.
Aisling MacRunnels came to America on an athletic scholarship in the 1980s. Hear Aisling's story detailing the windy route taken to the upper tiers of the Silicon Valley hierarchy. Learn how Aisling leveraged her Irish EQ to achieve success in America's tech land.
Jeffrey Hayzlett is a former Fortune 100 C-Suite executive turned C-Suite Network CEO, keynote speaker, media entrepreneur, and TV & podcast host. We talk about what drives him in business, his ringside seat for the demise of Kodak, what he really thinks of Donald Trump after working with him on The Apprentice, his reasons for living in South Dakota, and why his first visit to Ireland meant so much to him.
Canadian by birth, New Yorker by choice, Bridget Bray recounts her genealogical journey from avocation to profession as she blows the dust off the topic with her insights on internet and DNA research, how she followed leads and knocked on doors in Ireland, why dog licenses are one of her workarounds for information gaps, and her tips on how to break through the frustrating genealogical “brick walls.
Bill Schultz, Executive VP/Content Development at Cadence13, has had a career spanning more than 30 years in the radio and podcast world. Our conversation delves into the fast changing podcasting industry and how the most creative people in the audio arts are gravitating towards this space
Preview of Irish Stew the podcast for the Global Irish Nation featuring interviews with fascinating influencers proud of their Irish Edge. If you're Irish born or hyphenated Irish, this is the podcast that brings all the Irish together