Irish Stew Podcast

When Unionist leader Ian Paisley traveled from Belfast to Dublin and addressed the packed Long Room of the Trinity College Library, historian Jane Ohlmeyer was on edge. Paisley had telegraphed that he would close his remarks with Sir Edward Carson’s rallying cry “God save Ulster.” But then the former firebrand paused and added, significantly, “and the other provinces as well.”  It wasn’t quite “Go...

Almost five years ago, sean-nós singer and native Irish speaker MacDara Ó Conaola gave Irish Stew a tour of Inis Oírr, the smallest of the Aran Islands. Since then he has moved to the mainland, worked two very different jobs, taken a slice of Irish culture to Italy, and come home again. For our 170th episode, Martin catches up with MacDara back on the island, still as passionate about the language...

The Today Show spotlighted Irish tourism last week in the U.S., but now it’s Irish Stew’s turn to tell the tale to its global audience through the eyes of Stephen Cotter, managing director of CIE Tours International, a company with over 90 years of history bringing people to experience Ireland and beyond. With cohost John Lee flying solo this time, the episode explores CIE Tours’ unlikely origins...

It don't mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing. Fortunately, the latest Irish Stew guest has that swing. He’s transatlantic Irish jazz singer Austin O’Brien, out of Malahide, County Dublin, where Irish Stew cohost Martin Nutty calls home, Co-host John Lee saw that this Irish jazz artist was playing at a New York outpost of the Malahide bar Gibney’s. he contacted Austin who invited him out t...

In 1975, three Catholic and three Protestant children from Northern Ireland stepped off a plane at JFK for a summer away from The Troubles. Fifty years later, their stories and the stories of the some thousands of children who followed are the focus of a new book: Project Children: The Legacy by Derry author Jane Buckley. Launching Tuesday, October 13 at the Monaghan Peace Campus, the book is the...

Andre Archimbaud spent his life carrying three passports worth of heritage: a French surname, an Italian-American and Irish-American upbringing.  While André's Irish identity may be masked by his last name, there is little doubt about the depth of that legacy. This episode, recorded at Ryan's Daughter on the Upper East Side, traces how Archimbaud came to understand that inheritance at a...

Gearóid Mcdaid, known across the surfing world as G-Man, grew up twenty minutes from Mullaghmore, County Sligo's fearsome slab wave, and now holds the 2025 European shortboard title with an eye on the 2028 LA Olympics. John and Martin caught him mid-vacation in New York, tucked into Georgie's Chelsea, right under a photograph of the man himself mid-wave. "It's a pretty cool thi...

One year and a week since taking his new post, the Consul General of Ireland in New York Gerald Angley hosted the Irish Stew podcasters in his office high above Park Avenue for a behind-the-scenes look at Irish diplomacy in action while sharing his reflections on the first year on the job. One event stands out for Gerald. "The scale of St. Patrick's Day blew our minds,” he says. “It&apos...

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...

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 acros...

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 Cumm...

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...

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 North...

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 fr...

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...

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 , p...

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 a...

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 r...

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...

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 Ir...

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 de...

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 s...

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...

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...

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 novelis...