Keeping Track

In this bonus episode, we meet Julia Ehrhardt, an early childhood practitioner at Farmyard Kindergarten. Julia shares her journey into early years education, reflecting on her formative experiences and what led her to become a Kindergarten teacher. We explore the Steiner philosophy in a pre-school setting, how to know when your child is ready for pre-school, the daily rhythm of a playschool, and t...

Rob Crowley runs Callanan’s Bar, a small pub on George’s Quay overlooking the south channel of the River Lee. It has been a family-run establishment since the 1930s with a loyal clientele. Callanan’s is more than just a pub, it’s a Cork institution. Now in its third generation of ownership, it continues to maintain its welcoming atmosphere while supporting storytelling, theatre, and music. Over th...

Moray Bresnihan is the General Manager of Cork Community Art Link, a community arts organization focused on collaborative projects and participatory programs. His career includes work in arts programming, event production, and street theatre. He co-founded Goldie Fish Events, ran the DIY arts initiative Mutantspace.com, and served as Artistic Director for the Cork 2005 European Capital of Culture...

Aoife Barry is an award-winning journalist, writer, and broadcaster. She is the author of the acclaimed non-fiction book Social Capital and has written for major publications such as The Sunday Times, The Irish Times, The Business Post, and The Journal, covering topics from literature and music to the impact of social media on our lives. Beyond writing, Aoife is a seasoned moderator, workshop lead...

Stevie G is a highly regarded DJ and broadcaster with Red FM. Since the early ’90s, he has been a key figure in Cork’s music scene, performing at iconic club nights such as Sweat at Sir Henry’s, Mor Disco, Free La Funk, Yo Latino, and Jam, at venues like the Savoy and the Pavilion. Beyond DJing, he contributes to The Evening Echo and The Irish Examiner and is deeply involved in youth work. Through...

Lucy Kenefick started in investment banking before pivoting in 2012 to open a CrossFit gym in Cork, which later became Obodo, a space focused on fitness and well-being. In 2023, she experienced perimenopausal symptoms and was frustrated by the lack of support. Determined to help others, she founded the NuMe Collective, a space for education, support, and empowerment for women navigating menopause....

Debbie Godsell is an artist who holds an MA in Art from the Crawford College of Art & Design in Cork. Her lens-based work spans two-dimensional pieces, sculpture, and video, exploring themes of identity, belonging, and historical relationships with land. She delves into cultural clashes in history, tradition, and ethnocultural identity. We talk about her formative years, how she began to look at h...

Laura Russell is a physicist, a flying instructor, a commercial pilot, and an aerobatic pilot. She flies air buses for Aer Lingus to Europe and the East Coast of the U.S. She is on a journey to becoming Ireland’s first female Unlimited level aerobatic pilot. In her spare time she used to be an artist working with watercolours and pencils but now focuses that side of her creativity on web design fo...

Lilly Higgins is a content creator, acclaimed food photographer, and award-winning food writer. She grew up in a family of ten, spending her childhood in Cobh with a spell in Zimbabwe. Before embarking on her culinary journey, she studied design and dabbled in street art. Over the years, she carved out a career in the food industry, including teaching at the prestigious Ballymaloe Cookery School,...

Si Edwards, originally from a small seaside town in North Wales, spent a decade in London working as a librarian and web designer before relocating to Cork in 2005. There, he studied Film & TV Production at St. John’s and began collaborating with film festivals across Edinburgh, Dublin, and Cork. Starting as a volunteer for the Cork International Film Festival in 2013, he worked his way up to beco...

Harry Moore is a multimedia artist whose practice covers photography, video, performance, printmaking and soundworks. As a photographer he is best known for his images created with his handmade pinhole cameras and as a sound artist he produces self made instruments and has been seen performing with The Quiet Club, in The Guesthouse, and at Sonic Vigil to name a few. We touch on a lot of topics, I...

Takashi Miyazaki moved to Ireland in 2008. In 2015, he opened Cork’s first Japanese takeaway - Miyazaki, and he followed that up in early 2018 with the first Japanese fine dining restaurant in Cork, Ichigo Ichie. His flagship bricks and mortar restaurant on Evergreen street has remained a constant go-to for people looking for a little bit more from a takeaway and his second restaurant on Sheares S...

Ciara Ruth represents the Cork city branch of the Community Action Tenants Union. C.A.T.U is owned by its members who fight alongside each other to win changes in our everyday lives around tenants' rights. We speak about the work C.A.T.U does, illegal evictions, direct provision evictions, the Council Executive, C.A.T.U's community campaigns and much more. Ciara also plays some really great music...

Mick O'Shea is the director of the Cork Artists Collective and The Guesthouse and he has been instrumental in establishing a vibrant and growing sound art scene in Cork City. He studied instrument physics in C.I.T. and worked as an instrument technician in UCC. All of his works spring from his essential experience in drawing. His medium includes sculpture, drawing, sound and cooking. In 2003 he se...

Conal Creedon grew up on Devonshire Street in Cork city where generations of his family traded for over 100 years and where he himself ran a launderette for 12 years during the dark days of the 80s recession. He still lives on Devonshire street and in the passing 30 years or so he has gone on to be an award winning novelist, playwright and documentary filmmaker. He has written 8 novels including P...

Maureen Mclaughlin Is a Canadian woman who has been residing in Cork for the past 10 years. She is the proprietor of a small neighbourhood pub on the corner of Dominick and John Redmond street at the edge of Shandon. Her pub offers a cosy, welcoming, and safe space for conversation, and it is also an intimate venue for music and spoken word events.

Albert Twomey has done immense work for the independent music scenes in Limerick and in Cork. Cutting his teeth in Limerick as a promoter he started out with the non-profit Aspersion Music Collective and by the mid-2000s, AMC were bringing bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Fugazi to Limerick. In 2003 he co-founded ‘Out On A Limb Records’ which is one of the longest running independent labels in I...

Amanda Feery is a composer working with acoustic, electronic, and improvised music. She has written for chamber and vocal ensembles, film, theatre, installation, and multimedia. She was the Mark Nelson Fellow in Music at Princeton University, completing her PhD in Music Composition in 2019. She has formed multiple collaborative relationships with many ensembles and musicians including Alarm Will S...

Mary McCarthy is originally from Skibbereen. She studied Arts Management in UCD and became interested in the visual arts through working in a large art gallery on a J1 in New York for a summer. She worked at the Irish Museum of Modern Art for four years, she was appointed director of the National Sculpture Factory in Cork in 1996, and after this she went on to work for the Dublin Docklands Develop...

Wille Stewart is from Dublin and now resides in Leitrim with his partner and sound artist Natalia Beylis. He has been involved in the Irish underground for 30 years. Willie was the drummer in the mythical Dalkey punk band, Bambi, he is currently a member of Woven Skull alongside Natalia, and the pair are in the midst of converting their backyard into a multi-function space for creatives. They also...

PART TWO: 2023, What Next? In December 2023, I produced a two‑part radio documentary on Gaza. Episode 1 offers a clear, accessible overview of the conflict’s historical context, addressing the widespread confusion that followed the events of October 7th. Episode 2 focuses on what happened after October 7th while emphasizing that the conflict’s roots long predate that day. These interviews were rec...

PART ONE: Histroy, Occupation, & Conflict In December 2023, I produced a two‑part radio documentary on Gaza. Episode 1 offers a clear, accessible overview of the conflict’s historical context, addressing the widespread confusion that followed the events of October 7th. Episode 2 focuses on what happened after October 7th while emphasizing that the conflict’s roots long predate that day. These inte...

David Murphy is from East Cork and teaches computer science in MTU. He recently set up his own independent record label called Krim Kram, a name he took from two characters in Samuel Beckett's novel ‘How It Is’. Krim Kram launches and distributes some truly niche and experimental noise music with a steady output since the label's inception back in April 2022. Dave Murphy is one of those rare phila...

Caroline Corcoran has been a home birth midwife since March 2017. She is passionate about supporting women to have the birth they want by being well-informed to make the best choices around pregnancy, birth, infant feeding and parenting. Her goal is to see more women joining the home birth scheme, so they can enjoy the gold standard service she and her colleagues provide by looking after mothers a...

John Hegarty is the director of Fourem Architects who specialise in urban design and the conservation of historic structures and spaces. Through his work he has developed a deep love for the historic architecture of Cork city and this drove John to represent a campaign to oppose the council and OPW planned flood walls along the quays in Cork. The campaign argues that these flood walls would drasti...