The Women's Podcast

Last Thursday, the Irish Times Women’s Podcast hosted an evening of storytelling to mark International Women’s Day. Guests on the night were invited to share their stories of overcoming a challenge, in front of our virtual audience on Zoom and Facebook. In today’s episode, you’ll hear a selection of highlights from the event, including a brilliant story of using creativity to work around academic...

China is facing mounting global criticism over its treatment of the mostly Muslim Uighur population in the north-western region of Xinjiang. Rights groups say China has detained more than a million Uighurs over the past few years in what the state says are "re-education camps". However there is evidence that Uighurs in these camps are being used as forced labour, that families are being separated...

Trish Kearney was one of the six Irish swimmers who charged former swim coach George Gibney with sexual abuse offences in 1992. Known in her younger days as Patricia McCahill, the Olympic hopeful was abused by Gibney from the age of thirteen. The abuse lasted over seven years. The case against Gibney was subsequently dropped following an appeal, but his crimes were later outed by journalist Johnny...

Luvvie Ajayi Jones wants you to be a fear-fighting troublemaker. We're all afraid of something: of hearing the word 'no', of being different, of being 'too much', or not enough. In her new book, The Fear-Fighter Manual, the award-winning author, podcaster and TED talker, shows us how to embrace fear and get past it to live our best lives. In today's podcast Luvvie talks to Róisín about why we shou...

Have you ever wondered why you remember some things and not others? Or why, even though you might share an experience with someone, their memory of it differs to yours? Psychiatrist Veronica O'Keane has spent 38 years working in neuroscience and psychiatry with patients whose ability to make sense of the world is impaired. In her book, The Rag and Bone Shop: How We Make Memories and Memories Make...

In the last twelve months, almost half of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 have witnessed or experienced racism. This shocking statistic is part of new research by The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, who have recently launched their All Against Racism campaign. Featuring interviews with eleven people from different ethnic backgrounds, the campaign aims to explore racism in Ir...

In Ireland 40% of people don’t live in a couple. When you look at those in the 16-29 age bracket, that skyrockets to 71%. After almost a year of lockdowns, give or take the odd month when restrictions were relaxed, the rules introduced to fight the spread of coronavirus have meant that sex between single people, or established couples who don’t cohabit, has in effect been illegal, against regulati...

Nature writer and essayist Kerri ní Dochartaigh was born in Derry, Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles. The daughter of a Catholic mother and Protestant father, her childhood was one of trauma and violence. Struggling to identify with either side, her family were forced out of two homes and were also victim to a frightening petrol bomb attack. In her first book, Thin Places, ní Docharta...

Thousands of Poles have taken to the streets again in recent weeks, in protest against the introduction of new legislation effectively banning abortion. It follows last October’s constitutional court ruling that outlawed abortions in the case of foetal abnormalities. According to the ruling, which cannot be appealed, the only remaining circumstances for a Polish woman to end a pregnancy legally in...

Dr Jessica Taylor is a UK-based psychologist, sexual violence survivor and author of the best-selling book Why Women Are Blamed For Everything. She is also a senior lecturer in forensic and criminal psychology and the Director of Victim Focus - an organisation that addresses victim blaming practices in social care, policing, mental health and support services. On today’s podcast she talks to Róisí...

Bad Bridget is a five-part podcast series which tells the unheard stories of Irish girls and women who emigrated to North America in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The series is a culmination of over five years worth of research by historians Elaine Farrell of Queen’s University Belfast and Leanne McCormick of Ulster University. Each episode delves into the lives of these women who travelled a...

What’s your lockdown style? Are you still getting fully dressed, washing your hair and putting makeup on? After 12 months at home, for many of us, leggings have become part of our daily uniform while our jeans are gathering dust. A year into this new comfy way of life, we ask the question, what have we become? To discuss this, Roisin is joined on today’s show by beauty columnist Laura Kennedy, com...

In our latest podcast we hear about the Gender Disparity Report on Irish radio, compiled by the Why Not Her? collective. It outlines a continuing gender disparity among the 20 most-played songs by Irish artists on Irish stations between June 24th and December 24th, 2020. On today’s podcast, Roisin Ingle speaks to activist and Why Not Her? founder Linda Coogan-Byrne about the report’s findings, whe...

Five Minute Therapy is the first book by Dublin-based psychotherapist Sarah Crosby. Packed full of practical exercises and powerful insights, it provides readers with the tools to reflect on their life experiences and explore who they are and who they might like to be. Think of it as your own pocket therapist. In today’s episode, Crosby speaks to Róisín Ingle about her journey from archaeology to...

This Friday, Trinity College Dublin professor Jane Ohlmeyer will deliver the Ford Lectures at the University of Oxford in England. Just ten women have delivered the prestigious lectures since they were founded in 1896 and prof Ohlmeyer will be the first woman from a university in Ireland to be invited to do so. Born in what was then Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) to a Northern Irish mother and a S...

Raw, tired, angry and emotional. That’s how our guests on today’s podcast feel. It’s as they attempt to digest the government-commissioned report from the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes released this week. It found a shocking number of deaths and widespread abuses at religious institutions for unmarried mothers and their children in this country. Set up in 2015 following re...

Author and podcaster Caroline Foran took the world by storm in 2016 with the release of her best selling self-help book, Owning It: Your Bullsh*t-Free Guide to Living with Anxiety. Now, she’s back with her third book Naked: Ten Truths to Change Your Life, which challenges readers to explore, embrace and expose their vulnerability. From realising that you’ll never really have it all figured out to...

In our first book club of 2021, Róisín, Ann Ingle, Bernice Harrison and Niamh Towey discuss Untamed, a memoir by American author Glennon Doyle. This is Doyle’s third memoir, which follows on from her two previous best sellers, Love Warrior and Carry On, Warrior. Untamed is the story of how Doyle left her troublesome marriage, fell head over heels in love with soccer star Abby Wambach, found her in...

If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that the future is never certain. But with a number of vaccines against Covid-19 on the way, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Last year we learned how to live in a pandemic, somehow managing to keep the show on the road in ways we never thought were possible before. We learned that, for many of us, working from home is possible. We found ways to ke...

At the start of 2020, as we began a new decade, we were caught up with news stories about the Australian bushfires, the seemingly never-ending Brexit talks, a then-looming Irish general election, and students from 72 schools around the country began opening time capsules sealed in 1996 containing their hopes and dreams for 2020. How many of them could have guessed what lay ahead? Bubbling away in...

The time has finally come to say goodbye to 2020. But before we bid adieu to the longest year on record, we want to take you on a journey back through the last twelve months of The Women’s Podcast. The year 2020 will not just be remembered for the pandemic, it will also be remembered for the global Black Lives Matter movement, the historic US election result and the scandal around the sealing of t...

In this special festive episode, we’re bringing you a story written by Maeve Binchy, first published in The Irish Times on Saturday, December 29th, 1984. Read by Róisín Ingle, the story captures the beautiful ordinariness of everyday life, the fuss and excitement of the holidays and the place of a woman at the head of her family. With true emotional tugs and important lessons to be learned, we hop...

Emma Gannon is a writer, broadcaster and podcaster who is best known for her podcast Ctrl Alt Delete and Sunday Times Bestselling business book The Multi-Hyphen Method. In 2020 she published her debut novel, Olive, in which she explores the lives of four female friends whose paths diverge after a close-knit college experience. The book’s protagonist is the titular Olive, whose first-person narrati...

Over the past year, the sale of puppies in Ireland has increased by over 200%. It’s no surprise that during these difficult times with lockdown restrictions still in place, people have opened their hearts and homes to new four-legged friends. However, many do not realise that by buying dogs online, they could be unknowingly contributing to Ireland’s illegal puppy trade. In today’s episode, Róisín...

We’ve reassembled our book club one last time before we bid adieu to 2020, to have a chat about the books they got lost in this year. Ann Ingle, Niamh Towey and Bernice Harrison join Róisín to recommend some great reads that you might consider gifting to your nearest and dearest this Christmas and to drop a few not-so-subtle hints about the books they hope to find under the tree for themselves on...