The Women's Podcast

From Margaret Atwood's adventurous canoe trip in the Canadian Wilderness, to Alison Spittle's irate naked granny, to Lisa Dwan's near-death brush with a barracuda, here are some memorable summer holiday stories from friends of the podcast. Hats off to Joya and Priya Hobson who were put to work by their mother Róisín Ingle at the Borris Festival of Writing and Ideas, to gather these stories. Hosted...

Sexism has been a bigger problem than racism at the World Cup in Russia, according to anti-discrimination experts advising FIFA. There have been reports of fans harassing female broadcasters while they worked and the head of FIFA’s diversity program says they want less focus on attractive women in stadiums in TV broadcasts. Female pundits have been more plentiful for this tournament, but there is...

Gone are the days when online dating was viewed with judgement or derision. Now, it's where hot young things seek out consensual one-night stands, where long term couples meet and where 50-something widows find "the most gorgeous man" they've ever seen, like Irish Times writer Joan Scales did. On today's podcast, she talks to presenter Bernice Harrison and Irish Times agony aunt Roe McDermott abou...

Today's episode was recorded in front an audience on the Woodlands Stage at the Body & Soul festival last weekend. The topic was Ireland after the #8thRef and how we got here. The guests: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Ailbhe Smyth, co-director of the Together for Yes campaign, founder of the Repeal Project, Anna Cosgrave and Claudia Horeau from Migrants and Ethnicities for Reproductive Justice. Up and c...

Recently, Irish Times Social Affairs Correspondent Kitty Holland wrote about the increase in the number of young women taking their own lives in some of the poorest parts of Dublin. On today's podcast, she speaks to Kathy Sheridan about this story. Also on the show, Professor Veronica O'Keane, consultant psychiatrist at Tallaght Hospital, speaks about her initial shock at the figures and the facto...

Joe Mulholland, director of the MacGill Summer School, has apologised for the lack of gender balance on its 2018 and promised there will now be panels on the #8thRef and gender balance. A draft programme of the event shows there are 45 male speakers and moderators compared to 15 female speakers and moderators. Women's Podcast co-producer Róisín Ingle and Irish Times feature writer Deirdre Falvey j...

A two part documentary charting the lives of Irish women over the last century begins on RTÉ One on Tuesday (19 June) at 9.35pm. 'No Country For Women' travels through time, seeking historical answers in the journeys of a number of Irish women today, women whose lives and those of their mothers and grandmothers collided with discriminatory legislation. With contributions from the likes of former p...

Imogen Heap is an Grammy-winning songwriter and performer, who has worked with everyone from Taylor Swift to Jeff Beck. An early adopter of technology in her art, Heap has been involved in designing and producing musical gloves called MiMu. This week she was in Dublin to talk about her latest venture, the Creative Passport, at a spin-off of the Web Summit, MoneyConf. Heap came into studio while sh...

Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times–bestselling author of several acclaimed novels, including The Interestings, The Uncoupling and The Wife. One of her first books, This Is Your Life, was made into a film and became the directorial debut of the late great Nora Ephron. On today's episode, Wolitzer speaks to Jennifer Ryan about her 12th novel, The Female Persuasion, which explores inter-generational...

Waking the Feminists shone a light on the representation of women in Irish theatre. Now, women in Irish traditional and folk music are trying to address the gender imbalance across their sector through the Fair Plé initiative. It began with a meeting at the Cobblestone pub in Dublin and two of the women who were there that night – harpist Una Monaghan and singer Pauline Scanlon –speak to Róisín In...

The book being reviewed today, a tense, deftly written novel about an apparently perfect nanny’s transition into a monster, will take your breath away. It's called Lullaby and it's an English translation of a book by the French writer Leila Slimani. Our book clubbers Roisin Ingle, Bernice Harrison and Niamh Towey were totally freaked out by Lullaby and might not recommend it to parents of young ch...

Kurdish journalist Nurcan Baysal has been called a terrorist by the Turkish state. Her house, with her two young children inside, has been stormed by Turkish police armed with Kalashnikovs seeking to jail for her Tweets and she faces up to three years in prison for the crime of humiliating Turkey's security forces, by reporting on human rights abuses against the Kurdish people. Recently Baysal vis...

Minister for Health Simon Harris speaks to Kathy Sheridan in this episode, telling her that legislating for abortion is his “number one priority” and he will “get it done this year”. Following a landslide win for the Yes side in Friday's referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment, Minister Harris is joined by Together for Yes campaigner Ailbhe Smyth and Róisín Ingle, who told her abortion story thr...

On #8thRef Eve, we invited three women into studio to reflect on the campaign with Kathy Sheridan. Straight from doing her rounds at the National Maternity Hospital on Holles Street in Dublin, Master of that hospital, Rhona Mahony, joined Professor Fiona de Londras, an Irish academic and the Professor of Global Legal Studies at the University of Birmingham, to look back on what has felt like a ver...

As Ireland prepares to go to the polls in a once in a generation referendum on the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution this Friday, Irish Times political reporter Sarah Bardon talks to Kathy Sheridan about what exactly we'll be voting on, what happens if the Eighth is repealed and she also debunks some of the campaign myths that have been circulating for the past few weeks. Hosted on Acast. See a...

For the past couple of weeks, and even months in some cases, canvassers have been working hard on either side of next week's referendum on the Eighth Amendment, going door to door in a bid to persuade the electorate of their side of the argument. We sent our co-producer Jennifer Ryan out with groups on either side to meet some of those people who have been giving up their evenings and weekends to...

As a crisis pregnancy counsellor with One Family, Marguerite McCarthy has seen and heard it all when it comes to women and pregnancy. She speaks to Kathy Sheridan about her concerns that the debate around the referendum on the Eighth Amendment is focusing too much on what we call the 'hard cases' and the voices of those 'ordinary women' who make the decision to end their pregnancies are not being...

“He needed to be heard, after 34 years of silence,” says Irish Times journalist Rosita Boland, of her interview in last Saturday’s paper with Richard McDonnell, the former boyfriend of Ann Lovett. On today’s episode of the Women’s Podcast, Boland talks to Kathy Sheridan about the latest chapter in the story of the young woman who died in 1984 after giving birth at a grotto in Granard, Co Longford....

79-year-old friends, Ann Ingle and Mary Fleming, are on opposite sides when it comes to the referendum on the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which recognises the equal right to life of the mother and the unborn. Mary tells Kathy Sheridan she will be voting no on May 25th because she feels abortion is killing a baby. Ann, meanwhile, will be voting yes. In a robust conversation, the women, wh...

Earlier this year, Ciairín de Bush was appointed CEO of Women for Election, the not-for-profit, non-partisan organisation helping to get more women into politics. The Kerry woman was previously the director of Start Strong, an advocacy organisation campaigning to improve early childhood care and education policies in Ireland. In this episode, she talks to Kathy Sheridan about her new role, the kin...

Irish actor Amy de Bhrún has been in Vikings, Coronation Street and the most recent Jason Bourne film. Next week she returns to the theatre with a female-led production that she has written herself. ‘I See You’ runs from May 11-26th at Theatre Upstairs in Dublin and it tells the tale of Limerick-born Lady Mary Heath, the first female commercial pilot and all-around trailblazer. Fellow Irish actor...

Well over a year since we were shocked to our cores by Hillary Clinton's defeat in the 2016 US Election, we still can't quite stop talking about it or trying to make sense of it. It may be even harder when you're Jennifer Palmieri, former communications director for Clinton's presidential campaign. Before stepping into that role, Palmieri served as White House Communications Director for U.S. Pres...

Later in this episode, co-producer Jennifer Ryan talks to lifestyle blogger Lily Pebbles about her book about female friendships, The F Word. But first, Women’s Aid warned last week that Ireland’s overstretched legal system and insufficient resources for survivors of domestic abuse, are leaving women at risk of further harm even after they leave an abusive partner. Director of the charity Margaret...

Irish Times journalist Sorcha Pollak is the writer of the weekly New to the Parish series, which focuses on migration and immigrant communities in Ireland. Sorcha’s book based on the series has just been published and to celebrate its release we hosted a special live episode of the podcast at The Dean Hotel in Dublin. Our guests on the night were Sorcha and three women she has interviewed for the...

In today's episode, we go time travelling back to the Ireland of 1983, to the unusually hot summer and autumn of that year, in the run up to the contentious abortion referendum. You will hear letters to the editor of the Irish Times during the campaign, and in its aftermath, from the referendum that resulted in the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for mo...