Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning

When Donald Trump gave the order to bomb Iran, the language of war was mobilised. It is a language where death and misery means peace and love. On Free State , Joe and Dion look at how war is sold and why the language of war is hard to distinguish from erotica.  The Old Testament was cited by many in America as why they stood with Israel. But did the contributions of AIPAC have more to do wit...

Fintan Drury trained as a journalist before becoming a hugely significant figure in Irish corporate life, something he has talked about previously with honesty and some regret. He returned to his journalistic roots and the tragedy in Gaza compelled him to speak out. His new book Catastrophe is the story of Nakba II.  On Free State today, he explains why he had to go to the West Bank to find o...

When Kneecap arrived at Westminster Magistrates Court, the scene was like Beatlemania if the Beatles’ fans were supporting a Free Palestine. Kneecap were in court for the first hearing in the case against Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, whose stage name is Mo Chara. On Free State today Joe explains why he isn’t part of the legal team and what will happen next. They look at the politically motivated charges an...

The world is moving closer to annihilation and still people beat the drumbeats for war. On Free State today, Joe and Dion look at how Israel’s attack on Iran is a case of history repeating itself.  Iran is the bogey man that allows warmongering to prosper and no matter how many times this has happened before, the noises are still the same and as bloodthirsty. Joe also explains why Mayo footba...

“Political history, not natural history, turned a potato failure into a famine.” Between 1845 and 1851, one million people on the island of Ireland died of famine-related causes. Another 1.5 million people emigrated.  On Free State today, historian Padraic X Scanlan, author of the outstanding history of the Famine, Rot, joins us to discuss what caused Ireland to suffer as it did. He considers...

In Ballymena this week, those who have come from abroad to make their lives in the town were putting union jacks in the window in the hope it would prevent them being attacked. In the random and brutal rioting that saw the homes and businesses of foreigners attacked and terrorised this was they did to protect themselves and their families.  On Free State today, Joe and Dion ask what is the ro...

“The kids were coming down for breakfast when these five men wearing cargo pants, big jackets arrived. They came into the third floor, stood in front of the bedroom door, took the three kids back in and told them to pack up. We heard them say: ‘You are going to be deported.’ As soon as the other children heard then they were all crying. It was such a horrific scene.” This was how a resident in an...

TP O’Connor was elected as MP for the Liverpool constituency of Liverpool Scotland in 1885. He represented that constituency from then until his death in 1929. TP O’Connor was an Irish Nationalist MP and he is the only Irish Nationalist ever elected to a constituency outside the island of Ireland. On Free State today, we look at the story of Liverpool and Ireland and the tensions that travelled fr...

When a jury found in Gerry Adams’s favour in his case against the BBC, executives from the British Broadcasting Corporation sounded like they had won. On Free State today, Joe and Dion disagree about the importance of the verdict in the libel trial. Joe explains why the jury reached that verdict and why the BBC’s evidence was flawed. They look at how the BBC was a propaganda tool in the north for...

“Our revenge will be the laughter of our children,” Bobby Sands famously said. But what happens in a land where children are being killed in their thousands? On Free State today, trauma surgeon Morgan McMonagle provides a harrowing insight into his time working in the Nasser Hospital in Gaza. Morgan went to Gaza for the first time in 2024 and returned in 2025. He talks about how Israel’s onslaught...

How do we make sense of a world when it no longer contains the people we love? How do we make peace with the past when it’s still a mystery? On Free State today, writer Oona Frawley talked about her new memoir This Interim Time. A book about the loss of her parents and the gratitude that comes from her children. She talks about her own father’s struggle with alcoholism and Dion reflects on how dri...

In a recent survey, supporters of Nigel Farage ranked ‘being English’ ahead of ‘being a parent’ as a signifier of who they are. How has it come to this? Even as the dissatisfaction with Brexit grows, Farage who drove so much of the vote by playing on the most irrational fears, is England's most popular politician.  On Free State today, Joe and Dion look at the rise of English nationalism and...

When Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh was charged with terror offences, it made global headlines. The world reported the charge that the man had allegedly displaying a flag in support of proscribed organisation Hezbollah in November 2024. Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh is better known as Mo Chara of Kneecap and he is alleged to have committed the act at a gig in Kentish Town in London 18 months ago. He denies the charge. O...

On the 20th December, 2004, £26.5 million was stolen in plain sight from the Northern Bank in Belfast. This wasn't a victimless crime, but some saw it as a caper. Most believed only one organisation was capable of pulling off an operation of this scale. On Free State today, the great writer Glenn Patterson joins us to discuss his new book on the Northern Bank robbery and what it tells us about Ire...

Gary Lineker will leave the BBC this weekend but why has it come to this? On Free State , Joe and Dion look at how Lineker had a target on his back for years but when he spoke out about Gaza, the clock was ticking.  As Israel’s actions in Gaza become more atrocious and babies starve, more and more people are becoming tarred.  How has the western world allowed this to happen? How have so...

When Keir Starmer said Britain risked becoming an ‘island of strangers’, in whose interests was he speaking? When Gary Lineker left the BBC, was it because he unwittingly shared an antisemitic post - which he subsequently apologised for - or because he had been outspoken on the genocide in Gaza? On Free State today Dion and Joe look at how the world is ordered and what needs to change.  They...

When Jon Trigg was sent to Northern Ireland as a young officer, he was going to war. It wasn’t the Troubles or a conflict but a war. Trigg served his tour of duty in 1993 and moved on, but, unusually he returned, not as a soldier but as a writer. In an extraordinary conversation today, Jon Trigg talks to Joe and Dion about his new book on the IRA in Derry. Joe and Jon speak frankly, and sometimes...

When is a cocaine spoon not a cocaine spoon? When is a tissue a wrap of an illegal substance? On Free State today look at how a story spreads online as it did over the weekend when Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer and Friedrich Merz were filmed on a train going to Kyiv. Soon the idea that drug paraphernalia was in the carriage took hold online.   The story was dismissed as fantasy and Russi...

Lisa Harding’s stunning new book The Wildelings is set in a fictional university in Dublin.  On Free State today, Lisa talks to us about her own time at Trinity in the 90s, when students would be rated on their looks. She talks to Dion about the male gaze and their shared experiences of drink and how when she became an actress she turned to tequila to take the edge off her anxiety. Hosted on...

Since we launched the podcast, we have never been afraid to ask the big questions. This has sometimes come at a cost but that is the way it has to be. Today we ask one of the questions that will define this generation: what is a skort? On Free State, Joe and Dion wonder why this issue which should be so simply resolved in favour of women in sport became so complicated and laced with bullshit. Ther...

"One day, when it's safe, when there's no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it's too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this." On October 25 2023, novelist Omar El Akkad posted this message on X. On Free State today Omar El Akkad joins Joe and Dionto talk about how the world looked away. His magisterial new book One Day Everyone Will Have Al...

Rosita Sweetman wanted to change the world. Like many of her generation, she was inspired by the civil rights movement in the US. She became a founder of the women’s liberation movement in Ireland. She was fearless and it was fun. But her life wasn’t. On Free State today Rosita Sweetman talks about her new memoir Girl With A Fork In A World of Soup. She tells us about having to divorce her family...

"We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality,” a man once said,  When it has come to the pursuit of Kneecap, the ridiculousness has extended far beyond the British public to its media and politicians too. It has reached the Irish political class and media as well. Kneecap have apologised to the families of murdered MPs but still they are...

Micheál Martin has called on Kneecap ‘to urgently clarify’ their views on Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as killing Tory MPs. Why? How is society served by the Taoiseach involving himself in this confected outrage? On Free State today Joe and Dion look at the hysteria surrounding Kneecap since their Coachella appearance and their statements in support of Palestine. While some might believe they are...

"Each of the entries included in the book has the same ending.” Peadar Thompson wrote those haunting words in his introduction to Lost Gaels, the story of GAA members killed in Ireland during the Troubles.  On Free State today Peadar Thompson is the guest and talks about his extraordinary book. It details, not just the horrific nature of how these GAA people lost their lives, but also their l...