The ClearOut

In this episode, Dara examines the centrality of heart to his own personal philosophy. He recognises that his concept of the metaphorical heart is suffused with his natural idealism, and how that can lead him into situations where he can be easily wounded. He argues against the interpretation of open-heartedness being equal to naivete. He talks about a recent incident that he believes was the cata...

This episode looks at the problem of having access to too much information, material and opinion in the online space. So much content, and so much for free, and such ease of access, creates an imbalanced relationship that offers dubious benefits. Dara looks at his own internet consumption habits and questions the merits of unearned offerings. Connected to that theme is Dara's experience of movies...

In this episode Dara shares his thoughts and responses after a movie mini-binge. He is struck by the hackneyed plotline of CODA (2021) but thinks the film is saved by the acting and warmth of the main cast. He compares it to a couple of other movies that didn't take flight, including the risible Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), and the glorified Apple commercial that was Ben Stiller's The Secret Life of...

In this episode, Dara is brushing up against his past and walking the fine line between nostalgia and sentimentality. Spending a lot of time in Dublin recently has provoked a host of memories from over 20 years ago and Dara feels like he keeps bumping into his younger self around every street corner. He talks about being able to really appreciate Dublin's architecture for the first time and how he...

Inspired by a podcast about Julius Caesar, Dara realises he has long had a fascination with assassinations, particularly those that have played out in movies. In this episode he looks closely at the celluloid executions that most impacted him, paying close attention to Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde and Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, amongst others. Warming to the theme, he considers Mark D...

In this episode, Dara finally achieves a long-term goal of the podcast - he gets his wife to sit down for an interview at Hashtag Blessed! Chiara Clear (nee Browne) is an Australian who fell in love with music almost as soon as she first heard it. She didn't know then that it would become and remain a defining force in her life. From school through university to being an in-demand session singer i...

Dara is not in the mood for this week's episode. He simply doesn't have the headspace. But he talks himself into it and soon warms up as he mentions how a recent football podcast planted the seed for what he wants to talk about - touchstones. What are the reference points that help us negotiate the world in which we find ourselves? Who are the pillar-like figures that we feel we can lean on? Who r...

In this episode, Dara is all stirred up as a result of the theatre production he is currently working on. The subject of the work is masculinity and the nurturing and shaping of boys into men. Dara admits that the process of examining this subject closely is leaving him exhausted but also inspired and full of almost uncontrollable thought processes and emotional impulses around what masculinity me...

In this episode, Dara looks at a couple of recent news stories in Ireland that have raised some confronting questions about where we're at as a society. The first was an ill-conceived joke at one of his gigs by the stand-up comedian Tommy Tiernan that left Emer O'Neill, a woman of colour, feeling intensely uncomfortable. When she went public with her experience, the racist backlash she received wa...

After hearing his wife listening to a selection of different piano pieces in preparation for a class, Dara realised he wanted to talk about motifs. He discusses motifs in the work of film score composers before warming to the idea of motifs in one's life - what themes and fascinations have recurred over a lifetime? What has been circled back to? What has been underscored and reiterated? A friend p...

In this episode Dara shares his experience of a recent family funeral that seemed to succeed in channelling a profound communal expression of love and grief. Because of his role in the service, he had to wait to express his own feelings. He reflects on the idea from Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful LIfe that one person can have an impact on many different lives and the hole that might be left had th...

If last week was the wrap-up of the year, this week is assessing the landscape of the year to come. Dara acknowledges the generic themes he has embraced for the moment that's in it and tries to contextualise his own attitude to the beginning of another year. Part of that attitude is informed by his birthday falling in January, something that has helped him cultivate a lifelong affinity for the mon...

An attempt to wrap up the year that was becomes a review of stand out movies and TV taken in over the last twelve months. Somewhat symmetrically, Dara realises he began and ended the year watching the work of Peter Jackson - he took in Jackson's Beatles documentary in January and is finishing the year by revisiting The Lord of the Rings trilogy. There have been plenty of other memorable production...

Dara ain't gonna lie - this was a monster effort to produce! A little recital with his wife, an unexpected but most welcome interview with his daughter, and a new story for the season that's in it, all pulled together on the day of the episode. And done while sick. So it's a bit rough in patches, but the sincerity of effort comes through. If you're looking for polish, go to the household aisle! Da...

In this Christmas shopping list of an episode, Dara has a look at the festive season through the lens of Christmases past. He also considers the pressure people are put under to partake of all things yule. He reads two seasonal poems, one from Robert Louis Stevenson and one from Robert Frost, both of which evoke something bucolic and poignant. He also includes a Christmas story he wrote last year...

In this episode Dara has a flea in his ear about what he sees as the shortage of social and political ideas to cater for a world that is outrunning itself. Before getting into that he takes a moment to breathe with you, the listener. He follows that with an apology of sorts for last week's half-baked episode. He also shares the reaction of his wife and daughter to meeting the new addition to Hasht...

In this pinball machine of an episode, Dara bounces all over the place and is none the wiser at the end of it whether things held together. He starts with strange bodies in 1983's Terms of Endearment before sharing some information about positive brain chemicals that he gleaned from social media. From there he reveals a surprise he has planned for his wife and daughter, who are returning home afte...

In this episode Dara discusses the importance of tone. Considering tone as the ultimate mood setter, he looks at it in the context of movies, public ceremonies and vocations. He also considers tone in the auditory sense, recognising it as a vibration, and recalls how thrilled he was as a child to hear and feel the rumble of the engine of the car ferry that he travelled on several times on journeys...

In this episode Dara finds himself concerned about the upcoming FIFA world cup in Qatar. What blind eyes were turned and what palms greased to award the tournament to such an unlikely host nation? Footballers heading to the competition want to express their reservations about human rights abuses and the exploitation of workers, but FIFA wants them to 'stick to football'. In explaining why that inf...

A mental health-focused episode partly inspired by Blindboy Boatclub's ongoing commitment to sharing his own mental health and wellness journey. A free rolling, some might say freefalling, edition of the tell has Dara reflecting on his university days and the persona he leaned into then. The context is identity and authenticity and what face we show the world. Dara discusses his recent tendency to...

In this free-roaming episode, Dara attempts to thread the needle from poor mental health to perceived male incompetence and on to a celebration of non-toxic men. The launch pad is an account of some very recent mental health challenges that Dara had to face. As part of his recovery he listened to some psychology and counselling podcasts which, though very helpful and informative, perpetuated a cer...

After semi-bingeing on Netflix documentaries set in the USA, Dara has some chewy meat to digest in the areas of race, beauty, identity, representation, status and opportunity. The retail clothing companies Abercrombie & Fitch and And1 promoted expressions of whiteness and blackness respectively in their bids to dominate their chosen markets. They each enjoyed enormous success before pushback,...

In this episode, Dara wades into the murky waters of the discourse around transgender identity and language, and who is or isn't a woman. The focal point for the discussion is the recent Twitter row that erupted in the wake of Graham Norton's framing of cancel culture, the support he got from Billy Bragg, and the anger it inspired in JK Rowling. Looking at the history of the apparent controversy,...

In this episode Dara assesses the recently-released Marilyn Monroe biopic, 'Blonde'. Written and directed by Andew Dominik, and based on the 2000 Joyce Carol Oates book of the same name, the film has been widely panned by critics and Marilyn fans, but Dara found a lot to recommend in the performance as Marilyn of Ana de Armas. He argues that de Armas imbues her characterisation with such sympathy...

In this tonally-light episode, Dara weaves a thread through 4 apparently unconnected words to create (what he hopes is) meaningful content. As they like to say on Sesame Street, "today's letter is 'H'. What begins with 'H'?" Well, 'hipster' begins with 'H' and Dara has a look at why hipsters bug him so much, a feeling he has had since he was very young. He reckons the answer has something to do wi...