Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning

Who will Mickey Harte blame next? Was it inevitable that it would fall apart at Derry? On Free State today, Joe and Dion talk about the fall and fall of Mickey Harte. Joe explains why Harte is an intruder in the county and how it went to pieces. They look at why the Derry County Board have betrayed the values of the GAA by bringing Harte in. But a county like Offaly with their rock ‘n’ roll U-20 h...

Gideon Levy says he is an Israeli patriot. But he is a patriot in a land where truth is seen as treason. In Part 2 of his Free State interview, Gideon Levy provides a frightening insight into Israel today. As Israeli government censorship looks to silence the truth about Gaza, he tells Joe and Dion what happens to those who write honestly about the plight of the Palestinians.  He talks a...

When Gideon Levy was a teenager growing up in Israel he was devoted to the ‘nationalistic religious orgy’ in the country. Today, as a journalist working for Haaretz, he has been described as the ‘most hated man in Israel’. His fearless determination to record the suffering of the Palestinians has seen him banned from reporting in Gaza by the Israeli government since 2006. On a two part special, Gi...

As a young man, he fled the racism of Louisiana. His father could take no more: violence or exile was the next step. He began what at first was an unpromising basketball career before becoming the most inspirational leader in the history of the NBA. On the final part of The Captain Class, Joe and Dion look at the extraordinary life of Bill Russell. Russell was the man who shaped the Boston Celtics...

When Leinster missed a drop goal in the final seconds of the European final were they just unlucky? Or were they, like Mayo, missing chances or losing three finals in a row because something fundamental was missing? On Free State today, Joe and Dion continue their exploration of the great teams and captains in sport. Is team spirit just an illusion glimpsed in victory or is there another reas...

Roy Keane drove Manchester United and Ireland on through the force of his personality. He was the most important player in Alex Ferguson’s side but was he a man apart or the invisible essence of the team? On Free State today, Joe and Dion debate Roy Keane and where he belongs in the captain class. They look at those who led a different way, who didn’t let heart attacks or jibes about being a water...

What is it that unites the greatest teams in sport? What is the factor that ensures a team remains successful over a prolonged period? When the American journalist Sam Walker began to study the greatest teams in sport, he found a common denominator that shocked him. On Free State today, Joe and Dion discuss Walker’s book The Captain Class and the individuals who drove the greatest teams, even if,...

The Ulster final was a study in winning and losing. A perfect example of the question everyone in sport has wrestled with for generations: what makes one team win and another team lose? What makes one team confident as they reach the dying moments of a game while another becomes tense, tight and anxious? What separates Dublin from Mayo or Donegal from Armagh? What distinguishes Alex Ferguson from...

Joe Klecko always had mayhem on his mind. Klecko, the legendary defensive linemen for the New York Jets, is regarded as the strongest man in the history of American Football. When Joe Klecko was inducted into the Hall of Fame, he invited Joe Brolly to Cleveland to be part of the event. On Free State today, Joe Klecko talks to Joe about his life on the front line of the most demanding sport of all....

Roger Casement’s executioner described him as ‘the bravest man it fell to my unhappy lot to execute’. In part 2 of a special Free State on Casement, his biographer Roland Philipps explains the doomed and heroic final act of Casement’s life when he was driven by an obsessive desire for Irish freedom. He talks to Dion and Joe about the love affair which helped to condemn an impractical romantic...

When Roger Casement was hanged in Pentonville Prison in 1916, he died an Irish hero and a traitor to the British Empire. On Banna Strand in 2016, President Higgins described Casement as “not just a great Irish patriot, he was also one of the great humanitarians of the early 20th century”. On Free State today, Joe and Dion look at the many lives of a man who so impressed a tribe of cannibals with h...

What drives Jim McGuinness? Why does he inspire such devotion and how does he command such loyalty? On Free State, Joe explains his own complicated relationship with Jim McGuinness. In a world where GAA managers are conformist and conservative, McGuinness is a man apart. Is this why he was able to dismantle Derry? And Joe reveals what he was shouting at Mickey Harte from the stand. Free State with...

Christy Moore has been a giant in Irish life. In the final part of the Free State special he talks to Joe and Dion about the songs and the people who have guided him along the way. He plays the songs whose success surprised him and he talks about the ones that were censored. What word led the BBC to ban ‘St Brendan’s Voyage’? How did a review of ‘The Time Has Come’ lead to it being taken off the a...

When the Stardust Families were on their own, Christy Moore stood with them.  On Part 2 of the Free State Special, Christy Moore remembers the dark days of the tragedy in 1981. When Christy found himself in court in 1985 charged with contempt because of one line in his song about the fire ‘They Never Came Home’, the Stardust Families stood with him. Christy also talks about the impact his fat...

Christy Moore has been the voice of the nation for more than fifty years. Christy has been on the side of the underdog, called out the establishment and has never taken a backward step. In the first part of a Free State special, Christy Moore joins Dion and Joe to reflect on his extraordinary life. Christy recalls his own parents’ time in politics, his involvement with the hunger strikers and why...

When it comes to a united Ireland, economists might know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Except they’re not even sure of the price. On Free State, Dion and Joe consider the report which said a united Ireland could cost €20 million a year for 20 years and look at all it didn’t say. Are these numbers being used to scare voters in the south by an establishment which fears becoming i...

Ireland’s new Taoiseach Simon Harris says he belongs to a generation more familiar with Berlin and Paris than Belfast or Derry. To the Irish citizens of Belfast and Derry, it may have been a surprise but not a shock to hear the Taoiseach speak of them as if they were a strange and distant people. Or maybe they’ll be relieved he didn’t say Londonderry. On Free State today, Joe and Dion talk about a...

The power of the GAA is best seen when the people who are its lifeblood support a cause. The sense of a community united for the greater good is what makes the GAA different and special. On Free State, Joe and Dion talk about how the GAA makes a difference and why it contrasts with the one-way street of fandom in the Premier League. Joe explains the importance of the 65 Roses Day, the Fundraising...

The Late Late Show special on the GAA demonstrated what makes the association special. The people and the communities are where the real glory is found in the GAA, not in the fleeting fame of All-Irelands A UK academic currently studying the GAA spoke of how the association ‘blew his mind’. On Free State today, Joe talks to Dion about how it felt to be back in RTÉ for the Late Late, his Eoin...

They were “young, dumb and full of c**”. The ambitious young men who became traders in the city of London would have been drug dealers if they grew up where Gary Stevenson grew up. And the drug dealers would have been traders if they’d gone to the same public schools as the people he worked with in Canary Wharf. On Free State today Gary Stevenson tells the story of how these insanely ambitious you...

Gary Stevenson was once the most profitable trader in the world for one of the planet’s biggest banks. He was a working class boy from east London who grew up in the shadow of Canary Wharf. He then went to work in the skyscrapers that had loomed over him and promised him escape. Gary made a fortune. But as he made that fortune, he realised that the game was rigged. On Free State today, Gary Steven...

Simon Harris has risen without trace. Who is he and what he stands for are questions that have rarely been asked. Harris has been described as ‘the white Obama’. He was called the TikTok Taoiseach and hailed as a great communicator. But behind the empty phrases, something is happening in Ireland which needs real leadership.  On Free State, Joe and Dion explain why it requires more than tub th...

Leo Varadkar’s resignation was described as a ‘political earthquake’. Some said the political world had been turned upside down. But beyond the parlour games of the political class, does it matter at all?  On Free State, Joe and Dion ask what has Varadkar achieved? Did he lead a government or a pr agency. What does the giddiness surrounding his departure tell us about the problems in Ireland...

Davy Tweed knew exactly how to control those he abused. He did it in a million different ways, big and small. In Part 2 of her interview on Free State, Amanda Brown recalls how Tweed would dehumanise and humiliate her along with the rest of her family. She tells Dion and Joe how she was isolated and how every one of his victims believed they were utterly alone. She talks about how that changed. Ho...

Davy Tweed was an Irish international rugby player. He was a unionist politician. He was a monster. On Free State today, his step daughter Amanda Brown talks about the hell she experienced at the hands of Tweed and her slow, courageous journey to freedom. She tells Dion and Joe about the mental, physical and sexual abuse she endured. And she explains what connected the public figure Davy Tweed to...