Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning

Roddy Collins and Paul Howard join Dion and Joe for the 'Free State' Christmas special. They explain how Medjugorje is a good place to go on the lash, their time on the road together with Steve Collins and the rise of the D4 accent. And Joe is surprised to discover that a place he thought was a figment of Ross O’Carroll Kelly’s imagination actually exists. Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanni...

On today’s episode, Al Foran recalls the good and bad in the celebrities he has encountered. He takes us inside the mechanics of creating an impression and talks about the movie greats from Brando to Denzel Washington. Dion also recalls a day in Barnsley when Roy Keane went full Joe Pesci. Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning is a Gold Hat Production in association with SwanMcG. For more on...

This week's Free State welcomes figures from politics, sport and entertainment. From Donald Trump to Katie Taylor to Tyson Fury, Al Foran has an unparalleled ability to make people feel as if they are listening, not to an impression, but to the person themselves. Al joins Joe and Dion to talk about making it in a new media world, how he has to inhabit the people he mimics and what links Christophe...

Why has Ireland caught the attention of Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk? In today’s Free State, Joe and Dion look at how the stability of the state can be threatened by the powerful preying on the public’s irrational fears. And, as Conor McGregor continues to rain hate down on innocent people, Joe considers if there is a different path. Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning is a G...

What attracts people to conspiracy theories? In an uncertain world is it certainty or do they offer excitement missing in their lives? In today’s Free State, Joe and Dion enter the twilight zone, the fantasy land where Ireland is at war with the other. They look at what drives these theories, the anger of those who believe them and discuss one previously unknown fact uncovered by the conspira...

How do we combat hate?  What happened in the Dublin Riots was driven by far right agitators but how do we fight their message?  Dion and Joe ask how should we treat those on the margins of the hate movement. Finland has become a world leader in combating hate and misinformation using a curriculum that starts when their kids are five years old. Turns out kids don’t hate “others” unless th...

Last Thursday, Joe Brolly was returning to the Stardust Inquest when he witnessed the events unfolding on Parnell Square. On Free State today he talks about what he saw and how humanity and courage revealed themselves at this most frightening moment. Dion and Joe reflect on the riots that followed, how the hate movement needs to be dealt with and why Conor McGregor has nothing to offer Ireland. Fr...

Five Derry girls went to the Stardust nightclub. Only four came home. How do people keep going when their lives change tragically in a moment? What is it that defines the human spirit? On today’s Free State Joe talks about the Stardust Inquest, the resilience of people in the worst of circumstances and the quiet heroism that has been revealed. Dion and Joe talk too about Hillsborough and the fight...

What is more mind altering, a trip to Amsterdam or trying to track the lies and deception of the Tories in Britain? On this week’s Free State, Joe has all the information on a hallucinogenic trip - maybe too much information - in Holland. The Covid Inquiry, Suella Braverman’s propaganda and the return of David Cameron tell us everything about the British establishment. Joe also can’t tell the diff...

When did ‘ceasefire’ become a dirty word? In the second podcast this week on the destruction of Gaza, Dion and Joe look at how language has been weaponised during the conflict. How did a desire for a ceasefire come to mean that you are, at best, hopelessly naive and, at worst, a Hamas sympathiser? The barbarity of what has been inflicted on the people of Gaza by the Israeli government is changing...

Around the world people are marching in their millions for peace and calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. On Free State, Joe and Dion have a difficult conversation about war, peace and propaganda which reflects the difficult conversations people are having everywhere. They ask why are these conversations so difficult and how did calling for peace become such a risky thing to do? Free State with Joe Br...

David Gough felt sure he would live a life where love was denied to him. But a poem changed his life. In part 2 of Free State, David Gough talks about the sliding doors moment in his life and how it changed everything. Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning is a Gold Hat Production in association with SwanMcG. For more on Free State: https://freestatepodcast.com/ To get in touch with the podc...

David Gough is the most famous and the best referee in Ireland. He grew up in a religious and staunch GAA family and like everyone he wanted to fit in. He was an altar boy and a Gaelic footballer but one day, when he was 15, he saw the front page of a newspaper and it changed everything. David is this week’s guest on Free State. He tells Joe and Dion about his journey. Joe also tries to get David...

During the rise of Sam Bankman-Fried, Michael Lewis got closer to him than anybody else. But the fall of the crypto baby gave the Moneyball author a different story. When people turned on Bankman-Fried, Michael Lewis knew they would turn on him too.  In the second part of his interview on Free State, Michael Lewis talks about why he took on the story and what kept him going. In May 2021, Mich...

On this week’s Free State, Michael Lewis, the author behind Hollywood blockbusters Moneyball, The Big Short and The Blind Side, joins Dion and Joe.  Michael's new book Going Infinite charts the rise and fall of Sam Bankman-Fried who within two years of discovering crypto was worth $22 billion.  In the first part of a two-part interview, Michael talks to Joe and Dion about why sport in Am...

Where is the way out of the horror in Gaza? When the Shankill Road bomb killed ten people in Frizzell’s fish shop 30 years ago there seemed to be no way out of violence and destruction in the north. But a year later there was a ceasefire and by 1998 a peace process that was the envy of the world. It happened because world leaders like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were resolute in working with those...

How much is enough? With the threat that things will worsen even more in Gaza, what will it take for those with influence to intervene. The US and President Biden are friends of Israel, as they should be, but now they need to be friends of Palestine too. What is stopping them? On this episode of Free State, Joe and Dion look at what might be needed for peace and how it was lost a generation ago wi...

The world is watching as terror and suffering come to the people of Gaza once more. In this terrible war, there is also a propaganda war. This war is waged to distract and deflect from slaughter and genocide. After the savagery of Hamas on Oct 7th, there is an understandable need among Israelis for a response but indiscriminate attacks on Palestinians will not destroy Hamas.  On Free State th...

As Israel commits war crimes in Gaza, can anyone persuade the country’s government to stop the slaughter? On part 2 of this week’s Free State, Joe and Dion recall their own trips to Israel and their experiences in the country. It is a land where fundamentalism, hatred and fear have twisted all hopes for a peaceful existence. Within the country there are voices, even after the horrors of October 7t...

The Israeli government - emboldened by politicians in the west - is committing war crimes. Gaza is a human catastrophe where the horrors will echo through history. There is a primal need within so many Israelis for action to avenge the horrific massacre of the innocents by Hamas. But how is the cycle of violence broken? In the bloodlust for revenge, sane voices in Israel and around the world are b...

In the second part of 'On Her Majesty’s Secret Service', Peter Taylor discusses the attempts of the British establishment to censor & intimidate him. He describes the central importance of the hunger strike and how it changed everything.  He recalls a day spent locked in a cell in the dreaded H Blocks with a young Eamonn McDermott & marvelling at his book collection. “How can an IRA m...

Late in the night following Bloody Sunday, a young reporter arrived in Derry. ‘If you want to know what’s going on here,’ John Hume told him, ‘he’s the person you should be talking to you. He’s called Martin McGuinness’. It was the first time this young reporter called Peter Taylor had heard the name.  For 50 years Taylor made establishing the truth in the north his goal. He talked to everyon...

In the end, Pat Gilroy will remember the fun more than the winning. What is sport for except those moments shared among a team that will never be forgotten?  In this episode of Free State, Joe and Dion talk to Pat about what is being lost in sport as backroom teams swell and clubs and counties are being drained of finances by professional management teams who have no bond with them. Pat...

When the news broke that Mickey Harte was the new manager of Derry, some accepted it as part of how the modern GAA operates. But for others it struck at the heart of the GAA.  In a powerful and emotional episode of Free State, Pat Gilroy is back with Joe and Dion to talk about Mickey Harte and loyalty.  What is the GAA about? What do we want? Is the association becoming a sham, where the...

Matthew Collins was dead inside. This is where hatred led - to a library with mothers cowering in fear, sheltering from an attack from his far right group. The sound of hatred was the sound of a pregnant woman crying and begging for mercy His life changed that day when he realised that violence is always where hatred leads. Hatred of asylum seekers, Jews, people of colour, the trans community, Mus...