Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning

Riham Jafari has heard the stories of her grandparents. The stories of a time before the Nakba when her family lived a simple existence in a village outside Jerusalem. They enjoyed farming the land and their independence. It was a “beautiful life” her grandparents said before occupation came. After the Nakba, they lived in a camp one square kilometre, crowded with nowhere for children to play. Rih...

The story of Casement Park is a metaphor for post conflict Northern Ireland. Once there was a dream about a shining stadium on a hill, a stadium which would benefit everyone in the north when it hosted matches at the European Championships in 2028. Two years ago, that dream ended when the British government said they would not fund the cost of the stadium which had ‘risen dramatically’ during year...

“Based on what I’ve seen, it was done by Iran.” When Donald Trump spoke on Air Force One about the bombing of a school in southern Iran, he was, of course, lying. That is what Trump does but in the attack on Iran he has also tapped into the American fantasy about their righteousness that can only be fully displayed through military force.  When Stanley Kubrick made Dr Strangelove, he was fasc...

Professor Charles Knowles is a very smart man. He is a surgeon and clinical researcher. He is able to apply logic and reason to find solutions to most things. But logic and reason made no sense when it came to his own drinking. On Free State today Charles Knowles explains why we drink and why we drink too much. He talks to Dion about his own struggles and why there is a genetic reason for many peo...

When a US submarine torpedoed an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean, 150 Iranians were believed to have been killed. ‘It thought it was safe in international waters,” Pete Hegseth the US’s self styled Secretary of War proclaimed. “Instead it was sunk by a torpedo, a quiet death.” More than a thousand civilians have been killed since the US and Israel launched their offensive. This is a campaign t...

A few minutes before 1pm on the Saturday of the 2026 GAA Congress some protestors forced their way inside. The response to this protest may have far reaching implications for the GAA. On Free State we look at how the GAA has failed to deal with the understandable anger about the Allianz sponsorship deal. Dion and Joe argue about how they should be addressing it and Jarlath Burns’s comments on Satu...

Labour Together was set up in the summer of 2015 as a way of uniting the UK Labour Party, but with the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader it soon became something very different. Driven by Morgan McSweeney, it became a means of destroying Jeremy Corbyn‘s leadership ‘by any means necessary. Keir Starmer was the vessel to take Labour away from Corbyn‘s politics. On Free State today, Peter Geog...

In the House of Commons, a Labour minister described Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor as a ‘man on a constant self-aggrandising and self-enriching hustle; a rude, arrogant and entitled man who could not distinguish between the public interest, which he said he served, and his own private interest’. This is undoubtedly true but is Andrew the exception or the norm? On Free State we look how the establishm...

What links Bono and Tony Blair? You may be asking, what doesn’t?  Both men have made the news as U2’s new EP was released and Blair addressed the world as part of Donald Trump’s Board of Peace. But what is the fervour that drives them? On Free State today we look at Blair and Bono and what happens when a man believes he can change the world. What is Blair’s goal on the Board of Peace and why...

In March 1922, a relatively unknown member of the IRA was asked by journalists if they could take from his answers that Ireland would have a military dictatorship. ‘You can take it anyway you like,’ he replied. On Free State today we look at the life of Rory O’Connor who was prepared to go to any lengths for the Republic of his ideals.  We talk to the author of a new biography of O’Connor Ger...

In the 19th century, Manchester first began to be a destination for immigrants.  It was Scottish, Welsh and Irish in huge numbers who shaped the city and made it their home. Over the next hundred years, immigrants from across the world turned Manchester into the city it was. It was this vibrant and complex city that Matt Busby loved and which saw him shape the great Manchester United sides in...

When the Irish football team was drawn against Israel last week, many people in Ireland immediately hoped the game wouldn’t happen. Instead as the days have passed, the game seems more likely not less.  On Free State today we look at what has stopped Israel being banned from sport while Russia have been.  Dion wonders what a boycott would achieve and explains how Uefa and Fifa have faile...

David McCloskey says he was once a clandestine journalist. Another way of putting it is that he once worked for the CIA. McCloskey is now a spy novelist. His first book took readers inside the CIA, now he is exploring Mossad, Israel and Iran in his new novel The Persian. On Free State, he talks about the shadow war between Israel and Iran. He explains what has happened to agencies like the CIA und...

‘Doors open at the Watergate’. Those words in June 1972 signalled a break in at the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Building. They were picked up on a police scanner by a reporter at the Washington Post. They began a chain of events which would eventually bring down a president.  Last week the paper of Woodward and Bernstein, of Ben Bradlee and publisher Katharine Graham, laid...

When Gregory Campbell approached President Connolly in Derry last week, what was the purpose of his intervention? Was he trying to make a good faith case for Protestant and unionist people in Derry or was he just throwing some red meat to his base? On Free State today Dion and Joe look at the life and times of Gregory Campbell. Dion and Joe argue about the merits of his argument and whether who is...

In Ireland, we like to think that the class system is something that dominates Britain. But it shapes this country too. RTE’s new comedy drama These Sacred Vows is a series which challenges what we believe about class, identity and religion in Ireland in 2026. On Free State today, the show’s creator John Butler talks about what he wanted to say in the series about the middle class, the priesthood...

In the House of Commons, Keir Starmer said that Peter Mandelson had ‘betrayed our country, our parliament and my party’. But what was that betrayal and who was actually complicit? On Free State today we look at the rise and fall of Peter Mandelson. We explain why the election of a football mascot monkey as mayor in Hartlepool was an early sign of who Mandelson was.  We explain how Mandelson w...

‘If they showed this film on a plane, people would still walk out.’ As Melania, the documentary about the US First Lady, opened at the weekend, this line seemed to capture the feelings of critics. But, like so many things in Trumpland, even this line of criticism may not be all that it appears. On Free State today Dion and Joe look at what the Melania documentary tells us about the court of Donald...

In the Orwellian world we now live in, gaslighting is now standard. When Donald Trump creates a Board of Peace, we know that where it says one thing, the opposite is the truth. On Free State today Peter Oborne joins us to talk about how we reached this point in the Middle East. Peter’s new book Complicit looks at Britain’s role in sustaining the genocide in Gaza and why there might be consequences...

When the president of the German football club St Pauli said it was "clearly time to at least discuss a boycott" of the World Cup in the US this summer, he was quickly reminded of his station. "He hasn't been with us long," the president of the German football federation said. The idea of a boycott was completely "misguided" he said. But why? On Free State today, Joe and Dion look at why the World...

“We have all seen the video and our eyes don’t lie,” a friend of Alex Pretti said in the aftermath of Pretti’s murder. He was speaking as Donald Trump’s administration advanced a lie, undeterred by what people had seen in the video which dismantled the story spun by ICE and their protectors. On Free State today, Joe and Dion look at the rise of authoritarianism in America and what comes next. As I...

What would it mean to be free of financial insecurity? Why does money scare us so much? On Free State today money expert Eoin McGee talks about how we can achieve financial freedom and faces one of his greatest challenges: Dion’s attitude to money. In doing so, he talks about things far more profound than money. What do we really want from life and Dion explains why your wedding day is not the bes...

When Donald Trump backed down on Greenland, he tried to make it sound like a victory. But what caused him to cave? Western leaders have tried to placate Trump and continued this approach at Davos until Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney laid out the truth about the world today. ‘The strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must,’ he said quoting Thucydides. This is the real...

When the Senegal team walked off the pitch in the last seconds of the AFCON final, were we witnessing a moment of brave resistance or gamesmanship? Was this a stand against the technology which is destroying sport or a stroke? On Free State today we ask if injustice has to be part of sport?  Joe makes his case for video evidence in Gaelic football. Joe and Dion also look at Trump’s determinat...

What drove DJ Carey? What did he believe of the fraud and deception that ended up with him being sent to prison? And as he faces life as a social pariah, what does he think today of his crimes? On Free State today Eimear Ni Bhraonain, author of The Dodger, the bestselling book about DJ Carey looks at what drove one of Ireland’s greatest sportsmen. She considers the childhood of excellence and isol...