Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning

‘Thanks a million, big fella.’ Charlie Haughey’s words to Ben Dunne summed up how Ireland worked for many. But who was Ben Dunne and what were the compulsions that drove him? On Free State today Matt Cooper talks about his gripping new book Dynasty about the Dunnes family. It looks at how Ben Dunne Senior built an empire and how Ben Jr never recovered from the kidnapping. He talks to us about the...

What is the difference between nostalgia and lamenting the loss of something special? Have we become a society that places too much emphasis on propriety at the expense of the unpredictability that makes life worth living. As Joe and Dion reflect on Monday Clubs they’ve belonged from Mayo to Kilburn, they look at the lives of the great hellraisers. They lament too the decline of sports coverage on...

Donald Trump is threatening to sue the BBC for a billion dollars. On Free State today we ask what is driving this campaign against the BBC? Many studies have concluded that there is a pro Israeli bias at the BBC, but the report that led to the resignation of the director general alleged the opposite. Why has that led to such upheaval when so many say the opposite. Is this the real driver for this...

Iain Dale knows he is walking on perilous terrain. Dale is one of Britain’s best known broadcasters and podcasters but his new book is about Ireland, specifically Irish Taoisigh. On Free State today Iain Dale has an animated conversation about what has gone wrong in England and the dangers of nationalism. Yet he argues that he doesn’t believe Nigel Farage is an extremist.  Dale has recruited...

In numbers not seen for half a century, New Yorkers went out and voted for Zohran Mamdani as their new mayor. Mamdani becomes New York’s first Muslim mayor. He came to America at the age of seven and he has created a sense of the possible that was once at the heart of the American condition. On Free State today we ask how did Zohran Mamdani do it? How did he overcome the campaign of demonisation t...

On Halloween night, a fire broke out an IPAS centre in Drogheda. Four children, including a 20-day-old baby, were among those rescued from the top floor of the building.  The next morning the Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan condemned the attack and said that fireworks had been thrown into the building. There were no fireworks, CCTV footage showed a figure setting fire to the staircase. Polic...

On the day of the All Ireland football final in 1978, Anne Marie Allen believed she was beginning the life she dreamed of. She was 15 years old and wanted to be a chef. When two visitors came to her house promising a catering course and a job, it seemed like too good to be true. It was. For the next seven years she entered into the secretive world of Opus Dei.  On Free State today Anne Marie...

DJ Carey’s sentencing hearing was postponed until Friday. In July, Carey had pleaded guilty to defrauding 13 people. On Free State today, Joe and Dion look at the rise and fall of hurling’s first superstar. They examine the drive and determination that took DJ to the top and the restlessness that was always part of his personality as well. Joe talks about his own dealing with DJ and wonders if the...

When the shadow Home Secretary Robert Jenrick visited Handsworth in Birmingham he complained about ‘not seeing another white face’. Many were angered by his comments, but what do they tell us about how the mainstream has absorbed extremist postions? On Free State today we consider how racism has become respectable. What is happening in the U.K. and the US is taking hold here, with the demonisation...

 When Winston Churchill wanted someone to deal with the problems in Ireland, he turned to his old friend Sir Hugh Tudor. Tudor went to Ireland unable to grasp the complexity of the situation. He was described as “a man of no balance, knowledge or judgment and therefore a deplorable selection for his present post”. On Free State today we talk to Linden MacIntyre about his new book on Hugh Tudo...

When Birmingham City Council announced that they would ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending the football match against Aston Villa next month, Keir Starmer was quick to react. Not as quick as Kemi Badenoch or Nigel Farage, but Starmer was soon promising that he would be doing everything in his power to overturn the ban. On Free State today we look at the truth about Maccabi Tel Aviv. What is i...

The great Michael Lewis is one of our favourite ever guests on Free State . On an October morning at the end of a long book tour, he asked us to talk about anything at all, not just his latest book.  In this timeless piece he talks about life, love, loss, and the pain of losing his daughter Dixie in a car crash. (Originally aired in two parts - October 31st/November 2nd 2023) Hosted on Acast....

In 2012, while swimming in the Galapagos Islands, Delphine Kelly suffered an aortic aneurysm and drowned. On Free State today, Julia Kelly talks about her extraordinary memoir Still which is a conversation to her mother, built around the cold and austere language of the post mortem. She talks about her troubled relationship with her father the Fine Gael politician John Kelly who died when she was...

Is Donald Trump right for once? Is this the deal to end all deals? And could anyone else have pulled it off? On Free State today, Donald Trump’s role as the last American emperor is examined. Is his Gaza peace deal an example of how his ego and self interest drive people to achieve things normal politicians couldn’t?  Is this his great legacy or will it fall apart because like so many things...

Ian Paisley Jr says he might be open to persuasive arguments over a United Ireland. The DUP says it is not interested in engaging or being persuaded on ‘the so called merits’ of a United Ireland. On Free State today, we ask what does this tell us about the worthy concept of reconciliation and is it now effectively a unionist veto on a United Ireland? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...

Is there any point to the presidential election anymore?  Maria Steen who failed to get on the ballot has called for the presidential election to be cancelled and run again following Jim Gavin’s withdrawal. On Free State today, we ask why Maria thinks democracy has failed?  Joe and Dion disagree on her chances of getting elected if she’d been a candidate. But she isn’t, so does it matter...

What was Jim Gavin thinking? What was going through his head when he decided he would like to be Fianna Fail’s candidate for president. On Free State today Joe talks about the conversations he has had with Jim Gavin and why he was a good man, going for the wrong role with the wrong people.  Joe and Dion look at what brought Gavin down and why the campaign was doomed even before the weekend re...

In January 2025, Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist, running for mayor of New York had an eight per cent chance of winning the race. Today, he has an 83 per cent chance and Donald Trump calls him a “100 per cent communist lunatic. The story of how Mamdani has defied not only the odds but the establishment is a story of how many are rejecting the media narratives. Mamdani spoke out against th...

Where did Catherine Connolly’s belief in social justice come from? If she is elected president, how will she use the presidency to advance those beliefs? On a Free State special, Catherine Connolly talks to Dion and Joe about the truth about her presidential bid. She explains why her comments about Hamas only reflected the reality of life for people in Gaza and why the media search for sensational...

The Freedom Flotilla is reaching a critical point in its journey to Gaza. In the next 24 hours, those aboard the 50 ships will reach what is believed to be the danger zone for interception by the Israelis. Nobody knows what will happen next. On Free State today, Joe and Dion talk to Caoimhe Butterly, one of those on one of the ships in the flotilla.  She explains the serenity that those on bo...

“He wasn’t the kind of person who ever greeted you,” Ireland’s former president Mary McAleese says of David Trimble, who was a law student at Queen’s University when Trimble was a lecturer. But on this day he did. He was seeking people out and telling them it was a “wonderful day”. The day was the Monday after Bloody Sunday and McAleese believed she knew why. “It wasn’t actually a reference to the...

When Dave Zirin flew home to America last week, as a precaution he wrote the telephone numbers of a lawyer and an Irish politician on his arm. He had been away for only a week but a week is a long time in an authoritarian state.  While he had been gone, JD Vance had declared an article about Charlie Kirk’s death in The Nation, the magazine Dave works for, to be ‘soulless and evil’.  Dave...

When Mary Lou McDonald announced a ‘game changing’ candidate many eyes looked to Joe Brolly. But was he ever in the running and would Dion have voted for him? On Free State today, Dion and Joe look at what Sinn Féin’s backing of Catherine Connolly means for the presidential campaign.  They also wonder if Jim Gavin can redeem himself after farmgate and Joe reflects on Gavin’s words about Gaza....

What happens when a man tries to take up hurling at 41? What does he learn about himself and Ireland’s relationship with its fabled national game. On Free State today, Second Captains co-host Ciaran Murphy tells us what he learned about Ireland when he joined his father’s old club in West Waterford. Are the obstacles to more people playing hurling all to do with the skills demanded or are there ot...

At the age of 45, Leo Varadkar decided to resign as Taoiseach. Many people wondered why. In an extraordinarily frank interview on Free State today, Leo Varadkar talks about how finding peace in his personal life dulled his political ambition. He speaks about his failings as a politician and a man. He explains why he believes in a united Ireland but isn’t a nationalist. He criticises Keir Starmer’s...