Hibernian Radio

This week on The Houli’s Hooley , Billy’s gone, so Paddy welcomes Clay back for a wild ride through rock nostalgia, emergency-room horror stories and the future of humanity. Clay recounts his first Smashing Pumpkins concert, including Jimmy Chamberlin’s drumming and memories of their late friend Steve Vernon. Paddy shares his own nine-hour ER ordeal with his daughter, where the wait was long, the...

Mike Houlihan, Bill Houlihan, John Kelly and Paddy Houlihan pose with the famed slogan of their shared high school Mt. Carmel Chicago This week on Hibernian Radio, Paddy Houlihan sits down with Chicago mayoral candidate John Kelly to discuss his South Side roots, his family’s Chicago history, and why he believes the city needs a problem solver who isn’t a career politician. Kelly lays out hi...

This week on The Houli’s Hooley , Paddy and Bill celebrate 30 years since their undefeated 1996 Mount Carmel football season, catching up at a recent reunion and comparing championship glory with receding hairlines. Paddy’s fouth-string quarterback legacy remains intact, even if his hairline is under review. That leads to the Norwood Scale and PP405, an experimental new hair-loss treatment that co...

This week on Hibernian Radio Patrick Hynes returns for his second visit after his primary win in March. Host Paddy Houlihan catches up with the Cook County Assessor candidate as he looks toward the final stretch of the campaign and shares what he hopes to bring to the office. Hynes talks about making the Assessor’s Office more taxpayer-focused, improving communication, and bringing greater consist...

This week on the Houli’s Hooley, Paddy, Bill and Clay tackle the big questions: What’s the perfect low-maintenance uniform? Can a luxury tank top have a trapdoor? And is “Gnatka” a word, a sports chant, or just the sound of three friends losing the plot? The guys relive fashion choices from the ’80s, debate Case Keenum’s big Bears moment, and ride the White Sox playoff wave with a hopeful eye towa...

This week on Hibernian Radio, Mike and Paddy Houlihan look back on the 12th annual Irish American Movie Hooley Film Festival, sharing highlights from the films and the filmmakers who joined them in Wilmette. They discuss Frank Shouldice’s documentary Once We Were Punks , a film about John Ford and the making of  The Quiet Man , Colin Flynn’s short film  Belief , and Jimmy Lynch and Tim Mille...

This week the gang serves up a generous helping of sports talk, questionable business ideas, and Paddy shares that after last week’s show he has a made a new Salisbury steak gravy recipe. The guys relive Bill’s visit to the President’s Cup, complete with leather furniture, luxury brand activations, and enough tan, hairless men to inspire a whole new sports franchise. Then they pi...

This week on Hibernian Radio Mike and Paddy Houlihan welcome entrepreneur  Darren Gibney  to discuss his journey from Warren Point, County Down, to the Chicago area and his work building  Shift , a social platform for connecting the global Irish community. Gibney shares how an early interest in technology grew from finding ways to streamline his uncle’s construction business, and describes his car...

Welcome back to the Houli’s Hooley, where the Sox are tied for first, the gravy expired in 2025, and nobody’s doing okay. Paddy kicks things off with a confession. On a “catch as catch can” night he cooked himself two giant Salisbury steaks. On the side he had week-and-a-half-old taco onions, a can of cola and a jar of brown gravy that expired in March 2025. He did check wi...

Filmmaker Colin Flynn This week Mike and Paddy Houlihan sit down with Irish American filmmaker and actor Colin Flynn , whose film Belief screens next Sunday at the Irish American Movie Hooley. Colin grew up around movie sets, tagging along with his dad, a Teamster transportation captain in Local 817, on sets like The Horse Whisperer . That’s where he caught the storytelling bug. After Colgat...

The boys are all back together this week, and this one is absolutely smothered in bolognese. Clay returns from two weeks of solo dad duty while his wife travels, juggling kids’ football and soccer—complete with a Milwaukee tournament and shout-outs to their sorta-alma mater, Marquette. That launches the lads into memories of their own college days: Paddy’s near-miss with Syracuse’s famed journalis...

This week on Hibernian Radio, Paddy Houlihan slides into the host’s chair and serves up an absolute belter with retired CPD officer Pete Kelly. From growing up on Chicago’s wild East Side and making his way to Mount Carmel High School, to running and gunning in the 4th District, surviving shootings, and earning the Valor, Blue Star, and Life Saving Awards, Pete’s story is pure Chicago. He walks us...

This week on The Houli’s Hooley, it’s just Paddy and Bill with Clay being missed dearly. The boys head to their alma mater Mount Carmel High School for a nationally televised football game and discover that the old neighborhood stadium has become the Super Bowl. Jumbotrons, ESPN cameras, merch tents, tailgating campers, sponsorship activations and enough college recruits on the field to make you w...

This week on Hibernian Radio, Mike Houlihan welcomes Nuala Murphy for her first appearance on the show. Originally from County Meath and now a Chicago area real estate agent, Nuala shares her remarkable journey through stage 3 breast cancer and her road back to an all clear. Nuala talks candidly about her diagnosis, mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation, lymph node surgery and the long road to recov...

This Week on The Houli’s Hooley: Paddy, Bill, and Clay are back from the so called Irish Riviera , Long Beach / New Buffalo, where the Houlihans enjoyed the annual family beach getaway, while poor Charlotte spent much of it battling a summer cold. From there, the lads wander into a wild discussion about nicknames, small talk, old school Chicago etiquette, and the increasingly dangerous world of sa...

This week on Hibernian Radio, the Houlihan’s head into the vault for a fascinating archival interview with retired Cook County Sheriff’s Police Officer Joe Mauriello , a Chicago cop whose career sounds like it was written by Hollywood. Joe tells the story of joining the Sheriff’s Police in 1977, then recalls responding to a burglary at John Wayne Gacy’s house before anyone knew what was real...

This week on the Houl’s Hooley summer is in full swing, and so is the madness. Paddy shares the emotional whiplash of watching his son Mike crush his first over-the-fence home run of the season before ending the tournament with a broken thumb. His daughter Charlotte has returned from her NYU songwriting program with fresh songs, new inspiration, and plenty of New York stories, while the lads...

This week on Hibernian Radio, Mike Houlihan welcomes back retired Chicago Police Captain Brendan McCrudden, who reflects on a distinguished 30-year career in law enforcement and his new mission of serving those who serve others. After retiring at the end of 2024, Brendan has dedicated much of his time to The Well Resource Center, a nonprofit providing free, confidential mental health counseling an...

This week on Hibernian Radio, Mike Houlihan welcomes back retired Cook County Sheriff’s Police officer Ed Graney, whose remarkable career has taken him from the Cook County Jail to the skies above Chicago as a tactical flight officer, and now into the classroom as a professor of police operations at Chicago State University. Ed shares stories from nearly three decades in law enforcement, inc...

Billy is out this week, leaving Paddy and Clay to hold down the fort and immediately launch an investigation into whether Bill’s mysterious illness was actually caused by eating ten egg rolls in one sitting. The “Egg Roll Ghost” quickly becomes the leading suspect, and the show never fully recovers. From there, the boys bounce from summer baseball road trips to Paddy’s late...

This week on The Houli’s Hooley, Paddy, Bill, and Clay welcome a special guest to the bunker: Clay’s 11-year-old son Brody, who confidently predicts a monster football season while somehow sounding like the most composed person in the room. The lads kick things off with the White Sox taking it to the Yankees before immediately becoming armchair general managers, dreaming up trade-deadl...

This week on Hibernian Radio , Paddy Houlihan welcomes back John O’Connor, a retired Chicago Police Department sergeant, longtime coach, and current educator at Mount Carmel High School. Drawing on 25 years with CPD and decades of coaching experience, John reflects on a life dedicated to service, mentorship, and helping young people find their path. The conversation explores John’s tra...

This week on The Houli’s Hooley , Paddy, Bill, and Clay reunite after Bill’s successful facial surgery following his infamous golf-ball mishap. He’s recovering well, though he’s developed a newfound appreciation for sour Airheads, Dove ice cream bars, and generally eating like a 12-year-old. Paddy proudly recaps Charlotte’s debut benefit concert, thanking the communit...

This week on Hibernian Radio, Mike Houlihan celebrates the 50th anniversary of Riley’s Daughter with a special tribute to the late Boz O’Brien, one of the South Side’s most beloved publicans and storytellers. Built around clips from Boz’s final interview, the episode serves as both a history lesson and a love letter to a man whose personality helped define generations of Ch...

This week on The Houli’s Hooley, we’re dipping into the vault while Billy continues recovering from his recent facial surgery following his now-infamous encounter with a rocket-shanked golf ball. Rather than leave the airwaves silent, we dusted off one of our favorite episodes: the long-awaited Return of Clay O’Brien. Originally recorded after a mysterious two-year disappearance that m...