How To Fall Apart

Liadán talks to Donegal actor and playwright Ultan Pringle about coming out, his grandfather Peter and father Thomas Pringle, loving fathers, body image, making a living as a writer in rural Ireland, building community, being gossiped about, and class.

I spoke to the author Sophie White about recovery from addiction, about the decision to stop drinking, the first year of sobriety, and why sometimes the later years are even more challenging. The first half of this episode is available to everyone, the second half is available to paid subscribers of my Substack, How to Fall Apart, where you will find more episodes and some of my writing. I would b...

Dr. Nicola Fox Hamilton is an Online Psychologist and in this episode we discuss her fascinating findings on how we behave online and how we find love amidst the endless swiping. If you enjoyed this conversation and would like to hear more, or read the How to Fall Apart column, you can go to my Substack,  How To Fall Apart .

I talked to author Betsy Cornwell about being a single parent, finding a home for herself and her son, about creating your community, burnout and financial pressure as a single parent, and her beautiful NYTimes Modern Love essay

How To Fall Apart is a podcast about picking up the pieces. This is our first episode in quite awhile, so maybe just a reminder, this is a podcast of conversations with people who have been through something challenging, about how they coped, and also the times that they struggled to cope, and what that felt like. From now on I'm going to be putting this podcast out first and foremost through...

In this episode I chat to Sophie White about her beautiful collection of essays, Corpsing. We chat about how often times, personal work can begin as one thing and transform into something else, the need to protect the truth and still portray the truth, the tension between needing to create and needing to mother and the process of writing such personal work. 

I’m lucky enough to get to work with Senator Lynn Ruane regularly through her column for rogue, and she is one of the most emotionally intelligent people I’ve ever met. We talked about the experience of writing her 2018 memoir People Like Me, about revisiting traumatic experiences, and learning how to protect yourself in the present when revisiting the past, about the responsibility that comes wit...

Episode one of our latest series of How to Fall Apart - the putting herself on the page series This series was inspired by a conversation Liadan had with writer Doireann Ní Ghríofa, in which Doireann talked about being asked of her book A Ghost in the Throat, it is very exposing, to write about yourself so honestly, how does hat feel? Doireann explained how she feels that in asking that, what peop...

Liadan talks to Holly Carpenter about her depression, about retreating from life when you’re struggling, how friends can help in those moments, toxic positivity on social media, the effect of modelling on her body image, and finding it hard to reach out when you’re struggling. Tw- this conversation covers eating disorders

This episode of How To Fall Apart with the Irish Cancer Society aims to be a support for all those who are living with loss. I speak to Irish Cancer Society night nurse who talks about the support she offers families in those final hours. Orla Judge talks about how the pain of losing her mum is easing over time and Tríona McCarthy opens up about the loss of her sister ten years ago and finding the...

Conor Ferguson talks about his wife Keelin Shanley; meeting as teenagers, their life together, her memoir A Light That Never Goes Out, how they coped with her breast cancer diagnosis, and managing grief. 

This series of How to Fall Apart with the Irish Cancer Society aims to be a virtual support group for this currently affected by breast cancer. We will talk to women who have themselves received a cancer diagnosis on coping with treatment, living with cancer and what happens in the aftermath. We will also speak to a number of health professionals – GPs, consultants and nurses, for advice on differ...

This series of How to Fall Apart with the Irish Cancer Society aims to be a virtual support group for this currently affected by breast cancer. We will talk to women who have themselves received a cancer diagnosis on coping with treatment, living with cancer and what happens in the aftermath. We will also speak to a number of health professionals – GPs, consultants and nurses, for advice on differ...

This episode looks at the impact of breast cancer treatment, and the ways in which women learn to cope. Aisling Reilly, Aileen Murphy talk about their experiences, and consultant oncologist Dr Cathy Kelly explains what to expect.

In 2010, two days after she found out she was pregnant with her second child, broadcaster Evelyn O’Rourke was diagnosed with breast cancer. In the second trimester of her pregnancy she underwent chemotherapy. We talked about how she created a support about her, ‘outsourcing’ parts of her life, how she dealt with the fear, what her husband said to her that helped her get through, and coping with an...

This series of How to Fall Apart with the Irish Cancer Society aims to be a virtual support group for this currently affected by breast cancer.  We will talk to women who have themselves received a cancer diagnosis on coping with treatment, living with cancer and what happens in the aftermath. We will also speak to a number of health professionals – GPs, consultants and nurses, for advice on...

 The first episode in our new series, How to Fall Apart with the Irish Cancer Society. Over eight episodes, we will speak to a number of women about their experiences of cancer, from diagnosis, through treatment, to coping with the aftermath. In this episode Liadán speaks to mother of two Sarah Donovan who was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer at the age of thirty-seven. Sarah underwent...

Anne Nally was twenty-nine years old and twenty-nine weeks pregnant when she was diagnosed with cancer. We talked about how she coped with the treatment involved and the multiple symptoms she continues to suffer eight years later, as well the new Life After Cancer treatment centres she is involved in. Anne is one of the group of Irish women whose smear test was incorrectly read, and she talks abou...

Daniella Moyles talks about coming back from a breakdown, the behaviours that led there and learning to live slow. 

In this special episode of How To Fall Apart, Sophie White steps in as host as Lia becomes guest. The friends chat all things book related - from writing process to boundaries to the flower dress renaissance.  How to Fall Apart is out now.  https://www.easons.com/how-to-fall-apart-liadan-hynes-9781529381214?gclid=Cj0KCQjw0Mb3BRCaARIsAPSNGpWiOK8UiP8xp7fc8icA_G8h8YEURzaVkuTYUIk-z0DxKEMYHM4...

Ellie Kisyombe talks about grief and trauma in the aftermath of nearly a decade living in Direct Provision, how she is coming to terms with the lost years, and the new home she is building for her family. Liadán also spoke to Katie Mannion, Managing Solicitor with the Irish Refugee Council, who talked about some of the issues being experienced by people living in Direct Provision, and some of the...

In our latest episode of How to Fall Apart, the Support Series, sponsored by Dunnes Stores, the Mothers' episode, @liadanhynes spoke to a number of mothers about how they are coping since Covid-19 began. How are they balancing career with no childcare, are they managing to mind their mental health? We spoke to @jenniemcginn @nataliebcoleman and @sashahearts

This week we have a second episode, an interview with writer, actor and broadcaster Stefanie Preissner. Stefanie's beloved Nana Eileen Keary passed away last September. In this interview, which took place in two parts, just before Covid-19 restrictions and several weeks into social isolation, Stefanie discussed the nature of grief, our current collective grief, and what it is like to grieve in iso...

This week's episode of How to Fall Apart, the Support Series, sponsored by Dunnes Stores, is The Grief Episode. Liadan Hynes spoke to Elle Gordon, who lost her father Trevor Gordon, about experiencing the final weeks of a loved one's life as a family in isolation, and the support offered by neighbours from a distance, to Siobhan Cullen whose mother Eileen O'Neill was the third person to...

This week in the mental health episode, we're covering what's often called reactive depression; depressed feelings caused in reaction to a specific situation, something a lot of us can relate to right now. @liadanhynes spoke to clinical pyschologist Dr Tony Bates @jigsawYMH and Gillian Roddie @evidentiallyyou about how they coped with their own experiences of depression over a...