Love and Courage

Joe Murray is the coordinator with Afri – Action from Ireland, which is a small but significant national and independent Irish organisation working for human rights, global justice and environmental action since 1975. Afri’s patron is none other than Nobel peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Originally from Ballyglasson, Carrickboy in County Longford, Joe has been with Afri for over 40 years....

Colm Mac Con Iomaire is an acclaimed Irish violinist and composer. He was a founding member of renowned folk fusion band Kila and, at the age of 19 became a founding member of legendary indie rock band The Frames, which led him to tour the world for up on 30 years. He was also a member of The Swell Season. In recent times Colm has been focused on his solo career and has released three albums to gr...

Noelle Brown is a well-known Irish actor, playwright, and activist. Noelle was born in the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork and much of our conversation centres around her campaign work to advance the rights and voices of Mother and Baby home survivors. Mother and Baby Homes were institutions mostly run by the Catholic church where pregnant women who were unmarried were sent to have their...

Tony Griffin is a writer, speaker, co-founder of the Soar Foundation which does amazing youth empowerment work throughout Ireland, and he’s a former sports star who played hurling for his native County Clare and he is the recipient of a prestigious all-star award. I talk to Tony on the day his new book The Teenagers Book of Life is released into the world and we explore his own childhood, his days...

This is a crosspost of an interview I did on Una Mullally and Andrea Horan's United Ireland podcast. In it, I talk about a campaign I lead concerning Syrian refugees in Longford and other topics such as life during lockdown. Subscribe, share, rate, review and donate to support this podcast. Thanks to patrons who chip in at www.loveandcourage.org Host Ruairí McKiernan is a well-known social in...

Michael McCaughan is a former Irish Times Latin America correspondent and has spent three decades working and writing in places like Mexico, Cuba and Colombia. He’s the author of several books and his most recent book Coming Home explores his journey to reconnect with the Irish language. Subscribe, share, rate, review and donate to support this podcast. Thanks to patrons who chip in at www.loveand...

My guest in this epsisode is Fr Peter McVerry, a Belfast born Jesuit priest who grew up in Newry, County Down before moving to Dublin. After his ordination in 1975 he  lived and worked in summerhill in North Dublin and came face to face with homelessness, poverty and deprivation. He went on to set up a trust to help struggling young people, including those facing addiction. This work started life...

Bronagh Gallagher is one of Ireland’s best-known actors and musicians. Originally from Derry city, she famously starred in the classic Irish movie the Commitments and has had roles in films such as Pulp Fiction, Star Wars and Sherlock Holmes, in numerous TV shows including Holby City and Moone Boy, and in stage in productions such as War Horse. A prolific singer, songwriter and musician, she has s...

John Connell is an award-winning Irish author, playwright, journalist, and film producer. A native of County Longford in the midlands, John is from a rural farming background, something that has greatly influenced his work and thinking, as you'll hear in this conversation. John spent several years living and working in Australia where he was a university lecturer, the founder of a media produ...

Easkey Britton is a scientist, surfer, writer, artist and film-maker with a PhD in Environment and Society. Her work explores the relationship between people and nature, especially the sea. A life-long surfer, her parents taught her to surf when she was four years old and she channels her passion for surfing and the sea into social change. Her work is deeply influenced by the ocean and the lessons...

Ibrahim Halawa is a 25-year-old law student from Tallaght in Dublin, Ireland. Between the ages of 17 and 21 he was wrongfully imprisoned in an Egyptian prison after being arrested during a visit to Cairo in 2013. The trip coincided with pro-democracy protests which had swept the country and led to hundreds of civilians being killed by the forces of the military-led government of General el-Sisi. I...

Mary Reynolds is an Irish author, former landscape designer and nature activist, known for being the youngest contestant to win a gold medal at the world-famous Chelsea Flower Show. She became highly sought after in the world of garden design but later gave it up to explore new ways of looking at life and work in relation to ecology. A film inspired by her story was released in 2015 and in 2016 he...

Ruairí McKiernan interview with Dave Fanning on RTÉ 2fm  Subscribe, share, rate, review and donate to support this podcast. Thanks to patrons who chip in at www.loveandcourage.org Host Ruairí McKiernan is a well-known social innovator, charity founder, campaigner, counsellor, consultant, and author. Find out more via:   Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn  and check out his book Hi...

Andrew Boyd is an American author, humorist and veteran of creative campaigns for social change. He led the decade-long satirical media campaign Billionaires for Bush. He co-founded Agit-Pop Communications, an award-winning “subvertising” agency, as well as the netroots social justice movement The Other 98%. He's the author of four books: Beautiful Trouble , Daily Afflictions , Life’s Little...

A short interviewed with podcast host Ruairí McKiernan recorded on the Today FM Last Word show with Matt Cooper. Discussing community, connection, resilience and hope in the context of the release of Ruairí's book Hitching for Hope - a Journey into the Heart and Soul of Ireland. www.hitchingforhope.com   Subscribe, share, rate, review and donate to support this podcast. Thanks to patrons who...

Joe Farrell on the Love and Courage podcast. Joe Farrell was born in an Irish mother and baby home in Ireland in 1960 where he lived with his mother who had been sent there as an unmarried mother. He lived there for the first 2 years of his life before being adopted by an Irish American family and brought to the United States. This is the remarkable story of his life and his quest for identity, un...

Limerick man Tom Prendergast is an artist, a DJ, a former record store owner, former successful record label co-founder, a passionate community volunteer and so much more. Subscribe, share, rate, review and donate to support this podcast. Thanks to patrons who chip in at www.loveandcourage.org Host Ruairí McKiernan is a well-known social innovator, charity founder, campaigner, counsellor, consulta...

A few words of reflection followed by a special song. Find links to the song and video by Susan Quirke, newsletter links, donation info etc. via this link: http://linktr.ee/ruairi Subscribe, share, rate, review and donate to support this podcast. Thanks to patrons who chip in at www.loveandcourage.org Host Ruairí McKiernan is a well-known social innovator, charity founder, campaigner, counsellor,...

Love and Courage podcast with Ruairí McKiernan. Originally from County Cork, Dearbhla Glynn is a multi-award winning documentary filmmaker, photo-journalist, artist, writer and yoga teacher. Her films explore themes of culture, human rights and conflict and have seen her travel to conflict zones around the world including Palestine, DR Congo, Iraq, and Haiti and she has also made films based aroun...

Originally from Sligo in the north-west of Ireland, Mari is an organisational wellbeing and leadership consultant, an integral facilitator, a mindfulness and meditation teacher, a social entrepreneur, a yoga teacher, and I might add she’s quite a stunning singer too. Mari has worked with former President of Ireland Mary McAleese, with leading companies such as Microsoft and Ernst And Young, and mo...

Luka Bloom is one of Ireland’s best known and most respected contemporary folk artists. Originally from County Kildare, Luka Bloom has been singing and performing since the age of 14. He released his debut album Treaty Stone in 1978 and soon after moved to the Netherlands, where he remains hugely popular. He also previously lived in Washington DC and in New York, where he was signed by Reprise rec...

At the time of this interview, the 84-year-old folk singer is still songwriting, touring, entertaining, informing, educating and inspiring as part of the great folk tradition that she embodies so well. Born in 1935 to a folklorist and musicologist father and a mother who was an accomplished composer and music scholar, Peggy has lived her life surrounded by music and the great folk tradition. She l...

Live public interview with the legendary Hugh O’Brien, or ‘Hugh Barney’ as he’s often known. It was recorded in the Darly School Hall as part of a full house at the Cootehill Arts Festival in my hometown of Cootehill Co. Cavan. Hugh Barney is a 79-year-old historian, educator, actor and community activist. He taught me history and English at secondary school and left a lasting impression on me, as...

Originally from County Kilkenny in the South East of Ireland, Vicky is a Limerick based married mother of two who has been at the forefront of exposing the Cervical Check screening scandal in Ireland after being told that she had been given incorrect smear test results. In early 2019 she settled a high profile case with no admission of liability on the part of the laboratory or the health services...

David Jan Jurasek is a former child refugee from the former Czechoslovakia. His family escaped the regime there and eventually ended up in Canada where he grew up struggling to make sense of loss and trauma. He eventually turned to creative expression and martial arts to help him channel his emotions before later training as a child and family therapist. He has since become a husband, a father, an...