Our Man In Stockholm

This time ten years ago, none of us knew the name of Anders Behring Breivik. If only it had stayed that way. On July 22 he detonated a bomb in Oslo that killed eight people before going on a shooting rampage on an island. By the time the shooting ended, the bomb and his guns had claimed 77 victims, with hundreds more wounded. To mark the tenth anniversary of the attacks, I spoke to Vegard Gröslie...

Molly McCann was always a little bit different, but she didn't always want to be. A fantastic athlete, she excelled at football and now competes in mixed martial arts in the UFC'a flyweight division, but she struggled to come to terms with her sexuality. The result is a new book, "Be True To You", which tells the story of her path to coming out in a way that young people can understand and relate...

Petesy Carroll is the best MMA journalist in Europe, but even he was on the ropes due to the pandemic. He's back with a new deal that has seen him park his pen and fire up his mic as things return to normal in a sport that has never described itself in that way.

Behind the scenes in Copenhagen on the day of Denmark's must-win game against Russia at Euro 2020.

On Saturday night we watched live as a man died and was brought back to life on a football field in Copenhagen. A few days later I tried to relive that night to find out what, if anything, we learned.

For the third and final pre-Euro 2020 podcast, I spoke to my favourite Swedish-Spanish reporter Alexandra Jonson about her native country and our expectation that we have seen the future of Swedish football, and its name is Alexander Isak.

In the second of three pre-Euro 2020 podcasts, I talk to Danish Footy editor Claus Røndbjerg about Denmark's chances, the current and recent coach and players, and THAT tournament victory back in 1992, the one that enabled every small nation to dream the big dreams.

The first of three podcasts focusing on the upcoming Euro 2020 tournament from a Nordic perspective. Journalist, documentary-maker and self-described football dreamer Ronan Browne joins me from Tampere to talk about football in Finland, making the finals of a major tournament for the first time, and what the world can expect from them.

The recent violence in Gaza and the resulting hot takes landing like Scud missiles all over the discourse prompted me to contact Jacob Woolf, an Irish-Jewish man who is someone I always feel I can learn from. We talked about Zionism, antisemitism, the moderate view, competing rights and what a fair solution in Palestine might look like.

With the World Cup in Qatar coming up, there's a lot of discussion around sport, human rights and life in the Middle East. David O'Leary lived in Qatar for four years, working on infrastructure projects, some of which are related to the World Cup. I asked him about his life there and the life of those on the building sites, and how the country is opening up in a way that is perhaps not recognisabl...

In a week that has been a podcast producer's nightmare, two stories stuck in my mind - that of Eoghan Harris and his sock puppet account, and how a Swedish healthcare whistleblower who should have been treated like a hero was called "illoyal" by her employer. That led to this rant, and it only occurred to me at the very end that, though they are very different, they are actually about the same fun...

From the Super League to Jake Paul's boxing career, sport has been letting me down lately. I spoke to Pod God Seán Sheehan to get him to restore my faith in what is - or should be - a glorious and indispensable part of our lives.

Finally, soccer's Super League has announced itself, and the only surprise is that people are surprised. The somersaulting hypocrisy is not just limited to ex-pros and broadcasters either - we all bear some share of the blame...

Is the recent violence in Northern Ireland a return to the dark days, or a once-off in a relatively stable piece? Writer Emma De Souza joins me to put it all in context.

In 2018 I interviewed biathlete Sebastian Samuelsson, and hours after it was published he started to get death threats. The young Swede spoke out about doping in his sport and not everyone was OK with that - especially not Russian fans, whose athletes weren't allowed to compete under their own flag at the Olympics due to the situation there. He joined me to talk about speaking out, winning gold in...

There is increasing support for a boycott of the Qatar World Cup among Scandinavian soccer fans, and one leading journalist has already decided that she won't be taking part - Johanna Franden joins me to talk sportswashing and the return to the Swedish national team of a certain Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Turn on your radio in Ireland and you'll hear some of the best music anywhere in the world - but it will most likely be by a man. Linda Coogan Byrne started "Why Not Her?" to get an answer to that very simple questions - why do Irish female artists only get a fraction of the airplay they deserve? She spoke to me about anonymous veiled threats, the truth of the data and what needs to change for ine...

Healthcare for transgender people is coming up short in many European countries, Ireland among them. For the most part, non-trans people know very little about the current situation and the effect that it is having on the lives and health of thousands of people. As a community aid officer at Transgender Equality Network Ireland Noah Halpin is an advocate and activist trying to help other tran...

Keith Begg and 200 others critical of Sweden's Covid-19 mitigation strategy had a private Facebook group where they aired their opinions and discussed what to do about it. A media report about the group shot the Irishman, who is also a Swedish citizen, into the public eye, and not in a good way; described as everything from a traitor to a threat to national security, he received a threat at his ho...

A throwaway tweet of mine went viral this week, prompting hundreds of replies and millions of views, but at the same time drowning out any possibility of real engagement. What have I learned from it? You can find out here...

A frankly bizarre story attacking critics of Sweden's Covid-19 strategy appeared yesterday, in which the 200 members of a closed Facebook group were all but accused of treason. The publishing of the story and the response to it says more about Sweden's national state of mind than it might wish to admit, and I was joined by epidemiologist and public health expert David Steadson to talk about the cu...

Professional boxing has always had its share of dodgy characters but the sport has never faced anything like Daniel Kinahan. A man named in Irish courts as being one of the biggest gangland figures in Europe is effectively an agent and advisor for some of the biggest names in the game - and there is a lot of silence around his burgeoning influence. A recent BBC Panorama documentary brought his nam...

My first journey abroad in ten months took me to Abu Dhabi in the Middle East to cover a sporting event, where I discovered the real winners and losers can be measured in terms of how free they are to express themselves.

It's that time of the year when articles and social media posts are trying to shame us off the sofa and into the gym, using the extra weight gained over lockdown or Christmas as a stick to beat us with. Many of us try different things to lose weight and get fit every year, but all too often we fail, which ends up feeling even worse. I spoke to professional fighter and all-round good guy Paul Redmo...

An attempted coup in the seat of America's democracy finally brought the media's focus onto the far right and what it is capable of, and the final days of Trump's presidency will be a damage limitation exercise as the world scrambles to orient itself to a new normal. But will the forces that fostered his failure of a presidency just fade away? Journalist and conflict reporter Sulome Anderson, who...