The ClearOut

In this episode, Dara looks at the idea of psychological defeat and the metaphorical hills we are determined to die on. Fundamentally an issue of faith in one's own psyche and worldview, what happens when our confidence in that vision begins to crumble? Can faith be restored? A recent interview with Isabella Rossellini raised the spectre of women who no longer need men. Dara feels like he has been...

In this episode, Dara is spurred to reflect on Francis Ford Coppola's latest film, 'Megalopolis'. In the great master's wild and not-so-wonderful saga, one brilliant man carries the burden of saving society from itself, but must contend with a rival who epitomises more mundane aspirations. Is the film about Coppola himself, or is it his thesis statement of whose visions are worth following? Whatev...

In this episode, Dara shares final thoughts on the US presidential election and speculates that the Democrats still haven't shaken the patronising habit of belittling those who disagree with them. He argues that if you take this attitude in the world of martial arts, you are setting yourself up to fail - the assumption of superiority is a dangerous flex of ego that can result in complacency and ab...

In this episode, Dara reacts to the re-election of Donald Trump to the US presidency. Did the Democrats and Kamala Harris once again fail to take seriously Trump and the Republican voter base? Whatever the cause, politicians of the liberal centre or centre-left have not been convincing enough to get themselves back into power. Four more years of Trump is a worrying prospect for the larger wellness...

In this episode, Dara considers violence against women and the recent clear-eyed responses to it by Hollywood regulars Anna Kendrick and Saoirse Ronan, as seen in Kendrick's impressive directorial debut 'Woman of the Hour', and as heard in Ronan's bulletproof interjection on the Graham Norton show. After reviewing Kendrick's chilling movie and contextualising Ronan's comments, he recalls a key mom...

In this episode, Dara talks about the characters we respond to in the art we consume. Having been very stirred by 'Joker: Folie a Deux', he stays in the world of movies and finds himself thinking about Jungian archetypes and the shadow self we can see reflected at us from the big screen. Speaking about that film, which has heavily promoted Lady Gaga as the joint draw of the story along with Joaqui...

In this episode, Dara is still reeling after watching Coralie Fargeat's astonishing film 'The Substance', a scarifyingly vicious body-horror satire on the pressure that results from the extreme demands of celebrity and the beauty expectations inflicted on women. The film is centred around a TV fitness personality whose middle-age renders her undesirable in the eyes of the network. In a ferocious p...

In this episode, Dara considers the elements that contribute to our resentment buckets and shoulder chips. He believes time and the ease of others are two key ingredients in the mix. He confesses to giving voice to some very uncharitable resentfulness around the time he became a father. He also speaks carefully around a significant source of resentment in his marriage. Prickliness can accompany re...

In this episode, Dara shares his gripes about the utterly mediocre buddy movie Wolfs, starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt as two fixers reluctantly obliged to work together through a night of yuk-filled capers (SPOILER: THERE ARE NO YUKS!). The film is an ode to laziness, self-satisfaction, complacency and vanity, and has the gall to pay tribute in its final shot to a truly great buddy movie of...

In this episode, Dara reflects on a weekend spent with an old friend and his resultant fatigue, both psychological and intellectual. It prompts an interrogation of his belief and value systems and whether they are more or less valid than those of his friend's. He argues that it is healthy, and perhaps even necessary, to have someone you regard challenge you with love. Dara shares his response to a...

This episode is all about the presence of absence. How are your comfort levels with empty space and dead air? Do you struggle when the void isn't filled with something to stimulate? And more importantly, with what do you fill empty spaces and awkward silences? Dara reflects on his own tendency to default to anxiety and negative beliefs when uncertain spaces make themselves felt. He wonders how dif...

In this episode, Dara is looking for a pulse. After he and his daughter watched Adam Sandler's 2004 romcom, 50 First Dates, Dara was reminded why he wasn't a fan of the comedian's factory line movies - there were too many moments and gags that were completely devoid of life. He found something similar in the character played by Nicole Kidman in this year's A Family Affair, a film in which Zac Efro...

A very simple and straightforward episode this week - Dara reads a lengthy unabridged extract from Marlon Brando's autobiography - Songs My Mother Taught Me, published in 1994. Brando's voice is frank and accessible and he shares his thoughts on acting, fame, and various female lovers during the time of his emergence as America's most captivating actor. He also speaks about being a damaged child a...

In this episode, prompted by his cat and dog, Dara is considering the idea of essentialism. He talks about core dispositions and the perennial pitching of nature against nurture. He argues that there is very little that is not in the mix when it comes to how our identities emerge. He shares his thoughts about his daughter on this stage of her journey and wonders about her essential leaning. Along...

For the second time in the show's history, Dara is considering the questionable value of nostalgia. While allowing that there are wellness benefits to understanding the connection between nostalgia and loss, and the stark reality of nostalgia's relationship to ageing, there is something offensive about a particular brand of generalised nostalgia that regularly raises its unoriginal head on social...

In this episode, Dara doesn't know whether to eat the food or make love to it. He talks about all three seasons of The Bear, the brilliant TV show depicting the trials and tribulations of genius chef Carmen Berzatto and the colourful people who populate his messy, damaged world. Like the extraordinary food that leaves viewers in a state of mouthwatering wonder, the other elements of the show are b...

In this episode, Dara is reflecting on the good fortune of finding a new place to live, but he is wondering how to refer to The ClearOut's new home. His daughter has rejected his suggestions so far as being 'too cringe'. Hashtag Blessed is no more! What to call the new abode...? After a week off to facilitate the house move, it's back down to business. Dara considers the idea of 'rightness' and th...

In this episode Dara is giving out about recent bad movies, and not the 'so bad they're good' kind. Kevin Costner's Western opus Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 starts the party with its bloated scale, turgid pacing, and on-the-nose representations of archetypal stories and characters. Far too earnest and self-serious, Dara recommends at least half a dozen alternatives, including Michael Cim...

In this episode Dara is looking at two significant news stories from the big nations to Ireland's east and west. At the weekend just gone, Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidate and bete noire of liberals and humane humans everywhere, survived an assassination attempt. In Germany not long afterwards, England's national football team contested the final of the EURO 2024 tournament, and los...

In this episode, Dara is wondering about what comes next. We can never truly know what lies in the future so how do we cope with that uncertainty? Are we willing to step into the unknown without the security of a plan? Do we trust we have the resources to deal with what we find? Contextualising this dilemma in a world that seems to be spiralling out of control, and acknowledging the philosophical...

In this episode, Dara is taking time to express thanks to a place that has served him well over the last few years, and he's so determined to do so in a special way that he moves the podcast to the location he's honouring! At the end, when a certain flying creature appears, it's time to bring things to a close. No, it's not a dragon... Dara sets up to record in his garden and he explains why it ha...

In this episode, Dara looks at the Natasha O'Brien case which saw a young woman beaten unconscious in the street by a young man who wasn't known to her, and that same young man been given a suspended sentence so as not to jeopardise his career as an Irish soldier. There is nothing that isn't problematic about these events, but as ever, there are larger social questions to be asked beyond the ugly...

In this hot and bothered episode, Dara tries to address the issue of racism in Ireland in the wake of the hate and racist abuse directed at Rhadisat Adeleke last week after her triumphant performances at the European Athletics Championships. A topic covered on the show before around the Emer O'Neill/Tommy Tiernan story, it seems to need speaking about again. As part of his anti-racism strategy, Da...

In this episode, Dara reads a short story that is new to the listener but not to him. The story has a female protagonist and when he shared it with a female friend a few years ago, he was told that not all women felt the same way as the character he'd written. In reply he said he'd never thought that would be the case. In yet another example of the way assumptions and conflations are all too easil...

In this final part of his series on masculinity, Dara tries to bring things to a reasonable end. He talks about his lifelong attempt to embody a particular type of masculinity that was a direct response to sexist and reductive attitudes to men that he was exposed to in youth and early adulthood. In the context of the current trends in public discourse, Dara once again pushes against the idea of a...