The Mario Rosenstock Podcast

  Mike Hanrahan has spent over forty years writing, performing and championing Irish music. He spent fifteen years with Stockton's Wing, writing hits such as Beautiful affair and Over the Moors,  which was the theme tune for Joe Duffys radio show for over 40 years until recently (and Mike has a very strong opinion on the decision to drop it) He went on to spend ten years writing and perf...

Lucy Kennedy’s hit TV show ‘Living with Lucy’ has been a huge success and so much of that is down to Lucy’s disarmingly relaxed and authentic style of interviewing – in fact it doesn’t even really feel like an interview, more of a very causal chat, which is why the celebs she moves in with are so open and honest with her. As well as being a tv presenter , Lucy is also the co host of the breakfast...

My conversation with Greg Allen continues, with more great stories and sports insights in this episode.  Greg has spent over 40 years covering golf and athletics on RTE, and in this part of our chat he shares early memories of watching Rory Mcllroy play, what he thought at the time, and where he thinks his career is headed now. We hear stories about his interviews with famous golfers includin...

Greg Allen joined RTE’s sports department over 40 years ago and he intentionally decided to focus on two sports that weren’t particularly widely covered, so that he could develop a niche for himself and make his mark. He chose well, as Ireland has since become a global force in golf and athletics , and Greg has had a front-row seat to that remarkable transformation. He has covered 10 Olympic games...

Ever since he was a kid, all Jack Lukeman (aka Jack L) wanted to do was to write and perform music - and he has managed to make a very long and successful career out of it, with multi-platinum selling albums and thousands of gigs under his belt. And it certainly helped that he has one of the most recognisable voices in the industry. But as well as writing and performing music, Jack also thinks a l...

This is the second part of my chat with Craig Doyle, and we’ve kept some of his best stories for this episode. Craig talks about how ITV’s This Morning survived the Phillip Schofield saga, the time when he played football with Diego Maradona and many other top players, and the recent Geoff Parling viral video in which Craig played an unfortunate starring role. COMEDY – Roy Keane, Patrick Kielty, a...

If you ask Chat GPT about Craig Doyle, one of the things it will say is: Craig gives off “good bloke who accidentally wandered into television and stayed there” energy. And when I put this to Craig he didn’t disagree! Because even though he has presented some of the UK’s most-watched shows, a career on camera was never really part of Craig’s grand plan. And the story of how it all happened is a gr...

A couple of episodes back Gerry Mullins told me the fascinating story of Jonathon swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels, which is still by far the most successful book ever published by an Irish author. It was full of dangerous political commentary, so Swift was never able to put his name to it during his lifetime.  Today we have cancel culture, but back then people were ‘pilloried’ – tied up i...

Did you know that RTE’s Late Late Show is longest running chat show in TV history? For over 60 years it has been an institution in Ireland - entertaining huge audiences, reflecting societal changes, challenging the status quo, and setting the news agenda. But the show now seems to have reached something of a turning point – there are a lot more TV shows competing for our attention, numbers are fal...

She’s one of Ireland's hardest working and best-known performers, and her honesty and sense of humour is an absolute tonic, making Linda Martin a great podcast guest. Linda started singing professionally when she was just 16 yrs old and still in school, and she has pretty much been performing regularly ever since. During that 50-year career, Linda has been a nine-time National Song Contest contest...

You’ve heard of the book Gulliver’s Travels, but did you know that it’s by far the most successful book ever published by an Irish author? And that it contained such dangerous political commentary that Jonathon Swift was never able to put his name to it during his lifetime? Today we have cancel culture, but back then  people were ‘pilloried’ – tied up in wooden stocks, publicly shamed, and so...

What does your home reveal about you? Celebrity architect Dermot Bannon’s new show , Celebrity Super Spaces, brings us inside the front doors of well-known people where we learn something different about them. Because I guess our homes reflect our personalities, whats important to us, and maybe what we want people to think about us. Dermot tells me about visiting the homes of people like Joanne Mc...

Russell Watson and Gary Barlow have something in common – they both started their careers in Workingmen’s clubs across northern England, playing to audiences that were very hard to win over. They other quality they share is grit and determination, and so fast forward to today, and Russell is selling out concerts globally, he has performed for the Queen, the Pope and US presidents, topped the chart...

I just love talking about music and songwriting, so when I had the chance to interview   Grammy-nominated singer songwriter, RuthAnne Cunningham, it was never going to be a short conversation! So we divided out our chat across two episodes and this week its part 2.  Having written songs for some of the world’s biggest performers, including Niall Horan, Britney Spears, Westlife, Niall Hor...

RuthAnne Cunnigham has written songs for some of the world’s biggest performers, including Niall Horan, Britney Spears, Westlife, Niall Horan, Martin Garrix and One direction. She is a Grammy-nominated singer-song writer with multi-platinum global hits totally over 10bn steams and collaborations with greats like Diana Ross and John Legend. RuthAnne joined me on the Sunday Roast radio show on Today...

Ireland has produced a lot of sporting greats, but none quite like Roy Keane. He’s not just a footballer, or a pundit, or even a national obsession at this stage, he’s practically a genre of Irish conversation. And he’s someone that has been a big part of my career for many years, in particular with Radio Roy on Gift Grub. Dave Hannigan has just published new book called We Need To Talk About Roy...

I am a huge football fan, and I love the history of football too. I’m fascinated by the best players we’ve had the privilege of watching over the years, my all-time favourite being Diego Maradona , and also by the great managers like Alex Fergusson and Jose Mourinho – many of whom I’ve caricatured on Gift Grub over the years. And that’s why I was delighted when I received a copy of a new book abou...

Larissa Nolan, who you may know from previous episodes of the show, got in touch the other day about a story that she really wanted to talk about, and she wanted Karl Deeter , another friend of the show, to join the conversation too.   The story was about an incident that happened at the recent BAFTA awards on the BBC, where an actor with Tourette’s syndrome, whose life story inspired the awa...

Joe Conlon first walked on to the stage of the Gaiety Theatre at the age of 13 and he knew immediately that that’s where he wanted to be. Fast forward to today and Joe has become synonymous with Panto and theatre in Ireland. He spent 15 years as the iconic Gaiety panto dame, Nana, and has been in countless productions in that role and many others besides. Joe has now decided to hang up his panto b...

I have to say that I was genuinely moved by Brian Kennedy’s recent appearance on RTE’s Dancing with the Stars. In the last few years Brian has really been through the ringer - he has had cancer, a massive heart attack, and quadruple bypass surgery. He literally had to learn how to walk again three times after surgery – and then he goes dancing on national television. That takes guts and resilience...

Eoin McGee is one of Ireland’s best-known financial advisors, he’s also a TV presenter and an author. His latest book is called 'How to Achieve Financial Freedom – create enough wealth to stop working’ in which he shares advice about how we can all take more control of our wallets and become a lot more financially independent as a result. In this episode of The Mario Rosenstock Podcast, Eoin tells...

Joan Mulvihill has been a regular voice on all things tech for years– she was CEO of the Irish Internet Association, before working in Siemens for many years, and she was involved in a number of other tech-related organisations. But Joan is also a very accomplished artist and her great passion in life is working in the intersection between art and technology. We had such a unique and interesting c...

Mark Little has always been a few steps ahead, especially when it comes to technology and social media. He spent years at RTÉ, then made a jump that looked risky at the time (but turned out to be seriously smart)  to set up a social media intelligence company called Storyful. A few years later he sold it  to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and, after a short spell working for Twitter, Mark th...

While we’re on a short break we’re going back in to the vaults and replaying a couple of our most listened-to episodes of 2025 – enjoy! Niall Harbison was a very successful entrepreneur in Ireland, setting up and selling a social media marketing agency and the very popular and sometimes controversial ‘Lovin Dublin’ media brand. But a combination of burnout and partying too hard, too often, le...

While we’re on our short Christmas and New Year break we’re going back in to the vaults and replaying a couple of our most listened-to episodes of 2025 – enjoy! As far as careers go, crime journalism is up there with one of the most, let’s say, ‘unique’. Its not for the faint hearted – you’re dealing with dangerous people who do terrible things, and your job is to make as big an audience as possib...