The Mario Rosenstock Podcast

Its a question that women have to ask each other all too regularly at the end of a night out, and for standup comedians Claire Roche  and Justine Halpin, it was time to start talking about why. Claire and Justine wanted to start a wider conversation about the issue, bit not in a preachy way, so they put together a standup comedy show called 'Are Ya Alright Getting Home?' Come and laugh throug...

Ian O’Doherty has been a very regular fixture on Irish TV and radio, and in print, for many years now. His columns in the Irish Independent have always attracted a lot of attention – because they often challenge accepted truths and give voice to so-called ‘unpopular opinions’. In fact he sees doing this as an essential part of the role of a journalist. Ian has just launched his own podcast called...

It’s time for a second helping of the great writer, thinker and commentator, Fintan O’Toole.  Fintan has spent a lot time in the United States, including twelve years as a visiting professor in Princeton, so he has lots to say about American culture and politics, which we get into on this episode. We also chat about Brexit, the state of modern journalism, covering the culture wars, and if he’...

Political reporter Gavan Reilly has been in the Oval Office twice – the first time was during Donald Trump’s first term as US President, and the second was during Trump’s current term. In this bonus episode Gavan tells me what its like to be up close and personal with Donald J Trump and he shares his thoughts on his politics, his personality, and even his physical demeanour.

Fintan has been one of the top thinkers, writers, and speakers in Ireland for as long as I can remember. He has so much to say about so many things and always has a deeply thought-out and fresh perspective on the big issues. So when we get stuck in to a great conversation, I let it run for as long as he’ll let me! This is part one of a two-part conversation we've just recorded, covering immigratio...

As the saying now goes, what happens in Leinster House…ends up in Gavan Reilly’s new book, ‘The Secret Life of Leinster House: what you really need to know about how the country runs’.  Gavan is a former colleague of mine from back when he was the correspondent for Today FM and Newstalk. He now leads Virgin Media’s political coverage and he’s also one of the presenters of the great Group Chat...

A couple of weeks ago Dave Hannigan joined me to share the fascinating story of how a Kerry man called Butty Sugrue managed to convince the one and only Muhammad Ali to come to Ireland and fight Alvin Lewis in Croke Park. It’s a fantastic yarn and if you didn’t hear it, I’d strongly recommend doing so. But Dave has lived in the US for over 25 years and so I couldn’t let him go without getting his...

He joined me here on the podcast a couple of years ago but he’s such a brilliant character and so much has happened in his life since we last met, that it was high time we did it again. Born into a highly dysfunctional family, Willa White became addicted to solvents by the age of 7, which was followed by several years of heroin and alcohol abuse, stints in prison, and mental breakdowns.  The...

Lisa Harding and I go way back, right back to Trinity College Dublin in the early 90s where we both did our degrees and became very involved in acting. We both went on to pursue acting careers, however neither of us decided to stay on that path but we ended up succeeding in different, yet still related careers.  In Lisa’s case, that career was writing fiction, something that she has excelled...

Picture the scene – its 1972, Ireland is a very different place to what it is today, the country is very monocultural and  feels isolated out on the periphery of Europe. Its all a bit grey.  Enter from stage left, one of the most interesting,  charismatic and successful sports stars in the world – the great Muhammad Ali – and he’s here to fight in Croke park stadium.  The story...

As a big fan of all things Cork, I was delighted a couple of years back to come across a fantastic ‘pure-cork’ comedy character called Reggie from the Blackrock Road. Reggie is a very old-money, conservative and highly snobby character who has a lot to say about a lot of people, very little of it complimentary. I find him hilarious.  Reggie is the brainchild of journalist, writer, and comedia...

(…and what we can do about it). Dermot Whelan and I worked together in Today FM for many years, until he made the decision to leave the Dermot and Dave show to focus on his wellness business and pursue his passion for making mindfulness accessible and relatable to everyone.  And since he has been doing this work, the two words that people have said to him most are ‘busy and wrecked’. So he se...

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 possible aware of the crimes they commit. So who’d want to do a job like that? Well, Nicola Tallant for one. Nicola is one of Ireland’s best-known crime journalists. A...

He was the star hurler who gave it all up to travel across Asia, spending months meditating in a Buddhist temple in Thailand, then returning home to live in the wilds of Kerry and become a champion of Irish culture, language and spiritualism. Diarmuid Lyng’s life has been far from conventional.   Diarmuid has spent a lot of time thinking about his life and his purpose in life – and he has had...

I have always loved my chats with Larissa Nolan, Features Editor and Columnist at the Irish Mirror. She always has a fresh, interesting and quite frankly brave take on the things that capture the public imagination from time to time. So when the chatter about the rise of toxic masculinity reached a new level recently, I knew who to call. Its being fuelled by stories like like the Trump / JD Vance&...

How does your childhood shape you as an adult and impact your career choices? That’s the theme of a new GoLoud podcast hosted by comedians Karl Spain and Tony Kelly, and its also what we chat about on this episode of The Mario Rosenstock Podcast. You might remember Tony from previous episodes of this podcast – he’s the Waterford man that dreamt of making a movie and after a lot of hard work, grit...

He'll openly admit that he's not the best dancer in the world, but chef Kevin Dundon certainly captured the public's imagination on the most recent series of RTE's Dancing with the Stars and the people of Ireland voted to keep him in week after week. But the fact that he stayed in for so long while some very good dancers were getting voted off also wound a few people up and the so-called controver...

Just over two years ago, Melanie Finn was doing the school run when suddenly she found herself lying on her side in the middle of the road with her kids staring down at her. She couldn’t remember what happened, and like many busy working parents, she put it to the back of her mind and went about her day. A short time later, she was undergoing emergency brain surgery. In this episode of the Mario R...

After running one of Ireland’s top restaurants for over 30 years, Derry Clarke has a lot of great stories to share.  L’Ecrivain was high-end,  Michelin starred, and attracted international celebrities and wealthy business people from all over the world, as well as diners who were  just splashing out for a special occasion. Derry ran the restaurant throughout the heady days of the Ce...

What’s it like to get back on the dating scene in your 40s, after years of marriage and zero experience of the online dating world? Actor and comedian Norma Sheahan knows all about it and she reveals ALL on this episode.   You’ll recognise Norma from shows like Bridget and Eamon, The Clinic, Moone Boy, and more recently, Kneecap. She was also a regular guest on my Today FM radio show, Mario’s...

I meet a lot of very hard working people on this podcast and Donal Skehan must be up there with one of the hardest working of them all. He’s a true grafter and someone I really admire. After spending years in the music industry, and with a couple of Irish number 1s under his belt, Donal followed his lifelong passion for food and created a remarkable career for himself in that world. He has over 11...

It’s hard to get away from Trump and his tough talk on tariffs these days. But what exactly are tariffs, how do they work, and why should we care about them? One person I have often turned to when I wanted to understand complex economic stories is Constantin Gurdgiev. Constantin used to live in Ireland and during the economic recession he was all over the media, breaking down what it all meant in...

He’s one of Ireland’s most intelligent, interesting and, at times, incendiary characters, and he’s also one of the people I most love to interview. Eamon Dunphy, having put his podcast The Stand on pause after over 2000 episodes, is now embarking on his next adventure. And on this episode of The Mario Rosenstock Podcast, he tells me all about it. But as you might expect from Dunphy, there are a fe...

Alan O’Reilly of Carlow Weather has become a bit of a phenomenon in the last few years. He loves weather, he loves IT, and he loves turning complex information in to plain English, and when he combines all three, he turns into a highly accurate predictor of the notoriously unpredictable Irish weather. Alan has now become so well-known, that I had to make him the star of a gift grub sketch. But I a...

Neil Delamere is a man of many talents – he’s best known as one of Ireland’s leading comedians, but did you know that he’s also a very talented quizzer? He’s been a contestant on The Chase with Bradley Walsh, Beat the Chasers, Celebrity mastermind, a panellist on  QI and the dictionary corner guy on Countdown!  He’s a very intelligent and funny guy, and he’s also great storyteller – and...