The Mick Clifford Podcast

On 25 February last on a small farm in North Cork, Johnny Hennessy killed his two brothers Paddy and Willie and then drowned himself in a nearby river. The three brothers had been close, their lives since childhood having largely revolved around the family farm. They were regarded as ordinary, decent hard working men. So what happened to prompt this tragedy and could anything have been done to pre...

Frank O’Rourke lost his Dail seat, which he had held for one term, in 2020. In the days prior to the election, there was both a physical leaflet drop and an online campaign which spread scurrilous lies about his personal life. He believes the campaign led directly to his loss and he launched a legal action against social media companies. One culprit was identified as having issued a defamatory twe...

Imelda Wickham spent twenty years as a prison chaplain in one of Ireland’s largest prisons. During that time she met hundreds of prisoners and their families and her experience has led her to the conclusion that for the greater part prison doesn’t work. She talks about the kind of people she met over her years as chaplain and the families of prisoners who have to bear their own burden. She also ex...

Three sisters and their cousin suffered prolonged abuse as children at the home of their uncle in Dublin. On November 1, Patrick Caffrey with an address at Grove Road, Harold’s Cross was sentenced to three years in prison. The ending of the legal process was a relief for the three Odumosu sisters, Grace, Siobhan and Fiona and their cousin Linda McDonagh. But the experience from the point where the...

Robert Harris has, for the last thirty four years, spent at least six months every year living in Skellig Michael. His job description was originally caretaker/guide but he has come to be a keeper of the Rock and its heritage and role as a bird sanctuary. Robert has now written a moving and fascinating account of the rock, its power and his relationship with it, entitled Returning Light: 30 Ye.ars...

Anne Daly and Ronan Tynan’s latest documentary Bringing Assad To Justice examines the attempts by hundreds of exiled Syrians to gather enough evidence to ensure that one day Bashar al Assad will have to stand trials for his war crimes. This is the Irish filmmaker’s second piece of work on the war in Syria where at least 350,000 people have died and six million have been forced to leave the country...

Are Irish voters moving to the left and if so why? Results from the 2020 general election appear to indicate that a growing number of voters are now voting on the left of the political spectrum. But is this a fad, or related to specific issues in that election, or is it part of a growing trend in this country? If there is a move to the left then it is coming at a time when many countries in Europe...

At a time when climate change is taking up more of the public square questions are being raised as to how we can all live more sustainably. To that end environmental scientist Tara Shine has penned a book How To Save Your Planet One Object At A time. The book shows how we can all make little changes incrementally in our daily lives that will ultimately not just save the planet but most likely save...

This week a whistleblower told the US senate about how Facebook had suppressed research that showed the serious impact that use of the company’s Instagram platform can have on young women and girls. Frances Haugen said that anytime it came to a conflict between public safety and profit, Facebook always opted for the latter. So how harmful is the culture of Facebook and Instagram and what can be do...

Are you a confident person or do you lack confidence? How does it feel to be confident and how can you get a little of that if you don’t have it. How powerful is the collective confidence in nations, large groups or even sports teams? And what is the crucial connection between confidence and action? Ian Robertson is Emeritus Professor of Psychology in Trinity College Dublin and he has written a fa...

How much do the big tech companies, led by Facebook, Google and Amazon, know about you? How big an influence do they have on your life without you even realising it? The role of big tech in all our lives has increased exponentially in recent years but a question arises as to whether elected governments have kept up with them to the extent that they can protect us, the citizens. Johnny Ryan of the...

The exhumation of the body of ‘Baby John’ this week has once again awoken interest in the Kerry Babies case. The gardai are anxious to find the mother of the baby whose body was found on the White Strand in Cahirciveen in April 1984 with twenty eight stab wounds. So how close are the gardai to actually finding, after all these years, the missing person in this case of tragedy and injustice? Donal...

Have you ever fantasised about the phone call to tell you a long lost and forgotten great aunt has just died and left you a forture? Maeve Mullin is a genealogist whose work includes tracking down the beneficiaries of Wills who could be the lucky recipient of such a phone call. Her work in Findersinternational brings her in contact with a treasure trove of human stories about love and loss and the...

In 1976 the Cork-Dublin mail train was robbed setting off a series of events that led to a major miscarriage of justice. Osgur Breatnach was one of three men convicted and later cleared of the robbery. Another was Nicky Kelly, whose case came to international prominence when he went on a hunger strike prior to being released from prison and ultimately pardoned. For the last forty five years Breatn...

As the Taliban exerts control on Afghanistan and women’s basic rights come under attack again we speak to a woman from another part of the Islamic world who was subjected to a forced marriage. Dalal Alshohaib met the man she was told would be her husband when she was 18 and was forced to marry him a year later in her native Saudi Arabia. She managed to eventually get out of the marriage and now li...

Bryan McDonald is an Irish journalist working for the Russian online newspaper, Russia Today. From his home in the city of Sochi on the Black Sea he spoke to the podcast about how the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban is being viewed in his adopted country. He also spoke about what he says are misplaced western views about Russia, the very black economy there, how free or otherwise the media real...

The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this week has provided a wake up call for the world at large. We can no longer continue to live as we have, particularly those of us who inhabit the wealthier countries. A huge reduction in carbon emissions will be necessary to stave off the worst aspects of the changing climate. But what exactly will this mean for all of us over the co...

Vera Regan is Professor of Sociolinguistics in UCD and she listens to people professionally to find out and analyse why they speak as they do. How much does your language say about you, where you came from and where you aspire to go? Why do we use the words we use and why do some of us use words that others avoid? And where do you insert, like, the word like, not to mind the often annoying word, s...

In July 1921 a truce was called in the War of Independence bringing to an end a conflict that was to shape the future of this island. The truce also ended a unity of purpose among Irish nationalists that had flourished since the Rising in 1916, to be replaced by a politics that was to last in one form or another for the following century. But what was it like for the man and woman in the street in...

Two documentaries on the murder of Frenchwoman Sophie Toscan du Plantier in West Cork in 1996 have recently been released. Ian Bailey, who was the chief suspect for the murder in its aftermath is a central figure in both productions. This week, he spoke to the podcast about how the documentaries have awoken interest in the case, their impact on him and how his life has altered significantly in rec...

Twenty years after journalist Susan McKay wrote a book about Northern Protestants, she once more takes the temperature of the tradition right across society in the north with her new book, Northern Protestants: On Shifting Ground. The publication comes at a time when the ground is indeed shifting, with the fall-out from Brexit and an increasing number of people wondering whether the march towards...

Rebecca and Pat were told that their unborn baby had a fatal foetal abnormality and proceeded to have a termination as a result. Three weeks later they discovered that the information they received was completely incorrect. Their baby was perfectly normal. On Wednesday they settled a High Court action with those involved in the catastrophic error. The couple are this week’s guests on the Podcast....

Should one-off housing be allowed to a much greater extent than it is and would that contribute towards tackling the housing crisis? Irish Examiner Deputy Political Editor Elaine Loughlin is this week’s guest on the podcast where she sets out the case for a more innovative approach to one-off housing at a time when communities across the country are seeing so many young people fleeing rural Irelan...

This year marks the centenary of one of the most momentous years in the country’s history. Arthur Griffith was a leading figure during the revolutionary period who has perhaps not been remembered with the same respect and affection as others. Founder of Sinn Fein in 1905, friend of the 1916 leaders, president of the provisional government while DeValera was in the USA and one of the chief negotiat...

This week’s guest Saoirse Exton is worried about the planet, the future and the failure of those who lead to act against the dangers. Saoirse is a 15-year-old transition year student in Limerick who wrote to the Irish Examiner to express her anger and concern at the apparent disregard for the ravages of climate change. She is already an experienced activist in her young life and rightly feels that...