The Mick Clifford Podcast

How long does it take to be radicalised online? Caolan Robertson reckons as short as six weeks and he should know because he was radicalised and went on to make videos for You Tube for a range of different right wing extremists and conspiracy theorists. He travelled extensively making these films, including back to his native Ireland at the time of the Eighth amendment referendum. Today, he is ded...

Normal fare in politics has resumed with a bang as we appear to be finally heading out of the pandemic. Housing is the issue that is dominating and according to this week’s guest, Irish Examiner political editor Danny McConnell, it is also likely to be the front and centre all the way to the next election. Danny talks about how this government and its predecessor appears to have missed a trick in...

This week’s report from the ESRI says that the millennial generation in this country is likely to be the first to be worse off than their parents. Stagnant wages, and particularly rising house prices and rent, mean that those in their 20s and 30s are experiencing serious struggle to follow the well trod path of settling down and owning their own home. So what is it really like for those who left e...

Kieran McCarthy is a former IRA member and a former Sinn Fein councillor. He left the party after a falling-out in 2015. Unlike others who have left he is largely in agreement with the Sinn Fein political project and is not a critic of the party, although he has some issues about how his time there came to an end. He spoke to the podcast about his past in the IRA, his belief that the campaign of v...

Author Mark O’Connell spent two years travelling around the globe meeting individuals and groups who are preparing for, well, the end. ‘Notes From an Apocalypse – A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back’ is his fascinating and humorous account of what makes these people tick and how he can relate to some of their anxiety. Mark is this week’s guest on the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See a...

Frank Serpico exposed major corruption in the New York Police Department and his story spawned the Hollywood classic movie, Serpico, with Al Pacino in the eponymous role. Fifty years later, Frank Serpico is going strong, railing against corruption, finding new hope in nature and still carrying the bullet in his head since the night he was shot in controversial circumstances. He talks to the podcas...

With outdoor activity opening up again for children and adults, will it just be a question of picking up where we left off? What impact did the lockdown and the pandemic have on the development of children, particularly in the relationship so many of them have with sport? Will the events of the last fifteen months prompt sporting organisations to rethink how to engage with children and those attra...

Linda Doyle this week became the first woman Provost in Trinity College’s 429 year history. She talks to the podcast about growing up in Cork, how she came to study engineering in UCC and why at first she thought she would never fit into Trinity. As the only professor of both Engineering and the Arts in the world, she explains how the disciplines compliment each other by looking at the world from...

Jude Sherry and Frank O’Connor are urban designers who moved from Amsterdam to Cork three years ago. Their experience abroad living and working in cities that have been repopulated in recent decades prompted them to look around their new environs and envisage a vibrant future, where hundreds of derelict buildings are transformed into living hubs. But how do you get there? How do you transform the...

Derek Scally’s book, The Best Catholics In The World, is part personal journey, part reportage and full of insight into the role of the Catholic Church in Irish society down through the ages and recent decades. He traces over his own childhood, speaks to those who still worship and to some of the leading figures in the decline and fall. He also provides a fresh perspective into the complicated rel...

In December 2017, Paddy Moriarty, a native of Abbeyfeale, Co Limerick went missing for his home in the Australian outback. He lived in the town of Larimah, pop 12. He disappeared along with his dog. There was no sign of a struggle or anything out of the ordinary in his home. Pretty soon, the police suspected he was the victim of foul play. But who in the tiny hamlet would want to have done harm to...

Seamus O’Mahony is an author and doctor who brings wry observations, dark humour and social awareness to the books he has written while practicing as a consultant gastroenterologist in Cork University Hospital. He retired last year just before Covid hit and his latest book The Ministry of Bodies has been described as “a brew of madness and sadness worthy of Flann O’Brien". Hosted on Acast. See aca...

Economist Seamus Coffey and trade unionist Brendan Ogle have opposing views on whether or not Ireland is a relatively equal or unequal country and whether it is heading in the right direction in that respect. Both have recently produced work putting forward their respective positions. They debate here cogently and with not a little fire and sparks. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more i...

This week a married couple, both solicitors, were jailed for an elaborate fraud that robbed banks of credit unions of at least €400,000. The couple, who had been in practice in Cork used false identities, scanners and disguises including wigs, to pull off their sophisticated criminal enterprise. The Irish Examiner’s Noel Baker reported on the story for the newspaper and he tells the podcast of the...

As we approach the first anniversary of the arrival of the coronavirus on these shores, public health specialist Dr Orla Healy discusses the rollout of the vaccine in this phase of the pandemic. She talks about any possible pressure points in the roll-out and how the development of vaccines has been transformed in this pandemic. Dr Healy, who is leading the Covid Response for the HSE in the South...

Worrying activity online and the targeting of high profile individuals from a minority background formed the basis of an investigative piece of journalism by Irish Examiner reporters Aoife Moore and Paul Hosford. Aoife tells the podcast why serious vigilance is required to ensure that a campaign of hate does not take hold in this country as it has elsewhere. Also, she explains why the latest contr...

Saoirse McHugh had a brief but high profile time as an election candidate for the Green party. The 30-year-old activist narrowly missed being elected to the European parliament, subsequently missed out on a Dail seat and then resigned from the party in opposition to the decision to go into government. Here the environmental activist discusses her time in the party but also where she sees climate c...

Denis Eustace is the fifth generation of his family to train and practice as a consultant psychiatrist. He has specialised in later life mental health. Since the onset of the pandemic he says that he and colleagues are noticing some very worrying features in the mental health of older people. Fear and isolation are contributing to a rise in people experiencing mild cognitive impairment and more ne...

Last week, the former minister for Social Protection became the first parliamentarian from the government benches to criticise the Mother and Baby Homes Commission report. Now the leader of the Seanad, she talks about what she feels needs to be done for survivors of the homes. She also explains why she changed her mind after initially indicating she would leave politics when she lost her seat, and...

The report of the Commission of Investigation into the Mother and Baby homes has answered some questions and left many others hanging about the treatment of women who gave birth outside of marriage in twentieth century Ireland, and the fate of their babies. For whom was the investigation conducted? Was it for those who gave birth and were born in these homes, or was it to provide the state with a...

Financial consultant Eddie Hobbs takes out his crystal ball and looks into the future as it might unfold once we get the pandemic under control. That future, according to Eddie, could well be determined by a technocracy of the world elite who meet and make plans under the guise of bodies like the World Economic Forum. He cautions that the democratic world must be vigilant to avoid being subjected...

War of Independence Podcast - Part Four:WOMEN OF THEIR TIME: Helene O’Keeffe. The role of women during the revolutionary period had, until recent decades, not so much been written out but not written in at all. That is beginning to change with greater research into the roles played by women both inside and outside Cumann na mBan. Helene O’Keeffe speaks here about a number of the women who made ser...

The Irish Examiner political team runs the rule over the ministers in the government since its formation last June. Danny McConnell, Elaine Loughlin, Paul Hosford and Aoife Moore give their individual assessments and markings out of 10 for each of the ministers who have governed during what must be one of the most difficult times in a generation. There are a few surprises in there, some who have d...

Alice Leahy is this week’s guest. She talks about the people who visit the Alice Leahy Trust at this time of year, particularly those who have no homes and quite often simply don’t fit into society. Alice has been running the Trust Agency, which is a drop in centre in Dublin’s inner city, for more than forty years and she wonders whether the pandemic will have given people the opportunity to slow...

Mick Clifford talks to John Borgonovo on the War of Independence. The War of Independence was an early example of guerrilla warfare, fought with the co-operation and consent of the native population. But how intense was the war? What kind of people were the volunteers and how did they operate and engage with the native population and how did they deal with informers? Dr John Borgonovo is the guest...