The Mick Clifford Podcast

Summary results for last year’s census were published this week and they provide a snapshot of where exactly Ireland is now. Senior statistician at the Central Statistics Office, Cormac Halpin spoke on the podcast about what the change are and what they mean. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On 24 May 1923 the Irish Civil War ended with the order to dump arms. This is one of the final major occasions to be examined in the centenary of the revolutionary decade, a time when the newly independent state finally had a chance to breathe. So how did it come about, and what was left at the end of a conflict that exercise a huge toll on a public that was already exhausted and damaged. Historia...

In October 1984 the IRA attempted to kill Margaret Thatcher with a bomb in the Grand Hotel in Brighton where she was staying for a Conservative party conference. The plot failed but five other people died. It was the most audacious attempt at assassination that the Provos had undertaken over the course of the Troubles. The story of the Brighton bomb, who plotted it, who carried out the plan, and h...

Speculation over who exactly will take over as presenter of the Late Late Show has been mounting as various presumed candidates have stepped forward to declare that they are not interested. So who is now the favourite and can he or she manage to ensure that the show maintains its relevance in a world transformed from the days when the show was unmissable. Professor Jane Suiter from DCU discusses t...

Next month a brother and sister from a highly successful Co Kerry family which made good in New York are due to be sentenced for fraud offences. Donal and Helen O’Sullivan were found guilty of the offences in relation to contributions from their construction company to union funds. It’s all a long way from Ballinskelligs in south Kerry where the family grew up and a long way from the dizzying succ...

This week an inquest into the deaths of forty eight young people in a fire in the Stardust disco in North Dublin in 1981 opened. It’s been a long, torturous journey for the bereaved to a point where they believe there is a very good chance of the truth of what happened to their loved ones finally being established. Irish Examiner reporter Sean Murray has been following the journey of the Stardust...

The acquittal of Gerry ‘the Monk’ Hutch on the charge of murder this week has raised a whole host of questions, mostly for the gardai and the DPP. Why was this case ever brought? How did anybody build a case around the main prosecution witness, Jonathan Dowdall, whose character was ripped apart in the witness box? What does the ruling say about the controversial Special Criminal Court? And why doe...

The debates on the Anglo Irish Treaty which took place in December 1921 into January 1922 were historic and tragic, leading ultimately to the Civil War. Poet Theo Dorgan adapted the debates for Anu Productions which staged a ten hour production over four nights and was ultimately streamed on RTE last Saturday, the centenary of the vote on the treaty. The result is enthralling and pr...

The Irish Examiner’s political correspondent has the lowdown on what exactly the government and state apparatus are doing to celebrate the twenty fifth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Paul also talks about his own family in which he discovered during childhood that his grandfather was from the North yet the Troubles were never discussed. Then there is his own contribution to cross border...

Prominent members of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael harbouring escaped IRA men, kidnappings replacing armed robberies, gardai saluting IRA funerals, agricultural grants used to build sheds for storing bombs, a plan to flood the economy with counterfeit £10 notes. Those were just some of the incidents and activities in the Republic of Ireland in the 1980s while a violent conflict was taking place just n...

Carmel McMahon immigrated to New York when she was twenty with a suitcase of dreams and plenty of unseen baggage. Her time in the city was marked by both awakenings and struggle, most of it personal, including bereavement and a long battle with alcohol. In a lyrical memoir she combines her personal and family story with that of the history of the country of her birth and how trauma can be passed d...

Tina Satchwell went missing on 20 March 2017. The Cork woman was much loved by her family and did not overtly appear to have any problems in the world. The case has baffled gardai who have been involved in both a widespread search and a thorough investigation of the case. One senior garda source told the Irish Examiner that they are convinced there is somebody out there who can provide further clu...

This week it was announced that the director of Social Justice Ireland Fr Sean Healy was stepping down from his role after half a century working on behalf of the most marginalised in society. Along with his co-founder of SJI, Sr Brigid Reynolds, he is calling it a day to make way for the next generation. On the podcast he speaks about his origins in Cork, his early experiences in Africa, how Bert...

This month one hundred years ago the civil war reached its nadir with some horrific outrages in Co Kerry. Combatants on both sides died in terrible circumstances, including the outrage at Ballyseedy where nine men were tied around a mine and blown up. Miraculously one, Stephen Fuller, survived. This week's podcast guest is Historian Owen O’Shea, he looks back on those violent weeks and the subsequ...

Forty years ago, Fr Patrick Ryan, a native of Doon in Co Limerick, was murdered in Texas. He had been living in the USA for a just three years after a career largely spent in Ireland and Africa. Pretty quickly a native American man James Reyos was arrested and charged with the murder. He was convicted and has spent the last four decades in prison or restricted in his movements on parole. Now, new...

Protests against asylum seekers and refugees in recent weeks have given rise to the possibility that the far right may be in a position to enter the political arena in the near future. Throughout Europe, far right parties have been gaining strength over the last twenty years on a broad anti-immigration platform. That has not happened in this country but is it about to change? Political academic an...

As a young reporter, Ellen McGarrahan witnessed a botched execution of Jesse Tafero, who had been found guilty of murdering two police officers in Florida. Tefero’s girlfriend and co-accused Sunny Jacobs was also due to be executed but this was commuted and, following further legal challenges freed from prison. Sunny subsequently married Peter Pringle, who had been sentenced to death in 1980 for t...

This winter the country once again endured some shocking scenes of people lying on trollies in emergency departments in hospitals across the state. Then the crisis appeared to pass and many simply moved on. But the crisis hasn’t passed and lives are being lost throughout the year because of the crisis. Long serving consultant in emergency medicine Fergal Hickey has been a keen observer of the poli...

One off housing has been a hot political potato for decades, and is still in the news. The government is due to issue new rules for one off housing at a time when there are objections to the whole concept for sustainability reasons but on the other hand some say that it has a role in play in tackling the housing crisis. Writer Adrian Duncan’s Little Republics – The Story of Bungalow Bliss fea...

This week the government announced a €2.5bn redress scheme for the owners of apartments stuck by fire and other defects. The scheme comes at the end of a long campaign by homeowners but also raises questions about culpability. The state has acknowledged that regulation was, to put it at its mildest, lax during the frantic building boom of the 2000s, but what about the builders who threw up sub sta...

The debates on the Anglo Irish Treaty which took place in December 1921 into January 1922 were historic and tragic, leading ultimately to the Civil War. Poet Theo Dorgan adapted the debates for Anu Productions which staged a ten hour production over four nights and was ultimately streamed on RTE last Saturday, the centenary of the vote on the treaty. The result is enthralling and profoundly sad in...

What does the year ahead hold for politics? Irish Examiner political editor and current journalist of the year Danny McConnell joins Mick to give his forecasts on what to expect from the government under Leo Varadkar’s stewardship, what exactly to expect from the Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien, whether Micheal Martin is likely to lead his party into the next election and will Mary Lou McDona...

Gavan Ring, one of Ireland’s leading tenors, talks about his life and work, performing post Covid, and why, when looking for a place to stay, it’s always better to describe oneself as an opera singer rather than a freelance musician! Gavan is this week’s guest on the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week’s podcast, the last of the year, looks back on the political year with Irish Examiner Deputy Political Editor, Elaine Loughlin. Who can face into the turkey and ham with a smug and relaxing demeanour and who realises they will have to do a lot better once the New Year bells are silent. Will the government, under its new Taoiseach, make an inroads into tackling the housing crisis, and wha...

The Special Criminal Court is hearing evidence in the trial of Gerard ‘the Monk’ Hutch and two others for the murder of David Byrne at the Regnecy hotel in Dublin in February 2016. The chief prosection witness, a long time family friend of Hutch’s, is giving state’s evidence against his former friend. The testimony has been riveting, offering an insight into Dowdall’s version of gangland crime and...