The Women's Podcast

Last year, the Women of Honour (WOH) documentary by journalist Katie Hannon was broadcast on RTE, revealing allegations of sexual abuse, harassment and rape within the Irish Defence Forces. In this episode, Róisín Ingle meets two members of the WOH group, retired company quartermaster Sgt Karina Molloy and retired army captain Diane Byrne. They speak about their own experiences of bullying and abu...

Halfway through her term as Lord Mayor of Dublin, Alison Gilliland talks to Róisín about being only the 10th woman to hold the office and her ambitions while she’s there, including Brigit 2022: Dublin City Celebrating Women, a festival marking St Brigid’s Day this year. They also talk about feminism, her quest to make Dublin a safer city for everyone and her personal experience of sexual assault w...

25 years ago a comprehensive government task-force report on violence against women was published. Since then, nearly 250 women have been murdered in Ireland, including Ashling Murphy, laid to rest this week by her family. In today’s podcast, Róisín talks to columnist with the Irish Examiner, Alison O’Connor, final year law student, Inny Ekeolu, professor of psychology at the University of Limeric...

Have you ever questioned the path you’ve found yourself on? Ever fantasised about quitting your job and making a career change? Or maybe life just intervened and forced you to change lanes. For many or us, the pandemic has had a huge impact on our attitudes to work. It’s been a time of soul searching and reflection on what makes us happy and keeps us motivated. Today we speak to two women about th...

Today, we celebrate Women’s Christmas or as it’s known in Ireland Nollaig na mBan. Traditionally this was the day when women got a day off after all the emotional and physical labour of making Christmas happen. But have we really moved on very much from the days when women did the majority of work in the home? And how much is this clear imbalance holding us back? In The Invisible Job: Pa...

In this episode presenters Kathy and Róisín are joined by producers Jennifer and Suzanne to look back at 2021. We share our favourite episodes, name our women of the year and talk about some of the highs and lows of the past 12 months. **This episode was recorded in mid-December 2021. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Earlier this year, in the bleakness of lockdown three, Jan Brierton became a viral sensation with her pandemic poem What day is it? Who gives a f*ck. Sharing her thoughts on the monotony of lockdown life, her words resonated with many across the country and beyond. In today’s episode, the stylist turned poet tells Róisín Ingle how that poem changed the course of her life this year, leading to the...

Feast your ears on this deliciously festive food episode with columnist, broadcaster and author Grace Dent. As restaurant critic for The Guardian and a regular face on Masterchef, Grace tells Róisín Ingle what tasty treats feature in her Christmas spread every year. The pair reminisce about Yuletide dinners through the decades, from the joy of the humble pud, to the homemade trifle lathered with B...

It has been another fantastic year for books: Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You, Megan Nolan’s Acts of Desperation, Catherine Ryan Howard’s 56 Days, Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout, Louise Nealon’s Snowflake, Fíona Scarlett’s Boys Don’t Cry, the list goes on and on. In this episode Róisín is joined by our book clubbers Niamh Towey, Ann Ingle and Bernice Harrison to share their favourit...

For thousands of young people across Ireland, the impact of the pandemic has been catastrophic. This is especially true for children from disadvantaged communities, who may have grown up with gangland violence on their doorstep, or in a home with addiction, overcrowding or poverty. For many, the usual supports they relied on, like schooling and youth clubs were taken away overnight. In a new docum...

The vast majority of violence against women and girls (and men and boys) is perpetrated by men. Why then is it viewed primarily as a women’s issue? On UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Róisín talks to two men who are activists in the area about why we urgently need to reframe the conversation and why more men need to speak out.  Guests: Dr Jackson Katz, co-fo...

Living alone during lockdown and cut off from her wide circle of friends, Irish Times journalist and author Rosita Boland, wrote a beautiful book of essays called Comrades: A Lifetime of Friendships. The book is an exploration of camaraderie, from the imaginary, the unrequited, to the ones lost along the way. In today’s episode, Boland joins Róisin Ingle to speak about the different friendships wh...

When Lara Marlowe met Robert Fisk in 1983 in Damascus, he was already a famous war correspondent. She was a young American reporter who would become a renowned journalist in her own right. For the next twenty years, they were lovers, husband and wife and friends, occasionally angry and estranged from one another, but ultimately reconciled. In today’s podcast, Marlowe, who is The Irish Times Paris...

The death of a 30-year-old woman in Poland, likened to the Savita Halappanavar case, has sparked protests and candlelit vigils in an outpouring of opposition to restrictive abortion laws which campaigners claim played a role in her death. Irish Times Europe correspondent Naomi O’Leary has the details of this story and explains why the case will resonate in Ireland. Later, Róisín talks to priz...

Harry Potter star Evanna Lynch was just 11 when her eating disorder began to manifest. She struggled for several years with anorexia, with spells in and out of hospital including a three month stay in a facility in England. In her memoir, The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting, she explores with breathtaking clarity, her path to recovery and her struggle to deal with the complexities and contradictions...

In this episode, we’re bringing you a conversation from our Big Night In series of events which took place earlier this year. Back in May, comedian, author and journalist Maeve Higgins joined Róisín Ingle on zoom for a very fun evening in front of a live virtual audience. Higgins spoke about her move to New York, podcasting with former president Mary Robinson and why she returned to her hometown o...

In her memoir, Openhearted, Ann Ingle tells the story of her life with her late husband Peter, the “wild Irishman” she fell in love with while on holiday in Cornwall at the age of 20. Presented as a series of essays, Ann writes about everything from love, sex and heartbreak, to money, rearing children, writing, ageing, and so much more. In today’s episode, she talks to Kathy Sheridan about what sh...

Last month Irish writer Sally Rooney launched her highly anticipated third novel Beautiful World, Where Are You. Since its release, the book has topped bestseller lists across the world and continues to fly off the shelves. We here at the Women’s Podcast devoured the book in just a few days and we’re still not ready to stop talking about it. That’s why in today’s episode, Róisín Ingle is joined by...

In her new book, Women vs Capitalism, economist Vicky Pryce presents readers with an uncomfortable truth: we will not achieve equality for women without radical changes to contemporary capitalism. In today’s episode she speaks to Kathy Sheridan about all the ways in which our economic structure is built to put women at a disadvantage, from the gendered threat of robot labour to the lack of women i...

Last year, when most of us were busy baking banana bread or learning how to crochet, Irish actress Jade Jordan spent her time in lockdown delving back into the pasts of her mother Dominique and grandmother Kathleen. Spurred on by the death of George Floyd, Jade was eager to explore and add to the discussion surrounding race and discrimination in Ireland. The result of these conversations between J...

We cannot resolve the climate emergency without fighting for gender equality. Women, especially poor women of colour, are suffering most as a result of the climate crisis, our highest-profile climate activists are women and girls and yet, at the top table it is men who are deciding the earth’s future. In her latest book, How Women Can Save the Planet, award-winning journalist Anne Karpf argues tha...

In today’s podcast Róisín talks to the journalist, author and presenter of the brilliant How To Fail podcast Elizabeth Day. She has just published her latest novel, Magpie, a thrilling, stylish and psychologically astute story of jealousy, motherhood and power. In this funny, moving and revealing conversation, Day explains how some of the book’s themes relate to her own life, why it was important...

Taste of Dublin returns to the Inveagh Gardens this week. A celebration of eating, drinking and entertainment, the festival runs for five days from the 1st- 5th September and features live cooking demonstrations, wine tastings and food stalls from all over the world. This year, Our Table will be joining the festival line up, selling a selection of products and showcasing start up businesses from t...

It’s that time of year again. The back-to-school sun is shining as thousands of children around the country return to the classroom. Parents, children and teachers alike will be hoping for some normality as the new school year begins, but will it be all plain sailing? In this episode Róisín Ingle is joined by journalist and parenting expert Jen Hogan and by Maria Rushe, a secondary school teacher...

In her new book The Breakup Monologues, comedian Rosie Wilby takes you on a journey back through her romantic history, celebrating the ups and downs and the many lessons learned along the way. The book serves as a love letter to those breakups and includes anecdotes from friends and interviews with relationship therapists, scientists and sociologists. In this conversation, the “breakup queen” tell...