The Women's Podcast

We joined forces with the Dublin Dress for Success campaign to mark the end of another successful fundraising and clothing drive, recording an episode in front of a live audience in the salubrious surroundings of the headquarters of their sponsor Eir in Dublin 8. The conversation focused on women in the workplace and how things like the gender pay gap and returning from maternity leave can be impr...

Little over 34 years ago, a 15-year-old girl died after giving birth at a grotto in the small town of Granard in Co. Longford on a freezing cold, wet day in 1984. That girl, Ann Lovett, would have turned 50 last Friday, April 6th. Irish Times journalist Rosita Boland has written about Ann Lovett in the past. Recently she wrote an in depth article about not only her death, but also her life, and wh...

Repeal the 8th: the anthology, is a collection of stories, essays, poetry and photography around the movement for reproductive rights in Ireland, edited by Irish Times columnist Una Mullally. It features work by journalists Kitty Holland and Nell McCafferty, novelists Lisa McInerney, Anne Enright and Louise O’Neill, as well as a host of others like comedians Tara Flynn and Aisling Bea. On today's...

Roisin Ingle is joined by Irish Times journalists Bernice Harrison and Niamh Towey for a meeting of the Women's Podcast book club to discuss Clover Stroud's memoir, The Wild Other. Some may have had to put their posh-ist prejudices to one side and “get over” themselves, but all agreed that Clover Stroud is a beautiful writer with an astonishing story to tell."Clover Stroud grew up in rural Wiltshi...

Irish Times reporter Conor Gallagher speaks to Kathy Sheridan about the Belfast rape trial that he has covered over the past nine weeks, which has dominated headlines for its duration. The trial concluded yesterday when the jury delivered unanimous not guilty verdicts in the cases of each of the four defendants. Also on the podcast, Noeline Blackwell chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centr...

One in 10 women have endometriosis, making it one of the most commonly seen gynaecological diseases, yet it is poorly understood and not commonly talked about. Symptoms can begin even before a woman has her first period and they persist throughout their lives - leading to chronic and debilitating pain for some. The Endometriosis Association of Ireland is a voluntary organisation representing the m...

With the referendum looming, the HeadStuff Podcast Network is launching a new series documenting the campaigning around the Eighth Amendment to the constitution of Ireland. The Eighth, hosted by Ciara O’Connor Walsh, gives a 360 degree view of this complex referendum in real time as it unfolds. Episode 1 will land tomorrow (23 March), where Ciara talks openly and frankly with people intending to v...

A few weeks ago, 27-year-old Méabh Ni Choileáin got in touch with us with the story of her autism diagnosis. After more than two decades of feeling like she just didn't fit in, being told three years ago that she was autistic completely changed her life. Growing up, Méabh felt different, but she had no reference point. Women and girls with Autism are invisible, she says. We only have to look at it...

In 1968, the Quebecois playwright Michel Tremblay broke new ground with his play Les Belles-soeurs, putting 15 working-class Montreal women on the stage and having them speak naturally. Now Deirdre Kinahan adapts the play for 1970s Ballymun in a new Abbey production directed by Graham McLaren, The Unmanageable Sisters. We sent our unmanageable sister Róisín Ingle along for the Women's Podcast to f...

If women were more present in debates about economics and policy formulation, would the questions that we ask be different and informed by women's lived experience? As part of the Mountains to Sea book festival’s International Women’s Day event at the LexIcon in Dun Laoghaire, Kathy Sheridan spoke to journalist Dawn Foster, whose book Lean Out counters arguments made by Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg...

To celebrate International Women's Day, we gathered a gang of formidable women making it in male-dominated careers to find out about their 'What's she doing here?' moments. Hosted by The Little Museum of Dublin, it comes ahead of a photographic exhibition of works by Beta Bjagart beginning there March 31st. On today's episode you'll hear from Bjargart, as well as lifeboat navigator Lisa Levins-Bur...

The Beast from the East saw our presenter stranded abroad, while the production team had a glimpse into the lives of those people who "work from home". Determined not to let our listeners down however, Róisín recorded an episode in her bedroom in which she celebrates great female writers ahead of International Women's Day. In this podcast, you'll hear extracts from Olivia O'Leary's Party Animals,...

The youngest-ever U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under President Obama, Samantha Power, who emigrated from Ireland to America at the age of nine, began her career as a foreign affairs journalist. Forbes has called her “a powerful crusader for US foreign policy as well as human rights and democracy,” and she was named one of Foreign Policy’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers.” The Women’s Podcast was...

It's 20 years since Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris on August 31st 1997. In this episode, Róisín Ingle recalls reporting on her death, while Jennifer Ryan speaks to people who knew her personally, and those who felt like they did. Arthur Edwards is The Sun's royal photographer and got to know Diana well throughout the nearly 20 years he spent photographing her. Elizabeth Emanuel...

This week's podcast was recorded in The Irish Times as part of Culture Night in association with the Herstory movement. In what is the first of a series of Herstory Salons, our panel included Irish Times columnist and playwright Hilary Fannin, history lecturer Dr Jennifer Redmond and Professor Linda Doyle of Trinity College Dublin. They discussed the significance of salons for women throughout his...

It's 10 years since The Irish Times moved from Fleet Street in Dublin to our current offices in a shiny tower of glass on Tara Street. To mark the move, we invited some of the most talented journalists from print, online and broadcasting to tell us the stories of their careers. In the first of our Story Times episodes hosted by Kathy Sheridan, Olivia O'Leary, Kitty Holland, Anne Harris. Bairbre Po...