Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning

Darragh McGee understands sport. As a Donegal man he understands the hold and the importance sport has across this land. So as an academic when he went to investigate the betting industry, he didn’t expect to discover all that he learned about its hold on so many individuals and on society. On Free State today. Darragh McGee talks to Joe and Dion about his book Imitation Games - How Gambling Hijac...

David Hearn was once an Olympic canoeist. He was facing ten years in a federal prison for allegedly vandalising the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington DC before all the charges were dropped. ‘It’s a relief, but there’s a detachment to that relief of extreme concern for other people and for our country,’ Hearn said, On Free State today we explain why the story of the Reflecting Pool is...

Michael Thomas found the kind of success most writers dream of with his first novel, Man Gone Down, but his life and career took a different direction. Now he has returned with an astonishing memoir, The Broken King. On Free State, he talks to Dion about addiction, race, and retiring to Ireland. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

July was the driest July on record in Ireland and the second hottest since 1900.  Most of us have enjoyed this summer but should we just now accept our Mediterranean climate and whistle past the climate graveyard. On Free State today we look at how climate and migration became weapons to protect the elites and sustain inequality.  Dion and Joe look at the way the events in Ceuta were sei...

In the 1980s, there were 21 days when the temperature in London reached 30 degrees. In 2026 there have been 24. In Greece, two died in a midair collision between helicopters fighting wildfires. France has seen the greatest civilian evacuation outside wartime as people flee the danger areas.  And yet people will take issue with what they are seeing. On Free State we look at the movement that t...

Running agents during the Troubles has become one of the darkest element of the history of the north. John Ware has covered this story since the 1970s and produced a ground breaking Panorama on the topic. Ware talks to Dion today about a lifetime covering this subject and the stories of Brian Nelson and Freddie Scappaticci. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can you put a price on what we watched at Croke Park on Sunday? What would you sell a Mayo victory in the All Ireland for? We know that what we watched affects us in ways that money can’t buy but Gianni Infantino thinks he can sell the essence of sport. On Free State today Dion and Joe look at why sport is so important and why men like Infantino are a danger to the things that are most important i...

Everybody wants to know how Mayo did it, but when something like this happens what is more important is why Mayo did it. Why did these players play without fear? Why did the world weep along with Mayo people on Sunday when they won the All Ireland? On Free State today we look at why Mayo were able to do what they did against Kerry. In a county that has been waiting for so long, Joe and Dion look a...

Will the world have changed thanks to the World Cup? Or did the world change while the World Cup was taking place and people were too busy watching the World Cup to notice. On Free State today, the great novelist Joseph O’Neill talks to Dion about what he learned watching the World Cup and how the authoritarian US regime prospered during the tournament as other authoritarian regimes prospered in t...

Mayo have been denied in All Irelands in every way possible - balls bouncing over the bar, the referee blowing up early, own goals... they've also taken a few pastings along the way, but what will they do with the freedom they will have on Sunday? Somehow Mayo have reached an All Ireland final this year against all odds, but does that make this year different? Does everything change because it wou...

Did the World Cup final hit different from the million dollar seats or was the best thing about them the helicopter that flew you back to New York City? On Free State, today we ask who mourns the end of Gianni Infantino’s dance with Donald Trump and the depraved nature of football today? Dion does and he explains why football still matters despite the decadence at the top of the game. Things get h...

On the weekend of the World Cup final, Eamon Dunphy is our weekend guest. Dunphy reflects on his astonishing career in journalism, the price he paid for being an outsider and why he didn't care when he left the RTE panel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

England lost at the semi final stage again but what does how players are shaped for professional football tell us about how they perform?  England lose when they play a team more cunning than them but they have a system designed for obedience. Kids will be dreaming of playing in a World Cup but what is the reality of professional sport. On Free State today we look at how the attritional natur...

And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make. It made sense for Paul McCartney and it makes sense when we consider why we engage with whatever gives us pleasure in life.  On Free State today we look at the meaning of sport. Why winning doesn’t matter as much as how sport makes you feel. Does this mean Mayo can win the All Ireland? Does it matter? Hosted on Acast. See acast.c...

Martin Sixmith was the BBC's man in Moscow as the Soviet Union collapsed and Vladimir Putin came to power. In today's podcast he talks about his time in Russia, the fight for the billions lost and his time working on The Lost Child of Philomena Lee. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeffrey Donaldson sits in a prison cell, waiting to be sentenced for the most horrific crimes.  On Free State today we look at the rise and fall of Jeffrey Donaldson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Donald Trump destroys everyone in his orbit. His transactional nature means that eventually whoever is close to him is ruined Gianni Infantino might soon know how that feels. ‘I regularly discuss matters related to the FIFA World Cup with the President of the United States,’ Infantino said as he explained how FIFA had lifted the suspension on the USA forward Folarin Balogun.  “During our conv...

You might not have heard of Helenio Herrera but without him, you might not have the modern football manager. Herrera was a lowdown and a dirty football manager who wasn't so much a pragmatist as an absolutist. He was full of contradictions: he hated his players having sex but he ruined many lives with his own pursuit of sex. He would do anything to win and stopped at nothing for victory. He wasn't...

The World Cup continues to captivate. France stunned the world with their performance against Sweden, with a display of pace and skill that was as good as anything witnessed in the competition. But what is the hidden World Cup? What is the secret anguish that this and all sporting events facilitate. In their final episode in this series looking at the dangers of online gambling, Joe and Dion look...

How many times do you look at your smartphone each day? How often do you pick it up? How aware are you of how it makes you feel? On Thursday’s Free State we looked at how gambling has got out of control. Today Dion and Joe examine how what we are dealing with is an entirely new phenomenon, a supercharged addiction of smartphone and gambling, a dopamine hit of huge power.  We look at the...

When Fintan Drury wrote his first book on Palestine - Catastrophe, Nakba II , the manner in which it resonated with people told its own story. Now he has written Genocide - Sponsoring the destruction of Palestine, another searing and detailed account of how the Palestinian people have been failed. He talks to Dion about why now is the time to act. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more in...

The 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act prohibited betting on baseball, basketball, American football and most other sports in nearly every US state. In 2018, the Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional, opening up America to a stampede of betting. On Free State today we look at how the gambling industry achieved such prominence and how they made gamblers feel that the prob...

‘I have come to sell a product called soccer.’ The former FIFA president Joao Havelange announced himself in 1974 with these words. They have been the model for the expansionist, grasping FIFA that has existed to this day. But maybe what matters was not the product but everything but the product? On Free State today we look at why the World Cup matters and why it might be everything that Donald Tr...

In Power Ballad, Rick, played by Paul Rudd, a washed-up wedding singer, and Danny, a fading boy band star, bond over music and a late-night jam session. On Free State today, old friends Dion and Peter McDonald, co-writer and co-start of Power Ballad, discuss their own late night escapades, Peter's time in the theatre and and his extraordinary time working with the legendary Robert Altman. Hosted o...

There are no atheists in the foxholes and in the darkness of the night there is nobody who won’t find consolation in the World Cup. On Free State today Joe talks about his own World Cup journey. Joe and Dion look at why the tournament captivates and what it tells us about communities as opposed to the leaders of those communities. At a time when Elon Musk had become the world’s first trillionaire,...