The Women's Podcast

According to academic Dr Marie Keenan restorative justice is “a way of giving justice to victims that centres the victim of crime in the process, as distinct from the criminal justice system, which centres the perpetrator”. Keenan joined two women Janet O’Brien who’s son was killed in a one punch attack and Sophia Murphy who was sexually abused by her father to discuss the power of restorative justice. The women explore how coming ...

We’ve a special live episode of the podcast for you today, a wide-ranging chat with actor, writer, presenter and mother of five Rosie O’Donnell at The Electric Picnic. We teamed up with Jan Brierton’s Wild Words at the festival where O’Donnell talked to Róisín Ingle and a packed Manifesto tent about everything from her feud with Donald Trump, moving to Ireland, weight loss drugs, the price of fame and that time she turned down a ni...

This weekend the Women’s Podcast is joining the line up of Jan Brierton’s Wild Words at Electric Picnic. For the event, Róisín Ingle will be hosting a special live recording of the podcast with American comedian, actor and new Irish resident Rosie O’Donnell. Brierton joins the podcast today to look ahead to the weekend’s festivities and to explain what festival goers can expect from the rest of the Wild Words lineup. She also talks...

In the early 20th century, in a remote village in Hungary, a group of women, driven to despair by their violent, abusive husbands, decided to take matters into their own hands. Their solution to their difficult life circumstances was arsenic, a deadly poison easily extracted from fly paper or arsenic-rich “flystones". The women began slipping this deadly substance into their husband’s porridge, stews and drinks and according to som...

In recent years, more and more women have been speaking openly about their decision to not have children. There are numerous books on the subject, dedicated social media spaces for childfree women and an ever increasing media interest in sharing the stories of those who refuse to go down this well-trodden path. However, some of the lesser told childfree stories are those of older women, who went against the grain at a time when mot...

Following the breakdown of her long-term relationship in 2021, Orla Donoghue became a single parent to her then one-year-old son, Rory. The transition, however, was far from easy. As a new mother, she grappled with feelings of isolation, shame and uncertainty and despite the fact that one in five households in Ireland are single parent families, she also found the experience deeply isolating. However, it was this difficult experien...

This month on The Women’s Podcast Book Club, Bernice Harrison, Niamh Towey, Róisín Ingle, and Ann Ingle are discussing The Marriage Vendetta by debut author Caroline Madden. 

The book tells the story of Eliza Sheridan, who seeks the help of a marriage therapist to mend her relationship with her unloving and unsupportive husband Richard. As their sessions unfold, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary counselling service....

Would you sleep in a different room to your partner? Or do you think couples should share a bed together? That's what we’re asking on today’s episode of The Women’s Podcast. While many people enjoy sharing a bed with their other half, there are many others who prefer to go solo when it comes to sleep. This could be for reasons including loud snoring, a partner tossing and turning in the night or even a disagreement over what temper...

In today’s episode, Róisín Ingle is joined by women’s health and fitness coach Elaine Gillespie, to talk about the transformative power of lifting weights and strength training. From navigating fitness during perimenopause to returning to exercise postpartum, Gillespie explains why lifting weights isn’t just for bodybuilders - it’s essential for women’s health, energy, and confidence at every stage of life. The pair discuss gym int...

Anne Marie Allen was just 15 years old when she first entered the world of Opus Dei. It was the late 1970s and the young woman from Cork had enrolled in a cookery course run by the religious order. The program promised culinary qualifications and a pathway to a professional career, but it didn’t take long for her dreams to shatter. As Allen spent most of her days cooking, cleaning and doing laundry for the members of Opus Dei, it s...

This month, actor and mother and baby home survivor Noelle Brown and singer Camille O’Sullivan will take to the stage together for a new theatre performance called In Plain Sight. The project, written by Brown, focuses on Ireland’s history of mother and baby homes, paying particular attention to the large stately buildings dotted around the country that incarcerated young pregnant women. In today’s episode, the pair join Róisín Ing...

Concerns about the rise and rapid development of artificial intelligence often tend to focus on AI’s threat to jobs or its potential to influence politics and elections. But what about the very real threat that AI poses to women? In her new book, The New Age of Sexism, feminist writer Laura Bates explores how the ever-evolving world of technology has become a danger to women and how the expanding scope of what’s possible online is ...

Last weekend our Book Club gathered for a live show at Kildare Village to discuss the best reading recommendations for summer 2025. Róisín Ingle, Bernice Harrison and Ann Ingle were joined at the event by special guest bestselling author Marian Keyes and a room full of Women’s Podcast listeners. 

There were recommendations to suit every style and every mood, including a gripping crime thriller, a “life-changing” self help b...

The tradition of women taking their husband’s surname stems from a time when marriage effectively erased a woman’s legal identity and she would become her husband’s property. While this is no longer the case and society has thankfully moved on, the practice of women changing their last name upon marriage still persists today. But why?

In a recent feature for The Irish Times, journalist Áine Kenny poses the question: “If changing...

It was a bright afternoon in April 2015 when Mary Ann Kenny, a university lecturer, received a call that changed her life in an instant. Her husband John, with whom she had two young sons, had collapsed while out jogging and died at the age of 60. Struggling to cope with the sudden loss and the loneliness that engulfed her life in the aftermath, Kenny's grief soon turned to depression, which later progressed into psychotic delusion...

What do you really know about the menstrual cycle? Can you tell your follicular from your luteal phase? Can masturbation ease period pains and why do so many women get the dreaded ‘period poo’? To answer all these questions and more we’re joined this week by Dr Hazel Wallace, medical doctor, nutritionist, and author of Not Just A Period, a groundbreaking new book that seeks to understand the entire menstrual cycle, not just the few...

This week, we’re joined by the brilliant Kit de Waal novelist, memoirist, and fierce advocate for working-class voices in literature. In conversation with Roisin Ingle, de Waal discusses her powerful new novel The Best of Everything, set in 1970s and 1980s England, which follows the interwoven lives of a single mother, her son, and their neighbours as they navigate grief, love, and survival.

Best known for her acclaimed deb...

In 2016, Clodagh Hawe and her three sons, Liam (13), Niall (11) and Ryan (6) were murdered in their Co Cavan home, by their husband and father Alan Hawe, who took his own life shortly after. It was and still is Ireland’s largest murder-suicide and the brutal killings sent shockwaves throughout the country. In her book, Deadly Silence, Clodagh’s younger sister Jacqueline Connolly, gives her account of the circumstances leading up to...