Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning

When Muhammad Ali visited Ireland in 1972, the country was a different place.

Nobody believed the greatest sportsman the world has ever seen would fight in Dublin except the men who made it possible.

On Free State today Dave Hannigan tells talks about his book The Big Fight - When Ali Conquered Ireland. It is a tale of men with dreams from Kerry and Brooklyn who made it happen. It is also a story of how Ali responded to the unconditi...

As Dion celebrates a personal milestone, on Free State today Joe and Dion look at how to live without drink.

They consider how dark it can get for those on the other side and what helps people become free.

Joe reflects on those he has seen struggle with alcohol and those he has seen create a new and rewarding life for themselves.

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In the summer of 1976, the world was a different place.

In Ireland and Britain, it was a summer of a heatwave. But were there cultural and political changes brought about by the long hot summer of 1976? 

On Free State today John Williams, author of a new book Heatwave - the Summer of 1976, Britain at Boiling Point, is our guest. John tells us how that summer changed a country and how the heatwave brought people to the brink in w...

Have you locked yourself in a panic room? Have you got your tinned foods and toilet rolls in for when the Russians invade? If not, why are you so complacent? Why don’t you understand the threats Ireland faces in the modern world? On Free State today, Joe and Dion look at how Ireland is being told to be afraid.

Is there anything to fear or are the warnings designed to create opportunities for the defence industry? 

Their com...

After Sunday's All Ireland final proved yet again why David Clifford is Superman in shorts, Joe wonders can any team stop a new Golden Years style reign for the Kerry footballers? On Free State today he also looks back on Knockmore Juniors' win over the weekend and explains why the All Ireland final can never quite measure up to the winning feeling with your club.

Producer Cormac O'Malley drops into the hot seat while Dion is aw...

As a young reporter Phoebe Greenwood worked as a war correspondent in Gaza. She inhabited the world of fixers where journalists stayed at the Al Deira hotel and Israeli government spokespeople provided statements that contradicted what reporters had witnessed.

Greenwood was there during the 2012 conflict and now she has written a novel, Vulture, which is described as a satire, but might as easily be described as the truth.

On Free St...

How do you stop a genius? How does a genius thrive? 

David Clifford is the greatest Gaelic football who has ever lived but will that be enough on its own to bring Kerry an All-Ireland?

On Free State today, Joe explains the different type of genius that is Jimmy McGuinness. McGuinness has taken advantage of the new rules, the way he took hold of the old but can the spirit of Clifford be contained in Croke Park?

Joe and Dion also l...

Did Cork lose the All-Ireland hurling final at half time or was defeat guaranteed long before?

On Free State today, Joe and Dion look at what a sporting humiliation does to a team and if they can ever recover.

Joe identifies failings in the Cork management that led to the defeat on Sunday but it doesn’t end there. He looks at the strike action when Cork were marshalled by Donal Óg Cusack, the consequences of which are still being fel...

One of Ireland’s great writers Joseph O’Neill is today’s guest on Free State.

O’Neill’s novels Netherland and Godwin have reflected the centrality of sport in people’s lives. He talks about why sport matters so much and why in Ireland it matters even more than that. He reflects on his own upbringing and how he was raised in Holland before becoming a barrister and practising law in London. He has lived in New York for a generation an...

The Fairground Park pool in St Louis Missouri was the largest pool in America when it was built in 1919. It had enough room for 10,000 swimmers. All of them white.

But when integration came to Missouri, rather than allow all races to swim, the Fairground Park pool closed. 

This phenomenon was explored by writer Heather McGhee and on Free State today, Joe and Dion examine the drained pool politics of unionism and the Orange order...

Jim McGuinness isn’t a pragmatist. He is, Joe says, a pragmatic extremist.

On Free State, Joe and Dion look at the clash between genius and control. 

Through the history of sport, geniuses have always made their own way and systems have been devised to stop them. Will this be the case when David Clifford’s Kerry play McGuinness’s Donegal?

We look at how McGuinness saw the opportunity in the new rules before anyone else and what t...

In January, Timothy O’Grady joined Dion and Joe on the podcast to talk about Say Nothing and what it got wrong.

What stayed in people’s minds was his reading from his novel Monaghan.

With the publication of that novel this summer, Tim returns to Free State to talk about what he has learned about war and killing through years talking to people involved in the Troubles. He explains how it shaped his novel and he talks about the work he...

When the pictures emerged of the loyalist bonfire in Moygashel in Co Tyrone, most people were horrified at the migrant boat effigy at the top. 

Politicians condemned it and called for action but others insisted it was in fact an act or ‘artistic protest’.

On Free State, Joe and Dion look at the celebrations around the Twelfth of July, not as the desperate acts of a lost people, but as an artistic installation.

Have we failed to u...

What kind of world do you think you’re living in?

Most people when asked will have one view but on Free State today, Joe explains a surprising truth. 

Joe was in Portugal last week when Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva died so tragically. As Joe watched the funeral he noticed things about the community of Gondomar where Jota and his brother were from.

Joe and Dion talk about the times when community matters and when we lose...

Sahar Delijani was born in Evin Prison in Tehran. Her mother, who had been part of the movement that toppled the Shah in Iran, had been jailed as the new regime silenced some of the coalition that brought it to power. Her uncle was subsequently one of many political prisoners executed by the regime in 1988.

Sahar Delijani wrote about those experiences in her bestselling novel, Children of Jacaranda Tree.

On June 23 Israel bombed Evin...

In the aftermath of having their US visas revoked following their comments at Glastonbury, Bob Vylan issued a statement saying they were “a distraction from the story”.

“We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people,” their statement said. “We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine … a machine that has destroyed much of Gaza.” 

On Free State today, Joe and Dion look at why Bob Vylan ...

On Sunday at Croke Park the glory belonged to Kerry but who was responsible for this victory and will Joe have to apologise?

On Free State today Joe and Dion look at how Kerry beat Armagh and David Clifford‘s role in the All-Ireland champions’ downfall.

Joe accuses Dion of failing to read beyond the headline of his column which was referenced in the aftermath by Kerry manager Jack O’Connor. 

Dion confesses to his own ...

There are those who believe Artificial Intelligence will lead to the extinction of mankind. There are those who believe AI will save the world.

On Free State today, journalist and author of the Empire of AI Karen Hao explains why AI is an imperialist project and how the colonising is already taking place. 

She says why she believes the doomer vs boomer debate is a distraction and how Ireland is on the frontline of this imperiali...

The world seems to be intent on tapping into humanity’s worst instincts.

Tech companies ensure the algorithms keep us enraged and fearful, but is there a resistance movement? 

On Free State today Dion tries to persuade Joe that Test match cricket is part of a broader cultural phenomenon but will Joe buy it?

Joe looks at how Kilkenny was transformed from a cricket county to the cradle of hurling.

They also consider the All Ireland ...