The Mario Rosenstock Podcast

He’s a former New Zealand rugby player turned pundit and fashion entrepreneur, who is now also one of Ireland’s leading mental health advocates - Brent Pope is a busy man. But he found the time to join me as special guest on this episode of The Mario Rosenstock Podcast for a fascinating chat about his own lifelong battles with mental health, creating the ‘Elephant in the Room’ movement to promote workplace wellbeing, and why the go...

There’s nothing quite like a conversation with Roddy Collins. He’s hilarious, unpredictable, emotional, a total open book, and a natural story teller. Roddy joined me here on The Mario Rosenstock Podcast a couple of years ago when he had just published his memoir about the many decades he has spent as a football player, manager and pundit. So it was high time to meet again.

Roddy has been keeping as busy as ever since we last met an...

I often quote a great Jim Carrey line that I think is a great approach for life. Jim’s father always wanted to be a comedian, and would have been a great one, but he opted for the ‘safer bet’ and became an accountant instead. But he was ultimately made unemployed, and Jim learned a valuable lesson from that, saying  “You can fail at what you don't want. So you might as well take a chance on doing what you love”

My guest on this...

Niall Harbison was a very successful entrepreneur in Ireland, setting up and selling a social media marketing agency and the very popular and sometimes controversial ‘Lovin Dublin’ media brand. But a combination of burnout and partying too hard, too often, led him to cut ties with Ireland and start a calmer and healthier life in Thailand. But unfortunately things got far worse, and his addiction to drink and prescription drugs...

Its a question that women have to ask each other all too regularly at the end of a night out, and for standup comedians Claire Roche  and Justine Halpin, it was time to start talking about why. Claire and Justine wanted to start a wider conversation about the issue, bit not in a preachy way, so they put together a standup comedy show called 'Are Ya Alright Getting Home?'

Come and laugh through the fear at 'Are Ya Alright Gett...

Ian O’Doherty has been a very regular fixture on Irish TV and radio, and in print, for many years now. His columns in the Irish Independent have always attracted a lot of attention – because they often challenge accepted truths and give voice to so-called ‘unpopular opinions’. In fact he sees doing this as an essential part of the role of a journalist.

Ian has just launched his own podcast called The State of Us and he joins me on t...

It’s time for a second helping of the great writer, thinker and commentator, Fintan O’Toole.  Fintan has spent a lot time in the United States, including twelve years as a visiting professor in Princeton, so he has lots to say about American culture and politics, which we get into on this episode. We also chat about Brexit, the state of modern journalism, covering the culture wars, and if he’s going to be throwing his hat into...

Fintan has been one of the top thinkers, writers, and speakers in Ireland for as long as I can remember. He has so much to say about so many things and always has a deeply thought-out and fresh perspective on the big issues. So when we get stuck in to a great conversation, I let it run for as long as he’ll let me!

This is part one of a two-part conversation we've just recorded, covering immigration and the ‘idiots’ of the far right,...

As the saying now goes, what happens in Leinster House…ends up in Gavan Reilly’s new book, ‘The Secret Life of Leinster House: what you really need to know about how the country runs’.

 Gavan is a former colleague of mine from back when he was the correspondent for Today FM and Newstalk. He now leads Virgin Media’s political coverage and he’s also one of the presenters of the great Group Chat podcast. When it comes to politics ...

A couple of weeks ago Dave Hannigan joined me to share the fascinating story of how a Kerry man called Butty Sugrue managed to convince the one and only Muhammad Ali to come to Ireland and fight Alvin Lewis in Croke Park. It’s a fantastic yarn and if you didn’t hear it, I’d strongly recommend doing so.

But Dave has lived in the US for over 25 years and so I couldn’t let him go without getting his thoughts on what its like to be an I...

He joined me here on the podcast a couple of years ago but he’s such a brilliant character and so much has happened in his life since we last met, that it was high time we did it again.

Born into a highly dysfunctional family, Willa White became addicted to solvents by the age of 7, which was followed by several years of heroin and alcohol abuse, stints in prison, and mental breakdowns.  The story of how he got clean and into ...

Lisa Harding and I go way back, right back to Trinity College Dublin in the early 90s where we both did our degrees and became very involved in acting. We both went on to pursue acting careers, however neither of us decided to stay on that path but we ended up succeeding in different, yet still related careers. 

In Lisa’s case, that career was writing fiction, something that she has excelled at from day one. Her latest novel is...

Picture the scene – its 1972, Ireland is a very different place to what it is today, the country is very monocultural and  feels isolated out on the periphery of Europe. Its all a bit grey.  Enter from stage left, one of the most interesting,  charismatic and successful sports stars in the world – the great Muhammad Ali – and he’s here to fight in Croke park stadium.

 The story of how all of this came about has f...

As a big fan of all things Cork, I was delighted a couple of years back to come across a fantastic ‘pure-cork’ comedy character called Reggie from the Blackrock Road. Reggie is a very old-money, conservative and highly snobby character who has a lot to say about a lot of people, very little of it complimentary. I find him hilarious.

 Reggie is the brainchild of journalist, writer, and comedian Pat FitzPatrick. You may have enjo...

(…and what we can do about it). Dermot Whelan and I worked together in Today FM for many years, until he made the decision to leave the Dermot and Dave show to focus on his wellness business and pursue his passion for making mindfulness accessible and relatable to everyone.

 And since he has been doing this work, the two words that people have said to him most are ‘busy and wrecked’. So he set out to find out why we are all so ...

As far as careers go, crime journalism is up there with one of the most, let’s say, ‘unique’. Its not for the faint hearted – you’re dealing with dangerous people who do terrible things, and your job is to make as big an audience as possible aware of the crimes they commit.

So who’d want to do a job like that? Well, Nicola Tallant for one. Nicola is one of Ireland’s best-known crime journalists. After years writing about crime, she ...

He was the star hurler who gave it all up to travel across Asia, spending months meditating in a Buddhist temple in Thailand, then returning home to live in the wilds of Kerry and become a champion of Irish culture, language and spiritualism. Diarmuid Lyng’s life has been far from conventional.  

Diarmuid has spent a lot of time thinking about his life and his purpose in life – and he has had the courage to make some very diffi...

I have always loved my chats with Larissa Nolan, Features Editor and Columnist at the Irish Mirror. She always has a fresh, interesting and quite frankly brave take on the things that capture the public imagination from time to time. So when the chatter about the rise of toxic masculinity reached a new level recently, I knew who to call.

Its being fuelled by stories like like the Trump / JD Vance  / Dana White  ‘bro-ligarc...