Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning

"One day, when it's safe, when there's no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it's too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this." On October 25 2023, novelist Omar El Akkad posted this message on X.

On Free State today Omar El Akkad joins Joe and Dionto talk about how the world looked away. His magisterial new book One Day Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This details the c...

Rosita Sweetman wanted to change the world. Like many of her generation, she was inspired by the civil rights movement in the US. She became a founder of the women’s liberation movement in Ireland. She was fearless and it was fun.

But her life wasn’t. On Free State today Rosita Sweetman talks about her new memoir Girl With A Fork In A World of Soup. She tells us about having to divorce her family and the extraordinary scene ...

"We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality,” a man once said, 

When it has come to the pursuit of Kneecap, the ridiculousness has extended far beyond the British public to its media and politicians too. It has reached the Irish political class and media as well.

Kneecap have apologised to the families of murdered MPs but still they are pursued by those lost in what Philip ...

Micheál Martin has called on Kneecap ‘to urgently clarify’ their views on Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as killing Tory MPs. Why? How is society served by the Taoiseach involving himself in this confected outrage?

On Free State today Joe and Dion look at the hysteria surrounding Kneecap since their Coachella appearance and their statements in support of Palestine.

While some might believe they are just experiencing the usual backlash ...

"Each of the entries included in the book has the same ending.” Peadar Thompson wrote those haunting words in his introduction to Lost Gaels, the story of GAA members killed in Ireland during the Troubles. 

On Free State today Peadar Thompson is the guest and talks about his extraordinary book. It details, not just the horrific nature of how these GAA people lost their lives, but also their lives within the community and, most ...

When Pope Francis’s death was announced by the Vatican this week, the world found the words to pay tribute.

From Kings to Prime Ministers to Presidents, everyone reached for the most appropriate tribute. Even Donald Trump was looking forward to the funeral.

But what does the reaction from unionist parties in the north tell us about the loyalist mindset?

On Free State, Dion and Joe look at what the pope, the Irish language, Casement Pa...

Eamonn Sweeney’s life changed on a June day in the year 2000.

He was a sportswriter enjoying the traditional rhythm of the GAA summer as he arrived at Fitzgerald Stadium in Killarney.

Suddenly he was hit by a bomb and couldn’t put one foot in front of the other.

It was the beginning of a descent into isolation and fear.

On Free State today, Eamonn Sweeney talks about the terror of those days when travelling became a nightmare and he re...

The history of the far right in Ireland is long and dark. From the Blueshirts and Eoin O’Duffy to the Nazi collaborator Sean Russell and the return in modern times. 

On today’s Free State, historian Padraig Óg Ó Ruairc talks about his new book on the far right and how he entered into the world of conspiracy to learn more about the movement.

He talks about the Blueshirts and how close Ireland came to a coup and why even when the ...

Are you still talking about Rory McIlroy? Joe has reflected on his comments on Tuesday’s episode and Dion believes his views have changed. Have they? Joe also looks at the uniformity of the celebration and what it tells us about society. Dion sees similarities with Italia 90 but Joe thinks there are echoes of Princess Diana’s death. They look at why all sport requires a suspension of rational thought. There is also more anonymous c...

Rory McIlrory ended his quest for the Masters on Sunday night. It was sporting drama which gripped the nation. Well, nearly all the nation. On Free State today Joe wonders if golf really can produce profound sporting drama given that it is ultimately a game of golf. Dion isn’t prepared to defend golf but argues that McIlroy transcends the game because of his inability to wear the mask that the modern sportsman is supposed to wear. ...

Edna O’Brien’s early novels shocked Ireland which plotted its revenge. Her first novel The Country Girls was banned and she had to withstand the whispering of the establishment that she didn’t write her own novels.

Her career would be a rebuttal to the cynics and the priests, but her life had its share of trauma and despair. In the 1970s she began an affair with a renowned and married British politician whose identity has never ...

When Donald Trump paused tariffs for 90 days after a week of chaos, once again the world tried to interpret his actions. When people tell you who they are believe them and Trump has told us plenty of times. These were not the actions of a man playing 4D chess but of an infant trying not to choke on the pieces. Trump is the idiot wind blowing through America bringing anarchy and misery across the world. On Free State today, Joe...

As the world sinks deeper into madness, Joe and Dion remember the time of wonder that was the Kerry team under Mick O’Dwyer. What was it that drove O’Dwyer on? Joe recalls his own encounters with Mick O’Dwyer. Dion tells of when his father lined up alongside O’Dwyer in a Kerry team in 1960. They look at what drove Mick O’Dwyer and that Kerry team to greatness and why certain myths had to be rejected. Joe also reveals some non sheep...

“I thought I came here to talk about books.” John Banville is one of Ireland’s great writers. He won the Booker Prize for his novel The Sea and he has remained one of the foremost figures in Ireland since. John Banville will turn 80 this year. In an extraordinary interview on Free State today, he talks about life, death and why we live too long. He has lived a complicated life and he discusses those complications, the hurt he cause...

In 1984, the British government banned Martin Galvin from entering Northern Ireland. Galvin was a key figure in Noraid, the American organisation raising funds for Republican prisoners. In an explosive appearance on today’s Free State, Martin Galvin tells the story of his journey in the republican movement. Ahead of a brilliant new RTÉ documentary he describes the events of that summer in 1984. Galvin was smuggled into the North an...

Rosie Schaap grew up leading the archetypal New Yorker lifestyle. Her mother was impossibly glamorous and her father was a sportswriter who befriended a young boxer on the way to the Rome Olympics and stayed friends with him all his life. That boxer was Muhammad Ali. Among Rosie’s most cherished possessions is a picture taken by the legendary photographer Carl Fischer with Ali in a safari suit tenderly looking down at her. The pict...

Michael Lowry giving Paul Murphy - and everybody else - the fingers has become the defining image of the controversy over speaking time in the Dail. Lowry said it was ‘an errant gesture under provocation’. It captured the headlines but it was meaningless. On Free State today, Joe and Dion look at the real power Michael Lowry now holds and what it means. They ask why Lowry has this power and why was it so important to give him what ...

George Foreman’s death robbed the world of one of the great sporting figures. It was also a reminder of a time when boxing ruled the world. On Free State today, Joe and Dion look back on the time when Muhammad Ali and Foreman were kings.

Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning is a Gold Hat Production in association with SwanMcG.

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Martin Dillon knew Rosemary Nelson. He says he has only met a few people like her in his life. He describes her as someone with "overarching respect for human life". Nelson was a solicitor and in March 1999, she was blown up when a car bomb exploded as she drove to work. On Free State today, the legendary journalist Martin Dillon joins us to talk about the women whose lives were destroyed and lost during the Troubles. In his new bo...