The Mick Clifford Podcast

The Irish Examiner’s political correspondent has the lowdown on what exactly the government and state apparatus are doing to celebrate the twenty fifth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Paul also talks about his own family in which he discovered during childhood that his grandfather was from the North yet the Troubles were never discussed. Then there is his own contribution to cross border relations through his involvement in all island American football. We also discover that he even plays with an American accent. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Prominent members of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael harbouring escaped IRA men, kidnappings replacing armed robberies, gardai saluting IRA funerals, agricultural grants used to build sheds for storing bombs, a plan to flood the economy with counterfeit £10 notes. Those were just some of the incidents and activities in the Republic of Ireland in the 1980s while a violent conflict was taking place just north of the border. So how much support was there for the Provos in the south and what form did it take. Gearoid O Faolean has written a new book about what exactly went on and some of the revelations are surprising, with one of two jaw dropping. He is this week’s guest on the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Carmel McMahon immigrated to New York when she was twenty with a suitcase of dreams and plenty of unseen baggage. Her time in the city was marked by both awakenings and struggle, most of it personal, including bereavement and a long battle with alcohol. In a lyrical memoir she combines her personal and family story with that of the history of the country of her birth and how trauma can be passed down through the generations unless and until it is dealt with. Carmel is this week’s guest on the podcast where she talks about her book, In Ordinary Times, Fragments of a Family history. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tina Satchwell went missing on 20 March 2017. The Cork woman was much loved by her family and did not overtly appear to have any problems in the world. The case has baffled gardai who have been involved in both a widespread search and a thorough investigation of the case. One senior garda source told the Irish Examiner that they are convinced there is somebody out there who can provide further clues as to what happened her. Irish Examiner Liz Dunphy is reporting this week on the case, the heartache that lingers for Tina’s family and the leads that investigators have followed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week it was announced that the director of Social Justice Ireland Fr Sean Healy was stepping down from his role after half a century working on behalf of the most marginalised in society. Along with his co-founder of SJI, Sr Brigid Reynolds, he is calling it a day to make way for the next generation. On the podcast he speaks about his origins in Cork, his early experiences in Africa, how Bertie Ahern roped him into talking to Fianna Fail in its pomp, and he asks why Leo Varadkar never got back to him on his proposal to eliminate poverty. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This month one hundred years ago the civil war reached its nadir with some horrific outrages in Co Kerry. Combatants on both sides died in terrible circumstances, including the outrage at Ballyseedy where nine men were tied around a mine and blown up. Miraculously one, Stephen Fuller, survived. This week's podcast guest is Historian Owen O’Shea, he looks back on those violent weeks and the subsequent fall out that resonated down through the generations. He also examines how exactly the past is being remembered today.Neither political party which grew out of the civil war “covered themselves in glory” in how they treated those who were injured and damaged during the conflict, according to historian Owen O’Shea.During the first decade of the state’s existence between 1922 an 1932 the Cumann na nGeadheal government was extremely parsimonious in compensating those who had fought on the free state side, and completely dismissive of anti-treaty veterans.“Many were begging and begging in pension applications for some financial support,” O’Shea tells the Mick Clifford podcast. “They were battling mental health, financial troubles, breakdowns and immigration and the free state did very little in the first decade of its existence to support those who went out to fight for the state. Neither (political) party on the two sides of the conflict could claim they covered themselves in glory in that respect.”The centenary of the Ballyseedy massacre, in which eight anti-treaty prisoners were blown up on a lonely road outside Tralee falls on March 7. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Forty years ago, Fr Patrick Ryan, a native of Doon in Co Limerick, was murdered in Texas. He had been living in the USA for a just three years after a career largely spent in Ireland and Africa. Pretty quickly a native American man James Reyos was arrested and charged with the murder. He was convicted and has spent the last four decades in prison or restricted in his movements on parole. Now, new evidence has emerged to suggest that he was not murderer. So how did everybody get it so wrong and where are the suspects whom the police now believe were responsible for the death of a much loved priest. Irish Examiner reporter Ann Murphy has the story Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Protests against asylum seekers and refugees in recent weeks have given rise to the possibility that the far right may be in a position to enter the political arena in the near future. Throughout Europe, far right parties have been gaining strength over the last twenty years on a broad anti-immigration platform. That has not happened in this country but is it about to change?Political academic and MD of research company Ireland Thinks Kevin Cunningham crunches the poll numbers and looks at the trends in Europe over the years for signs of what might be about to unfold here. He also asks the question whether the salience of immigration to the electorate can be reversed once it becomes an issue.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As a young reporter, Ellen McGarrahan witnessed a botched execution of Jesse Tafero, who had been found guilty of murdering two police officers in Florida. Tefero’s girlfriend and co-accused Sunny Jacobs was also due to be executed but this was commuted and, following further legal challenges freed from prison. Sunny subsequently married Peter Pringle, who had been sentenced to death in 1980 for the murder of two gardai but was ultimately released. The couple settled in Galway. Meanwhile, Ellen McGarrahan set out to find the real truth about the crime for which Tafero suffered a horrible death. Was an innocent man executed by the state? Were he and his girlfriend wrongly convicted? McGarrahan’s quest brought around the world, including a few days in Galway in the company of Jacobs and Pringle. Ellen is this week’s guest on the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This winter the country once again endured some shocking scenes of people lying on trollies in emergency departments in hospitals across the state. Then the crisis appeared to pass and many simply moved on. But the crisis hasn’t passed and lives are being lost throughout the year because of the crisis. Long serving consultant in emergency medicine Fergal Hickey has been a keen observer of the politics of health in this respect over the last thirty years and he remains deeply concerned that the needless loss of life every year is not receiving the attention it deserves. Fergal Hickey is this week’s guest on the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.