The Mick Clifford Podcast

In recent years the country has been coming to terms with how previous generations of young women were treated when they gave birth outside marriage. A dark and painful history has been laid bare in documents like the Mother And Baby Homes Report. But what is it like for adopted people today looking for the details of their birth and early life? Aoife O’Connell has been on such a journey and she has found that despite the excavation of the past adopted people are still not afforded the access to their own details that should be a human right. Aoife is this week’s guest on the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How caring is our society and how caring can it be in a political system that champions the individual? Kathleen Lynch, Professor Emeritus of Equality Studies in UCD has written a book about how capitalism ensures we do not care for each other as we should, or, more importantly, need to. On the podcast she points out how caring is completely unvalued in society, yet for individuals it is, or will be at some point, our more primal need. So what has to change and how do we go about it? Kathleen Lynch talks on this week’s podcast about the central messages in her book, Care and Capitalism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the winter bears down on Afghanistan there are real fears of a famine with over 25m people now living in poverty under the Taliban regime. Irish journalist Hannah McCarthy has spent time in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over last August and she reports that there is a growing humanitarian crisis. She has also seen first hand the result of the American led sanctions and she questions who exactly is being worst impacted in the efforts to displace the Taliban. Hannah McCarthy is this week’s guest on the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Journalist Sean O’Driscoll has written a jaw dropping account of the life of Rose Dugdale, the British aristocrat who forsook her life in the upper echelons of British society to join the IRA in the name of a socialist revolution. Heiress, Rebel, Vigilante, Bomber examines the exploits, politics and personal struggles of one of the most unlikeliest figures to emerge from the period of violence in Northern Ireland. O’Driscoll talks about how he came to write the book and the various figures who agreed to be interviewed, and the account he was told about Dugdale’s role in developing new bombs in a remote Co Mayo farm.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In March 2019, Naoise Connolly Ryan’s husband Mick Ryan was among 157 people who died when a Boeing 737 max aircraft crashed in Ethiopia. Mick Ryan was a senior engineer with the UN World Food Programme. It was the second fatal accident involving a Boeing max in five months. Since then, Naoise and other families have been trying to get justice for their lost loved ones. Boeing has offered all the bereaved families around €1.2m, but Naoise has turned that down and says she wants justice. So far, nobody of consequence has had to answer or a system in which profit was put ahead of passenger safety. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Don O’Leary was told last February that he had less than a year to live. Despite that he has still not missed a day at work as the director of the Cork Life Centre, which caters for youths who are unsuited to the confines of the education system. He talks about how the system fails so many and how the Life Centre has managed to succeed with youths who might otherwise have had nowhere to go. He looks back over a life that included a term in Portlaoise Prison for membership of the IRA in the 1980s and how after he was released he grabbed a chance to get involved in education, which became his passion. Last year he received an honorary doctorate from UCC and he insists that he’s won’t let his condition dictate how he lives. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The killing of Tom Oliver in Co Louth in 1991 was one of the more shocking murders associated with the Troubles. The IRA claimed he was an informer, a charge his family deny. In 2017, the gardai re-investigated the murder and the team believed they had advanced the case. However, the case is now the brief of a British operation investigating collusion, called Kenova. But why has there been no prosecution? And what do two former British agents in the IRA know about the murder? And what does the garda commissioner know about it through his former role in the PSNI?Retired chief superintendent John O’Brien spoke on the podcast about a case that plumbs some murky depths and for which Mr Oliver’s family have not received any answers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With the end of the Dail term in sight and a whole host of problems bedevilling the government, Irish Examiner political editor Danny McConnell runs the rule over the body politic’s performance since the start of the year. He covers all the issues with his usual insight, verve and colour and he even finds time to tell why it’s good to be a Dub. Well, most of the time.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sonya Egan was recently imprisoned for two years for a campaign of harassment against former Sinn Fein TD Jonathan O’Brien and businesswoman Laura O’Connell. Some details of the campaign, which also involved Egan stalking Ms O’Connell, were revealed in court. But on the podcast Laura O’Connell tracks how she first came into contact with Egan, how things developed to the point where Egan was harassing her on a nearly daily basis and what happened when she was forced to go to court to ensure her own safety. Laura also details the massive impact the whole affair had on her physical and psychological health. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The enveloping inflation spiral and cost of living crisis is dominating public life today and practically everybody has been impacted in one form or another. This is the third major crises the country has faced in little over a decade, following a recession and the pandemic. But it is the first time in a generation that inflation is creating havoc in everyday lives.Irish Examiner columnist Fergus Finlay was at the frontline the last time there was such a crisis, working as a union official and then for the government that grappled with the issue, as well as rearing a young family. He talks to this week’s podcast about what it was like, the differences today and how we can tackle the current crisis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.