Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning

When a jury found in Gerry Adams’s favour in his case against the BBC, executives from the British Broadcasting Corporation sounded like they had won.On Free State today, Joe and Dion disagree about the importance of the verdict in the libel trial. Joe explains why the jury reached that verdict and why the BBC’s evidence was flawed.They look at how the BBC was a propaganda tool in the north for too long and why this verdict might be a long awaited turning point. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Our revenge will be the laughter of our children,” Bobby Sands famously said. But what happens in a land where children are being killed in their thousands?On Free State today, trauma surgeon Morgan McMonagle provides a harrowing insight into his time working in the Nasser Hospital in Gaza.Morgan went to Gaza for the first time in 2024 and returned in 2025. He talks about how Israel’s onslaught over the past 20 months has destroyed a land and a people.He talks about the playgrounds that are no longer playgrounds but graveyards for the children who used to play there. They have no other use in a land where genocide is taking place and more than 50,000 children have been killed by the IDF.Morgan speaks about the four pillars of humanitarian work and why he has been compelled to speak out since he returned. It is not about taking sides, he says, it is about advocating for the truth. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How do we make sense of a world when it no longer contains the people we love?How do we make peace with the past when it’s still a mystery?On Free State today, writer Oona Frawley talked about her new memoir This Interim Time. A book about the loss of her parents and the gratitude that comes from her children.She talks about her own father’s struggle with alcoholism and Dion reflects on how drink and its consequences can be handed down through generations. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a recent survey, supporters of Nigel Farage ranked ‘being English’ ahead of ‘being a parent’ as a signifier of who they are.How has it come to this? Even as the dissatisfaction with Brexit grows, Farage who drove so much of the vote by playing on the most irrational fears, is England's most popular politician. On Free State today, Joe and Dion look at the rise of English nationalism and what it means for the rest of Britain, as well as Ireland.They look at the frenzy within minutes of the Liverpool Parade crash to find the identity of the suspect, but only if it fitted with their existing prejudices.They identify how nationalism always ends in an assertion of supremacy.While Joe has some good things to say about Fintan O’Toole and Dion offers a solution to the Celtic Soul Brothers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh was charged with terror offences, it made global headlines. The world reported the charge that the man had allegedly displaying a flag in support of proscribed organisation Hezbollah in November 2024.Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh is better known as Mo Chara of Kneecap and he is alleged to have committed the act at a gig in Kentish Town in London 18 months ago. He denies the charge.On Free State today, Joe provides a legal insight into the charge and what it is intended to do. They look too at the story of Hezbollah and why they are a more complex organisation than some allow.They also consider the chilling effect when artists worldwide are silenced and why it is happening now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the 20th December, 2004, £26.5 million was stolen in plain sight from the Northern Bank in Belfast. This wasn't a victimless crime, but some saw it as a caper. Most believed only one organisation was capable of pulling off an operation of this scale. On Free State today, the great writer Glenn Patterson joins us to discuss his new book on the Northern Bank robbery and what it tells us about Ireland. Patterson talks about his own identity too, growing up in a Protestant estate. Belfast has changed he says, but he reflects on what he believes is still holding integration back. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gary Lineker will leave the BBC this weekend but why has it come to this?On Free State, Joe and Dion look at how Lineker had a target on his back for years but when he spoke out about Gaza, the clock was ticking. As Israel’s actions in Gaza become more atrocious and babies starve, more and more people are becoming tarred. How has the western world allowed this to happen? How have so many people been silenced when it comes to speaking out on genocide?Joe recalls a situation in his own life when he had to defend himself from accusations of antisemitism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Keir Starmer said Britain risked becoming an ‘island of strangers’, in whose interests was he speaking?When Gary Lineker left the BBC, was it because he unwittingly shared an antisemitic post - which he subsequently apologised for - or because he had been outspoken on the genocide in Gaza?On Free State today Dion and Joe look at how the world is ordered and what needs to change. They examine how inequality is now hardwired into systems and ask what can be done about it.Joe also has a story of inequality of his own and naturally it involves the Mayo footballers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Jon Trigg was sent to Northern Ireland as a young officer, he was going to war. It wasn’t the Troubles or a conflict but a war.Trigg served his tour of duty in 1993 and moved on, but, unusually he returned, not as a soldier but as a writer.In an extraordinary conversation today, Jon Trigg talks to Joe and Dion about his new book on the IRA in Derry. Joe and Jon speak frankly, and sometimes with tension, about the conflict, but also recall the figures from the IRA they both knew.He tells of his difficulty in getting former IRA men to trust him and where they found common ground. Jon recalls too the decisions that led to the Paratroopers moving into Derry on Bloody Sunday and the massacre that followed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When is a cocaine spoon not a cocaine spoon? When is a tissue a wrap of an illegal substance?On Free State today look at how a story spreads online as it did over the weekend when Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer and Friedrich Merz were filmed on a train going to Kyiv. Soon the idea that drug paraphernalia was in the carriage took hold online.  The story was dismissed as fantasy and Russian propaganda but does it demonstrate something more profound: a severe distrust in what people have been asked to believe in the west?Dion doesn’t think so and he rants at Joe about the story. But is he just a gullible centrist or is Joe in danger of falling for the craziest online fantasies? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.