The Women's Podcast

It’s almost twenty years since Cecelia Ahern released her debut book P.S I Love You. Now the author is back with her nineteenth novel, In a Thousand Different Ways. It tells the story of Alice, a highly empathetic person who can see and feel people’s emotions through colours around their bodies. In this conversation with Róisín Ingle, Ahern explains how her own experiences as an empath inspired the story and how she wrote it while navigating the ‘three Ps’: perimenopause (and the brain fog and rage that comes with it), the pandemic and the postnatal period, following the birth of her third child, Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Broadcaster and writer Noelle McCarthy was born and raised in Cork, but now lives in New Zealand with her husband and young daughter Eve. Her new memoir ‘Grand: Becoming my Mother’s Daughter’, examines the tumultuous relationship she had with mother Carol, who struggled with alcoholism throughout her life. The book also tracks McCarthy’s life as a promising young student, who in a bid to escape her troubles at home, made the move from Cork city to New Zealand and established a name for herself in the media industry. In this conversation with Róisín Ingle, she reflects on the enduring bonds between mother and daughter, her own transition into motherhood and her relationship with alcohol and addiction. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Best-selling author Naoise Dolan is here to talk about her highly-anticipated second novel The Happy Couple. It tells the story of Celine and Luke, their upcoming wedding and the three friends who may draw them apart. In this episode, Dolan speaks to Róisín Ingle about swapping London for Berlin, how she almost took up a career in law and dealing with feelings of self-doubt. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The countdown is on for next month’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia. In this episode, Vera Pauw, manager of the Irish women’s national football team, talks to Róisín Ingle about the mood in camp, her hopes for her players and the evolution of the women’s sport over the last five decades. She opens up about her experiences of being raped and sexually abused by prominent Dutch officials and about lessons learnt from the controversy that marred the team’s victory over Scotland to qualify for the World Cup. This is the first time an Irish women’s team have qualified for the tournament. COYGIG! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In May 2019, the Irish government declared a climate and biodiversity emergency. To guide us through everything we need to know about biodiversity loss and the impact it has on the natural environment, we’re joined by activist, educator and former Rose of Tralee Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin, who recently chaired the Citizens Assembly on the subject. From hedgerows to bogs and from forests to lakes Ni Shuilleabhain tells Roisin Ingle why we all need to be on board when it comes to protecting and supporting biodiversity. This episode explores what we can do as individuals to make a positive difference and become good ancestors to future generations. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Dr Katriona O’Sullivan talks about her powerful, inspiring and affecting memoir Poor. O’Sullivan grew up in England with Irish parents, both heroin addicts, in a home environment riven with dysfunction, abuse and poverty. She became pregnant at 15, experienced homelessness and substance abuse as a young mother before moving to Dublin at the age of 20. Now an award-winning lecturer whose work challenges barriers to education, she tells Róisín Ingle the extraordinary story of how she turned her life around. And about her hopes for transforming attitudes towards girls and women like her. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, we revisit a conversation we had last year with Bonnie Garmus, author of the best selling book Lessons in Chemistry. The novel follows the life of Elizabeth Zott, a chemist in 1960s America, who leaves her career in science to present a TV cooking show. Garmus talks to Róisín Ingle about her long road to writing success, the excitement of her book becoming an instant bestseller and how her main character Zott came to her one evening after a bad day at the office. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our guest this week is DJ, podcaster and author Annie MacManus - more widely known as Annie Mac - who came on to talk about her second book The Mess We’re In. The London-based Dubliner’s debut novel Mother, Mother was set in Belfast but her latest is about Orla, a young woman who moves to London at the turn of the millennium and her chaotic adventures as she tries to make it in the music industry and find home in a brand new place. MacManus talked to podcast host Roisin Ingle about the concept of home, her life and work in London, leaving BBC Radio 1 after 17 years and “politely” turning down an MBE last summer.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Romantic love, widely elevated as a subject worth interrogating, tends to get a lot of attention while platonic friendship is woefully neglected in the public discourse. Enter, self-described “friendaholic” Elizabeth Day who is attempting to redress the balance. The author and woman behind the hit How to Fail podcast spoke to Roisin Ingle about why the complex bonds of friendship need more attention and how during the pandemic she was forced to reassess her own friendship circle. Her new book Friendaholic: Confessions of a friendship addict prompted her to look back at her experience of being bullied at school while growing up in Belfast where she struggled to fit in and make friends. Day spent many years using friendship - the more friends the better - as a form of self-validation. For Day, having lots of friends meant you were loved, popular and safe. But this quantity over quality approach was often to the detriment of her own boundaries and mental health. Day talked to Ingle about the great friendships of her life, what it feels like to be ghosted, dealing with frenemies, how friendships were affected by her fertility journey and the lessons she learned while writing the book. Friendaholic: Confessions of a friendship addict is out now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This month on the Women’s Podcast book club, we’ve been reading Go as a River, the debut novel from Shelley Read. Set in the beautiful wilderness of Colorado, it tells the story of Victoria, a resilient young woman whose life is forever changed by one chance encounter. It’s a story of love, loss and female bonds. So what did our book clubbers Bernice Harrison, Niamh Towey, Ann and Róisín Ingle make of this debut, tipped to be the next ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’? Share your thoughts on the book with us at thewomenspodcast@irishtimes.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.