The Women's Podcast

Last year, when most of us were busy baking banana bread or learning how to crochet, Irish actress Jade Jordan spent her time in lockdown delving back into the pasts of her mother Dominique and grandmother Kathleen. Spurred on by the death of George Floyd, Jade was eager to explore and add to the discussion surrounding race and discrimination in Ireland. The result of these conversations between Jade and the women closest to her, is the book, Nanny, Ma and Me: An Irish story of family, race and home. In today’s episode, she tells Róisín Ingle about the power of looking back into the past, the importance of speaking out and standing up to racism and why when people come together to talk, the possibilities are endless. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We cannot resolve the climate emergency without fighting for gender equality. Women, especially poor women of colour, are suffering most as a result of the climate crisis, our highest-profile climate activists are women and girls and yet, at the top table it is men who are deciding the earth’s future. In her latest book, How Women Can Save the Planet, award-winning journalist Anne Karpf argues that when it comes to fighting climate change we are not all in it together, but we could be. In today’s podcast she joins Róisín, Sadhbh O’Neill, policy coordinator with Stop Climate Chaos, and Catherine Cleary, writer and founder of the Pocket Forests initiative, to talk about many of the issues raised in the book, the debate about women and climate change and what we can all do to help. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In today’s podcast Róisín talks to the journalist, author and presenter of the brilliant How To Fail podcast Elizabeth Day. She has just published her latest novel, Magpie, a thrilling, stylish and psychologically astute story of jealousy, motherhood and power. In this funny, moving and revealing conversation, Day explains how some of the book’s themes relate to her own life, why it was important to her to write about mental illness with sensitivity and why she is a Derry girl at heart. She also tells Róisín about her lockdown wedding to husband Justin Basini, some of her favourite How To Fail guests and her friendship with Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Taste of Dublin returns to the Inveagh Gardens this week. A celebration of eating, drinking and entertainment, the festival runs for five days from the 1st- 5th September and features live cooking demonstrations, wine tastings and food stalls from all over the world. This year, Our Table will be joining the festival line up, selling a selection of products and showcasing start up businesses from the migrant background. Our Table was founded by activist Ellie Kisyombe and food writer Michelle Darmody, who met through a shared conviction that Direct Provision was an unjust system and that talking about it through food might help to start an important conversation. In today’s episode, Kisyombe and Darmody speak to Róisin Ingle about the origins of Our Table and their involvement in this year’s festival. Also joining the conversation is pastry chef and Irish Times food writer Aoife Noonan who will be doing a live demonstration at Taste of Dublin this Sunday. See https://dublin.tastefestivals.com/ for all details. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s that time of year again. The back-to-school sun is shining as thousands of children around the country return to the classroom. Parents, children and teachers alike will be hoping for some normality as the new school year begins, but will it be all plain sailing? In this episode Róisín Ingle is joined by journalist and parenting expert Jen Hogan and by Maria Rushe, a secondary school teacher based in Donegal. They discuss the worries and concerns facing parents and students, the current rules around masks and vaccinations and they’ve loads of tips and advice for the new academic year ahead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In her new book The Breakup Monologues, comedian Rosie Wilby takes you on a journey back through her romantic history, celebrating the ups and downs and the many lessons learned along the way. The book serves as a love letter to those breakups and includes anecdotes from friends and interviews with relationship therapists, scientists and sociologists. In this conversation, the “breakup queen” tells Róisín Ingle about her obsession with heartache, the new language around dating and why lesbians are the unofficial, unrecognised world champions of breakups. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Bright Side, by Irish director Ruth Meehan opens in Irish cinemas on August 20th. The film was inspired by Anne Gildea’s best-selling memoir ‘I’ve got cancer, what’s your excuse’ and tells the story of Kate (Gemma-Leah Devereux), a world-weary comedian who is diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of thirty-five. Already suicidal, Kate sees this as a guilt-free way out, but the prospect of death soon becomes the best reason to choose life. In this episode, Gildea and Meehan tell Roisin Ingle how the idea for the film came about, their strong emotional ties to the story and some of their favourite moments from the set. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The first week of August marks World Breastfeeding Week, which aims to encourage breastfeeding and improve the health of babies around the world. Globally, Ireland has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates, with just over one third of mothers breastfeeding their newborn when they leave hospital and fewer than 6% of babies still breastfed exclusively at 6 months old. In this episode, broadcaster and "accidental" breastfeeding spokesperson Aoibhinn Ní Shúillebháin speaks to Róisín Ingle about the lactation supports needed for mothers, the world-wide marketing ploy that is follow-on milk and why the government need to fully fund and implement the National Maternity Strategy and the National Breastfeeding Action Plan in Budget 2022.We’re also joined by maternity care campaigner Emma Carroll, who set up the Facebook page In our shoes: Covid Pregnancy to highlight the unfair restrictions placed on expectant mothers and partners in Ireland’s maternity hospitals. Carroll tells Ingle about her own experience of giving birth in a pandemic, about the stories she’s hearing from other mothers and why she says it’s unacceptable that you can have a meal in a pub with your partner but must go through the maternity process alone. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1998, a fresh-faced 16-year-old Britney Spears became an overnight global superstar with the release of her debut single Baby One More Time. She went on to sell over 150 million records, win multiple awards and gain a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But for nearly half of Spears’ impressive career, the singer hasn’t had full control over her life. For the last thirteen years, she has been under a conservatorship controlled by her father, which gives him the legal right to make decisions on her finances, work commitments, health and personal life. This summer, Spears has been fighting the conservatorship in court, describing the details of her life in a harrowing testimony which shocked fans around the world. In today’s episode, Róisín Ingle speaks to Kimberly Wehle, Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore about the details of her conservatorship battle and to journalist Louise Bruton about the life and career of America’s biggest pop star. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, we are bringing you a conversation from our Big Night In series of events, which took place in late 2020. On a cold Winter's evening, Róisín Ingle was joined on Zoom by former state pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy in front of a live virtual audience. Cassidy spoke about her very unconventional career choice, the unexpected fame that came with it and the Irish obsession with death. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.