The Academy Award winning songwriter, solo artist and Frames frontman, tells Brendan about leaving school at 13 with the support of his headmaster, fatherhood and his own parents, his evolving relationship with music and exciting projects for the year ahead.

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Psychotherapist Dr Richard Hogan on why you can become estranged from family or friends, when it's worth extending an olive branch, how to do so and how to protect yourself if you can't.

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Why does steak taste so much better in a restaurant? And are there any easy hacks to replicate the professional version? On Valentine's Day, chef, Broadcaster, and owner of Myrtle Restaurant in London, talks ageing, salting, and - controversially - the use of an oven.

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Poet Enda Wyley chooses some 'non-Hallmark' love poems for the day that's in it and quotes Carol Ann Duffy to Adrian Mitchell.

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Joining Brendan to talk through the Sunday Newspapers are Mick Clifford, Irish Examiner Special Correspondent; Mary Hanafin, barrister and former Fianna Fáil government minister; Jennifer Bray, Sunday Times Political Editor; and Graham Finlay. Assistant Professor of Politics and International Relations, UCD.

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Former Irish Times journalist Paul Cullen is adopted and has written a memoir, ‘Outsider’, about meeting his birth mother, finding his birth father through DNA and only recently being able to piece together his first two and a half years of foster care using old records.

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Brendan previews the best TV shows and films coming to a screen near you with Michael Doherty, RTÉ Guide Movies Editor and Fionnuala Jones, Podcaster and Presenter.

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Broadcaster Aifric O’Connell explains why certain older songs such as New Radicals’ ‘Get What You Give’, Aphex Twin’s ‘QKThr’ and Enya’s ‘Orinoco Flow’ are resonating with Gen Z and Gen Alpha and having a renaissance on TikTok.

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Six months after she dramatically quit the race for the Irish Presidency, former EU Commissioner and Fine Gael MEP, Mairéad McGuinness, tells Brendan about the severe post viral syndrome that forced her to withdraw. She also opens up about bereavement, menopause, and gave analysis of global political events.

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‘The Butcher Boy’ author, Pat McCabe, has just been announced as the 2026 IPUT Writer-in-Residence. He talks Brendan through his early Monaghan days, his writing career and the joy of being a grandfather through the prism of five songs from Brian Coll to Skid Row to Gilbert O’Sullivan.

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