For this episode we have asked our friend and contributor, Greek journalist and filmmaker, Alexis Daloumis, to sit in for an interview with Luke Sheehan about his newly released Documentary Belki Sibe.

Back in 2015 Alexis travelled in northern Syria to Rojava, to join the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces and soon was deployed on the frontlines as a member of the International Freedom battalion.

His documentary depicts with unprecedented candour and rawness his eighteen-month journey through war and revolution, during the advances and victory against Isis, the liberation of Raqqa in 2017, until then, the Islamic State capital and stronghold.

The documentary also includes new footage and interviews from his subsequent visit in 2021 to the same places and cities where he once fought.

Now, as a journalist, his camera turns to scrutinize civil life and institutions under the autonomous Kurdish administration.

In light of recent developments, we asked Alexis to talk about the making of his documentary, his experiences on the frontlines and that of his comrades, as well as the potential dangers that loom over the area and its people, now that United States has withdrawn its support to the autonomous Kurdish administration in favour of the newly established Syrian Central Government after the fall of the Assad's regime.

Host: Luke Sheehan

Intro: Daniele Idini

Music: Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

Produced by Massimiliano Galli - https://www.massimilianogalli.com

Fatma Akman Lehmann was born and raised in Ankara.

From a young age, she was drawn to writing—a passion that later shaped her path toward journalism, politics, and civic activism.

Now resident in Germany, she is the author of the Turkey: Lost in Translation Substack.

Intended to cover politics and culture in a general way, the arrest of Istanbul Mayor and Presidential contender Ekrem İmamoğlu flung her into a far deeper engagement with events in her home country.

As of the end of 2025, İmamoğlu has been served an indictment with a stupefying range of charges, including espionage and terrorism, and was facing a potential prison sentence of 2,300+ years.

https://turkeylostintranslation.substack.com/

Host: Luke Sheehan

Music: Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

Produced by Massimiliano Galli - https://www.massimilianogalli.com

John Dillon, Regius Professor of Greek (Emeritus) at Trinity College Dublin, is an Irish classicist and philosopher considered a world authority in ancient philosophy and Platonism. Born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1939, he returned to Ireland as a child and studied Classics at Oxford before earning a Ph.D. at UC Berkeley. He taught at Berkeley from 1969 until his appointment at Trinity in 1980, where he remained until his retirement in 2006. Dillon is founder and Director Emeritus of the Dublin Plato Centre and a member of several prestigious academies, including the Royal Irish Academy and the Academy of Athens. A professor Emeritus of the British Academy. He has published over thirty books and numerous articles, focusing on the transmission of Platonic philosophy.

Episode Credits:

Host: Luke Sheehan

Music: Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

Produced by Massimiliano Galli - https://www.massimilianogalli.com

Terry Fagan is a renowned Irish local historian and storyteller from Dublin's North Inner City. Born in the 1950s and raised in the historic heart of what was once Europe's largest red-light district, the Monto, Fagan witnessed firsthand the rapid transformation, and often erasure, of the surrounding Dublin tenements and their culture.

He is, to this day, one of the best living sources of lore and information about this lost world, as well as a collector of histories of it.

In the 1970s, Fagan began his historical work by recording oral histories from local residents, many of whom remembered formative events such as the 1913 Lock-Out, the 1916 Easter Rising, and the War of Independence and Civil War. These interviews also documented memories relating to life in Dublin's tenements, experiences in industrial schools and Magdalen laundries, dock work, women's roles, deaths of children, money lenders, orphanage life, and more, covering both the public and intensely personal history of inner-city Dublin.

Fagan's work extends far beyond oral interviews. He is the longtime director of the North Inner City Folklore Project, an initiative that began as a jobs program and allowed him to preserve and publish stories from his community. Over decades, he has amassed a vast collection of tenement artefacts: photographs, books, letters, coins, dockers' buttons, children's toys. His vision has always been to open a dedicated museum so this vital social history is preserved within, and for, the local community rather than being housed elsewhere.

This museum has been a reality in the past and Terry's current passion is to reestablish it.

Terry has published works such as "Monto: Madams, Murder and Black Coddle" and "Dublin Tenements: Memories of Life in Dublin's Notorious Tenements," both drawn from his extensive oral history collections. He is also a popular walking tour guide, interweaving tales from his own life as well as audio samples from the collections he oversaw. The Monto tour includes tales about brothel madams, dockers, and a "hidden Dublin" many would prefer to leave interred in the past.

Host: Luke Sheehan

Music: Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

Produced by Massimiliano Galli - https://www.massimilianogalli.com

"The Christians are frightened, the Alawites are frightened"

It has been one year since Cassandra Voices forayed into podcasting. The guest for our podcast's first-ever episode — the extraordinary journalist Patrick Cockburn — returns to talk with Luke Sheehan through Syria, Ukraine and Gaza, and his recent writings on these wars.

Host: Luke Sheehan

Music: Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

Produced by Massimiliano Galli - https://www.massimilianogalli.com

In a turbulent period in European history, and beyond, we are delighted to draw on the sage input of the former Irish ambassador to Russia, Philip McDonagh, who also worked for a long period on the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland. He explores the possibilities for a lasting, inclusive peace between Russia and Ukraine. He also laments the expansion of military investment in the U.K. and the rest of Europe, calling for a new global vision to contend with the troubles of our time.

Host: Frank Armstrong

Music: Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

Produced by Massimiliano Galli - https://www.massimilianogalli.com

https://cassandravoices.com/current-affairs/podcast-we-urgently-need-a-global-vision/

'My Mother (at the Time)' is a special episode of our Cassandra Voices podcast, fitting for an installment that marks the one year point since its inception. For this episode, host Luke Sheehan travelled to Amsterdam to interview the Irish critic, art historian and Joycean named Patrick Healy. A brilliant scholar, Healy was born to an unmarried mother and raised in fosterage with multiple families. He impressed his peers at college in 80s Dublin but soon felt alienated enough to start a life of intermittent exile, wandering Europe, mastering German and Dutch, evolving into a scholar of art and rare books. The title of the episode represents the difficulties that affected Healy profoundly at the start of his life: a story about a calamitous piano lesson wherein he accidentally kicked a nun leads him to speak of "my mother at the time"—all told he had several "mothers", and was taught by the "sisters" (the nuns who were his first guardians) to think of and name each of them as "mother". The conversation with Healy also provided a chance for him to read from a newly completed work, a Joycean stream-of-unconsciousness memoir written during lockdown. With his famous voice, once deployed to read the unabridged entirety of Finnegan's Wake over several days, Healy conjured up vocal traces of an Ireland of half a century ago, in both dialogue and performance of his text. Something to cherish, without a doubt. No need to worry about linear logic or storyline, but rather (as with all good readings of the Wake) let the music take you somewhere.

Host: Luke Sheehan

Music: Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

John Field: Nocturne N. 5 in B-Flat Major

Guest Link: https://www.lilliputpress.ie/products/james-joyces-finnegans-wake-a-reading-by-patrick-healy

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Days-Mankind-Tragedy-Five/dp/9492027038

Part 2 of "It is Abhorrent to Me to Stage a Picture…" A Conversation with George Azar

Host: Luke Sheehan

Music: Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

George Azar: An Introduction

George Azar was born in 1959, the descendant of Lebanese olive farmers who had set sail from Beirut a century earlier. They settled in South Philadelphia, a working-class enclave—later immortalized in 'Rocky'. It was a mix of Italians, Irish, Polish, Jewish, and Lebanese families, a tough, mafia-controlled neighborhood where people staked their claims street by street.

After graduating from UC Berkeley in Political Science, he postponed graduate school to see first-hand a war he had only read about. He covered the Lebanese Civil War as a front line news photographer, immersing himself and seeing the conflict up-close.

The war brought moments that could be scripted for an absurdist play, like the teenage Shia gunmen and snipers who called themselves "The Smurfs". For the dissonance between their youth, and the brutal violence they lived mirrored the contradictions his photography sought to capture.

Azar learned the unwritten rules of the new industry where the pictures most in demand were 'Bang Bang' photos: high-drama, front-line images that convey the raw violence of war. His first photo captioned Machine Gun Alley, marked his entry into the profession. A strong image from the front line sold for $60, while a photo of a woman firing a weapon might land on front pages worldwide. Some photographers gave in to the temptation to stage scenes. Azar found the practice indefensible. "To me, it is abhorrent to stage an image."

The photographs Azar values most capture often quiet, deeply human moments: an elderly man weeping into his bed, a mother standing amidst the ruins of her Gaza kitchen, and Palestinian shepherd in a field of yellow wildflowers that grace the cover of his book, 'Palestine, A Photographic Journey' (UC Press, 1991).

Azar left Lebanon after the war physically and emotionally drained. He returned to Philadelphia, and worked for the local newspaper. But the pull of the Middle East proved irresistible. The First Intifada drew him back, beginning a new chapter in his career, this time focused on the freedom struggle in Palestine.

In conversation, Azar shared astonishing stories: the Irish junkies linked to the IRA who lived above him; Issa Abdullah Ali, a renegade African-American soldier who converted to Islam, defected and joined Iran's Revolutionary Guard and fought the Israelis in the 1982 battle for Beirut; and his encounters with journalism legends Robert Fisk, Patrick Cockburn and photojournalist Don McCullen.

The conversation unfolded against a backdrop of Israeli drone sounds, power outages, and rising tensions—a grim reminder that Lebanon is once again in the grip of war. The country faces yet another reshaping, one that will demand extraordinary resilience from its people and, perhaps, a reimagined political future.

"It is Abhorrent to Me to Stage a Picture…" A Conversation with George Azar

Host: Luke Sheehan

Music: Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

George Azar: An Introduction

George Azar was born in 1959, the descendant of Lebanese olive farmers who had set sail from Beirut a century earlier. They settled in South Philadelphia, a working-class enclave—later immortalized in 'Rocky'. It was a mix of Italians, Irish, Polish, Jewish, and Lebanese families, a tough, mafia-controlled neighborhood where people staked their claims street by street.

After graduating from UC Berkeley in Political Science, he postponed graduate school to see first-hand a war he had only read about. He covered the Lebanese Civil War as a front line news photographer, immersing himself and seeing the conflict up-close.

The war brought moments that could be scripted for an absurdist play, like the teenage Shia gunmen and snipers who called themselves "The Smurfs". For the dissonance between their youth, and the brutal violence they lived mirrored the contradictions his photography sought to capture.

Azar learned the unwritten rules of the new industry where the pictures most in demand were 'Bang Bang' photos: high-drama, front-line images that convey the raw violence of war. His first photo captioned Machine Gun Alley, marked his entry into the profession. A strong image from the front line sold for $60, while a photo of a woman firing a weapon might land on front pages worldwide. Some photographers gave in to the temptation to stage scenes. Azar found the practice indefensible. "To me, it is abhorrent to stage an image."

The photographs Azar values most capture often quiet, deeply human moments: an elderly man weeping into his bed, a mother standing amidst the ruins of her Gaza kitchen, and Palestinian shepherd in a field of yellow wildflowers that grace the cover of his book, 'Palestine, A Photographic Journey' (UC Press, 1991).

Azar left Lebanon after the war physically and emotionally drained. He returned to Philadelphia, and worked for the local newspaper. But the pull of the Middle East proved irresistible. The First Intifada drew him back, beginning a new chapter in his career, this time focused on the freedom struggle in Palestine.

In conversation, Azar shared astonishing stories: the Irish junkies linked to the IRA who lived above him; Issa Abdullah Ali, a renegade African-American soldier who converted to Islam, defected and joined Iran's Revolutionary Guard and fought the Israelis in the 1982 battle for Beirut; and his encounters with journalism legends Robert Fisk, Patrick Cockburn and photojournalist Don McCullen.

The conversation unfolded against a backdrop of Israeli drone sounds, power outages, and rising tensions—a grim reminder that Lebanon is once again in the grip of war. The country faces yet another reshaping, one that will demand extraordinary resilience from its people and, perhaps, a reimagined political future.

As a journalist, Anya Parampil is unafraid of rattling the cage. She now writes for the Grayzone, founded by her husband Max Blumenthal in 2015, an online publication which aims to 'break through any narrative of the day that is pushing the United States' public in support of war.' Previously she worked as a producer and broadcaster, then an anchor correspondent, for Russia Today (U.S.), from which she was fired, after refusing to accept restrictions on her reporting of U.S. foreign policy.

In this podcast Anya likens writing about U.S. foreign policy from Washington D.C. to working inside 'the belly of the beast'. Her work charts the policy machinations emanating from what she describes as a 'deep state' whose power, she argues, exceeds democratically elected politicians.

Anya is the author of Corporate Coup – Venezuela and the End of US Empire (Or Books, New York, 2023), which dissects the motivations of the U.S. government, under the presidency of Donald Trump – directed in particular by figures such as John Bolton and Eliot Abrams – to sponsor a shadow government of Venezuela under Juan Guaído to challenge President Nicolás Maduro.

As we approach another Presidential election, Anya sees little hope of a change in approach from the U.S. towards a country containing greater oil reserves than any other country on planet Earth. She maintains hope, however, that an alliance that includes isolationist supporters of Trump and progressive elements within the Democratic Party could in time tame the beast of this seemingly permanent government, and retains a faith that the First Amendment of the US Constitution on free speech will allow her to continue her work.

Episode Credits:

Host: Frank Armstrong

Music:

Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

Produced by Massimiliano Galli - https://www.massimilianogalli.com