Karen O’Donohoe is my guest today – we met a while back when she was a I interviewed her for TV – she worked for GIY and she had so much enthusiasm and charisma she made me want to rush to the dirt and get planting immediately. She contacted me recently about the war in Ukraine and the families coming to Ireland, she's keen to spread the word of the importance of communities coming together to help anyone coming to Ireland with very little. 2,500 Irish people have registered their homes to those displaced and it’s been incredible to see.

Karen has opened up her family home too as you’ll hear as well as how so many have pulled together to help make this happen. This episode is ultimately one of hope, I was so uplifted after hearing her speak of kindness and compassion – Karen reminds about how everybody can do something and how even the smallest of actions can make the biggest difference.

For more information on how you can help

https://www.redcross.ie/programmes-and-services-in-ireland/migration-services/

https://www.uplift.ie/

https://www.changex.org/ie

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Today’s guest is a friend of mine Karen Maurice O’Leary – Karen is from New Zealand and she and her husband Rua travelled to Ireland some years back and Karen and I were working at the same PR firm and I just loved her instantly. They were the most beautiful couple and literally adored each other – they certainly left an impression on me.

I’ll let Karen tell her story of what happened when they left Ireland and travelled back, settling into life in New Zealand. She has an important lesson for all of us about the ordinary in life and how important all that is. We talk about work life balance and why we get so wrapped up in what we do for a living that sometimes we forget it’s only a small part of who we are.

Karen has poured a tough experience into helping others and is making changes in some of the biggest corporations in the world helping people work smarter, not harder.

You can find out more about Karen's work at https://bolognesephilosophy.com/pages/about

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Today’s episode features someone I am proud to call my friend – Riyadh Khalaf. We met a few years back when we worked at the same radio station in Dublin, I had been there for a few years at that stage, had a baby or two at that stage and he was the next generation on the way in, embracing the new online age, going most places with a video camera in tow, his own You Tube Channel and buckets of enthusiasm. I told him then that he had something special so watching his star ascend has come as no surprise to me, his You Tube Channel followers hit 378 thousand subscribers where he shares honest accounts of life, love, coming out and reading mean tweets. His video where his mum reads out his grindr messages has had over 5 millons views. Riyadh has a gift of interweaving important topics with laugh out loud humour.

He now lives in London where he has worked at BBC Radio, he’s a reporter for The One Show, he won Celebrity Masterchef and remains a huge social media star. He still has so many plans for documentary making and he’s living his best life, travelling, on dancefloors and he shares a cat called Claire with his partner Josh – I never did ask about that bit in the interview – but I'm not offended, I’m a cat person and boy is she a beauty.

Riyadh is a Changemaker because he has taken what shouldn’t have been taboo and hauled it into the mainstream, he has taken abuse for it but used that to power him on. The message of thanks he receives far outweigh any trolling and his book Yay You’re Gay Now What has sold around the world.

Empathy is said to be one of the key components of a changemaker and what Riyadh has to say about empathy in this conversation gave me goosebumps – Riyadh makes the world a better place – hope you enjoy x

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TW *This episode features gender based violence

This episode is launching the series on International Women’s Day and my guest is Sarah Benson, CEO of Women's Aid. Sarah featured heavily in discussion on gender based violence following the murder of Ashling Murphy and we get into that in the piece but we delve back into her upbringing, her job choices which were mainly motivated by a sense of fairness. We talk about her work at Ruhama with women affected by prostitution, other forms of commercial sexual exploitation and human trafficking, managing the national helpline for domestic abuse, on the board of the Women's Council and now as CEO of Women's Aid.

Sarah is a champion of women, we discuss the patriarchal systems that don't serve men or non binary and other minorities either, and how real change will be multi layered from prevention and policy but also through society – the conversations we have, the communities we build, what we call out and stand for.

Women's Aid can be contacted on 1800 341 900

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My guest today is the absolutely fabulous Andrea Horan, she is as colourful and daring as the nails that walk out of her salon in Dublin Tropical Popical. She is presenter of podcast United Ireland with Una Mulally and in recent years she has become a spokesperson for Dublin city, speaking out against the explosion of hotels throughout and the eradication of culture spots. Andrea's major focus is on clubbing as culture and in this conversation we talk about the importance of fun and pleasure, the formative years of finding your tribe on the dancefloor and the importance of bringing people together for creativity and political discourse.

The changes in Dublin and other major cities in Ireland, where return on investment properties such as hotels, student accommodation and buy to let is shaping how we live. In town planning there is little emphasis on new green spaces, family friendly spaces and cultural hang outs in all its various forms. Students and professionals are finding themselves living in accommodation without light in their bedrooms and with no amenities around them and tourists are coming to cities where the nightlife is very limited.

There is a public consultation of our licencing laws under way asking for our thoughts on many issues including the closing time of venues and where alcohol can be sold like at one of events using other spaces such as art galleries and outdoor areas. SUBMISSION CLOSE THIS THURSDAY 21ST – I’ll leave a link for you to have your say in the show notes below - have your say!

The laws we currently operate under is the Dance Hall act from the 1930s so it is definitely time for change, have your say in how our city looks going forward.

I loved this chat with Andrea, she has such a way with words from feeling deflated by what she sees in Dublin ‘depresso martini’ to being inspired that we can demand change if we truly think about what we deem success to be. Is it accumulation and wealth or is it a celebration of all it means to be human including making space for fun and culture?

Here is where you can have your say https://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/open-consultation-sale-of-alcohol

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/public-consultation-on-proposed-changes-to-alcohol-licensing-laws-opens-1.4739006

Andrea’s documentary Clubbing is Culture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pECGnXz6PBc

https://www.giveusthenight.com/

https://www.instagram.com/dublinisdying/?hl=en

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/cobblestone-pub-owner-eternally-grateful-as-redevelopment-plan-refused-1.4741692

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Climate Change is scary isn't it. When faced with it you undulate between absolute fear and then hope that some great minds will sort it all out for us. Hope is so important in crisis, otherwise why would you bother? My guest today is someone I think will fuel that sense of optimism. Anne Marie Tomchak is fascinating from growing up in Longford with a musical family including Declan Nerney and Una Healy to her work at RTE, BBC and British Vogue. More recently, she has turned her eye to sustainability setting up a not for profit Share Joy and Design Tracker. Her aim is to help is live more sustainable lives in decarbonised homes, its a big ask but as you'll hear Anne Marie is not afraid of a challenge.

In this episode we talk about the importance of hope, how cynicism is still needed to weed out green washing and how nobody really has it all figured out. We also talk about female entrepreneurs, how the economic model of scale and growth isn’t sustainable and the power of small change.

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Nicola Tallant is Investigations Editor of the Sunday World Newspaper, she has written extensively about crime in Ireland over the past 16 years through her newspaper articles, her best selling books and more recently in her hugely successful podcast The Witness. Nicola tells the whole story of crime, the run down, impoverished areas where promises made to a communities around jobs and infrastructure were broken, the issues with the prison system which is often referred to as crime college and the two tiered, classist society which demonises criminality but fuels the industry through recreational drug use.

In this episode we discuss all of this as well as Nicola's chosen journalistic path, her thoughts on the legalisation of drugs and why she isn't afraid for her personal safety, for her, this is just a job like any other.

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Before you press play waiting to hear what the American actor has to say, please recalibrate, THIS Jack Black is the Scottish motivational speaker and coach who I crossed paths with many years ago when the company I was working for sent us for training. I had never been exposed to anything like it before and was captivated by the sentiment that what you believe you can achieve. Jack Black and his Mind Store events had a profound effect on me and I eventually left the corporate world where I was working in marketing to pursue my dream career as a radio and TV presenter. The seed of the idea began when I first saw Jack speak, so I really wanted him to feature in this series.

In this episode we discuss his beginnings in Glasgow as a social worker, how he went from having 3 people turn up to his first talk to packed out arenas and he takes on my challenge as to whether or not asking people to dream big is inferring that there is something wrong with their life as it is.

There are some great inspirational insights here as well as a fascinating story of one man's life told in a gorgeous Glasgow accent. Enjoy!

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Paul Merriman is a financial advisor at www.askpaul.ie and has had countless couples and people crying with frustration at the inability to buy a home when they are both working. The housing crisis in Ireland not only fails to serve them but also the vulnerable in society who need help to have their own home with emergency accommodation last years rather than weeks.

Paul has an ambitious plan to turn the industry on its head which he explains in this podcast, as well as his background and his thoughts on people who live above their means because 'YOLO' - it's a bitter bill to swallow!

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