Shahd Ismail Mahmoud Miqdad , is a PhD student from Gaza, who dreams of a life beyond the genocide where she will complete her education and life a an independent life safe, far from anything that hurts or touches her or her loved ones.

Former US Green Beret and Gaza Humanitarian Foundation whistleblower, Anthony Aguilar rejoined me to discuss the current situation in Cuba, Iran and the US. He outlines the military situation and, not to be all doomer, gives a stark assessment of where things are heading.

This week Sparky sits down with Fair City actress, Dancing with the Stars contestant and fellow Ballymunner, Stephanie Kelly for a great and fun chat in the shack about family, youth arts access, acting and dancing.

In this March 24 convo with Helena Cobban, Vijay Prashad, the director Tricontinental, drew on his extensive experience of the affairs of the Global South to assess the extent and roots of Iran's achievements in resisting the attack that the U.S.-Israeli alliance started on February 28.

Prashad and Cobban also discussed the ties between Iran's achievements in their war against the alliance and the prospects for the movements in Gaza, the rest of Palestine, and Lebanon that are also facing fierce onslaughts from the alliance, and the impacts of this war on the global balance more generally.

This conversation is the ninth in JWE's ongoing "Iran Crisis" series, which is a follow-on to the "Gaza, and the World" project that we launched in Fall 2025. The multimedia records of all the conversations in this series can be found at this portal page on our website.

Martin Leahy is a real one. The dedicated housing protester, activist and musician shares his journey from personal housing struggles to leading a 200-week protest. We talk about the power of activism, protest songs, community building, and the ongoing fight for housing rights in Ireland.

Hope to see lots of you outside the Dáil on Thursday.

Seems to be a problem with this morning's podcast. So here it is again in audio only format.

Apologies if this hits your feed twice!

You might let me know if it is a player issue or what apps you're using etc

thanks

Tony

In this March 5 convo with Helena Cobban, longtime Iran specialist Barbara Slavin noted the survival of Iran's central governance structures even after the early assassination by the Israeli and U.S. war machine of the Supreme Leader and numerous other figures in the country's military and political leadership, and surmised that its government is not likely soon either to crumble or to "capitulate."

Slavin, who is a Distinguished Fellow at Washington DC's Stimson Institute, mocked many of the assertions by Pres. Trump and cabinet members like Secretary of War Pete Hegseth believed that Tehran was about to cave. She and Cobban also surveyed the still-spreading consequences of the war for the West Asia region, the global economy, and also the U.S. political system.

This conversation is the seventh in JWE's ongoing "Iran Crisis" series, which is a follow-on to the "Gaza, and the World" project that we launched in Fall 2025. The multimedia records of all the conversations in this series can be found at this portal page on our website. Check back at our website www.justworldeducational.org for news of our further programming in this series.

Davy Adams has lived many lives, from becoming a loyalist paramilitary, to go on to contribute to the Good Friday Agreement and then to carry out humanitarian work in places like Syria, Sudan and Sierra Leone.

He joined me to talk about his bottom-up view on conflict, his take on the US-Israel war on Iran and why despite all the horrors he's seen, he remains hopeful.

Yes, I brought him to the Diggers for a Sambo and Coddle

It’s all a bit mad (and we will be covering the madness) at the moment, so it was a salve for the soul to sit down and chat with the first ever Palestinian photo-journalist in Gaza, Eman Mohamed. She describes growing up in Gaza in a matriarchal household, going to a convent school and falling in love with photography.

We discuss her life outside of Gaza, in the US and now in Ireland. I loved this conversation and I hope you will too.

See emanmohammed.com for more

In this very special conversation Sparky sits down with actor, singer, kind-of-definitely-not historian and thoroughly decent skin, Phelim Drew.

They get into everything, from the lefty anarchic theatre scene to folk memory.