Recorded at the 2025 Capital Irish Film Festival in Washington DC, this episode features a conversation with two Irish women who have both made significant transitions into film from other careers. 

Kathleen Harris, a former Irish Times video journalist, discusses her environmental documentary Birdsong, which won the 2025 CIFF Audience Award for Favorite Irish Feature. Denise Deegan, a novelist, talks about her award-winning short, The Innkeeper.

Birdsong follows ornithologist Seán Ronayne as he attempts to record every bird species in Ireland, traveling to some of the country's most remote locations along the way.

The Innkeeper is a short comedy drama set around a school nativity play, which carries a quiet but powerful message about homelessness in Ireland.

Both guests left stable careers — Harris from journalism, Deegan from running a PR business — to pursue film making, and both talk candidly about the leap involved. A thread running through the conversation is how each approached social issues in their work: Harris structured Birdsong to balance wonder with concern about Ireland's biodiversity crisis, while Deegan deliberately withheld The Innkeeper's central point until the final moment. Neither wanted to lecture. Both wanted to leave the audience feeling something had shifted.

Links

Capital Irish Film Festival

Kathleen Harris

• Website
• LinkedIn

Denise Deegan

• Website
• Instagram

The Films

• Birdsong
  • Website
  • Preview
• The Innkeeper
  • Preview
  • IMDB

Irish Stew Links

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Media Partner: IrishCentral

Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 6; Total Episode Count: 147

Irish Stew wraps its Off the Beaten Craic in the Hidden Heartlands Series in Drumshanbo, the Co. Leitrim town rewriting the rural renewal playbook. What began as a desperate effort to save a shuttered jam factory has become one of Ireland's most remarkable community-led success stories.

At The Food Hub in Drumshanbo, cohosts Martin Nutty and John Lee hear from Cllr Enda McGloin and onsite manager Fergal McPartland how a voluntary local committee refused to let the abandoned jam factory slip away, spending years securing a long-term lease and funding while recommitting the site to food production rather than easier options like storage. The Food Hub now houses multiple thriving enterprises including The Shed Distillery, home of Gunpowder Irish Gin which put this Leitrim town on the global spirits map. Together, the Food Hub and the Shed have transformed Drumshanbo from a symbol of industrial decline into a vibrant food, drink, and tourism destination studied by other towns seeking renewal.

Inside The Shed, the podcasters hear how its managing director and founder P.J. Rigney and his team have fused global imagination with local soul in their distinctive gins, whiskeys and now vodka. At the distillery’s heart beats an Irish storyteller's instinct for character, place, and pride.

The podcasters get to see the magic happen on The Shed Distillery Tour, a popular hospitality experience made complete with a stop at the onsite Jackalope Café, a local foodie destination.

Now P.J. is restoring the town's historic Methodist Church as a community and visitor hub, continuing the ethos of regeneration that began with the Food Hub. He calls it a partnership of "guardian angels" between business and community, each nurturing the other through shared purpose.

This final episode of Off the Beaten Craic in the Hidden Heartlands captures the alchemy of curiosity and connection that defines Drumshanbo, a small town that turned crisis into creativity and built a legacy of craft, courage, and collaboration. From jam to gin, from empty factory floors to bustling innovation, Drumshanbo proves that when community and imagination meet, even the most hidden heartlands can become a global destination.

Irish Stew’s next destination is Washington, DC. Join them next week for the first of several episodes on Irish films featured by the Solas Nua Capital Irish Film Festival.

Links

The Food Hub 

• Website  
• Facebook

Cllr Enda McGloin

• Website
• LinkedIn
• Facebook

The Shed Distillery

• Website
• Instagram
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• PJ Rigney on LinkedIn

Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 5; Total Episode Count: 146

Irish Stew’s latest “Off the Beaten Craic” adventure in County Leitrim discovers three new ways to slow down, tune in, and taste this corner of Ireland, through food, forest, and a gentle spin along the Jackalope Trail.

First, we meet Malaysian‑born chef and restaurateur Sham Hanifa. At age 20 he answered an ad to work in Ireland, arriving in Carrick‑on‑Shannon jet‑lagged and short on money, but today he anchors the local food scene with The Cottage, My Kitchen, and Buffalo Boy, blending Irish ingredients with his Thai‑Chinese‑Indian‑Malay heritage.

And he loves Irish Stew, though he was referring to the edible not the audio version.

“What I say is Irish stew is comfort food, packed with flavor and a good‑hearted dish,” he explains, insisting he won’t “mess around” with its unique Irish character even as he adds subtle Asian notes elsewhere on the menu. That respect for Irish produce interpreted with Asian flavors has turned Sham’s Leitrim restaurants into dining destinations

The episode moves next to the Drumhierny Woodland Hideaway, opened to guests in 2022 and featuring 11 self‑catering lodges tucked seamlessly into mature woodland. Sustainability, local partnerships, and wellbeing shape the experience, from an onsite café and private‑chef dinners to a sanctuary with seaweed baths, sauna, and cold plunge.

“They arrive stressed on Friday, and when you meet them on a Sunday they’re completely Zen, which I think is what we’re all about,” says co-founder and marketing manager Alison Moffatt.

The podcasters then roam towards Drumshanbo for a “slow adventure” on the Jackalope Trail with Eileen Gibbons of Electric Bike Trails. Inspired by seeing e-bikes on Ireland’s Greenway network, Eileen and her husband Seamus created guided rides that trade speed for stories—linking canal-side cycling with local heritage and the wider tourism scene.

“We take people along at a slow rate, stop along the way at interesting spots, all with a little bit of joke and a little bit of fun, and maybe even a bit of song,” she says.

The Jackalope Trail leads to The Shed Distillery of PJ Rigney, distillers of Drumshanbo Whisky and Irish Gunpowder Gin, part of Co. Leitrim’s innovative culinary incubator The Food Hub, both to be featured in the next and final episode of Irish Stew’s “Off the Beaten Craic” series.

Links

Sham Hanifa

• Website
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Instagram
• My Kitchen
• The Cottage Restaurant

Drumhierny Woodland Hideaway

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Alison Moffatt LinkedIn

Electric Bike Trails

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram

Irish Stew Links

• Website
• Media Partner: IrishCentral
• Travel Partner: Tourism Ireland

Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 4; Total Episode Count: 145

It may be the smallest county in Connacht, the smallest by population in Ireland, with the smallest stretch of beach on the Wild Atlantic Way, but in their latest episode the Irish Stew podcasters learn that Leitrim is capitalizing on its offer of a great quality of life, relative affordability, entrepreneurial energy, appeal to a more mobile workforce, and its “slow adventure” approach experiencing its natural allure.  

Arriving in Carrick-on-Shannon, the cohosts head to the offices of the Leitrim County Council, the local government organization committed to building an economically strong, creative and inclusive county, making Leitrim the best place to live, to work and visit.

Though County Council Chief Executive Joseph Gilhooly opened the doors to Leitrim for Irish Stew, for the interview he gave the floor to his able lieutenants, Director of Services David Minton and tourism officer Sinead McDermott.

You’ll hear how Leitrim’s economy is strong on small-scale entrepreneurship and growing sectors like fintech, food innovation, engineering, and renewables. They also detail the County Council’s integrated support system including the Local Enterprise Office, The Hive incubation hub, and the Carrick Campus for growing firms.

They share that tourists from across Ireland, the U.S, and Europe come for Leitrim’s authenticity, natural beauty, slower pace, farm to table food, tranquillity, and eco-tourism. They  sense that climate change is subtly shifting European travel patterns northward, making Ireland a “cool” alternative to overheated southern Europe.

With Leitrim’s tourism value proposition top-of-mind, the podcasters head to the Landmark Hotel to meet with Sales and Marketing Manager Ciara Maxwell, who came to Leitrim for a one-year work experience 15 years ago and never left, which tells you everything you need to know about the pull of this place.

She tells how founders John and Ciaran Kelly envisioned a new riverside hotel that would be a real landmark looking out over “The Marina Capital of Ireland” and in the center of Carrick-on-Shannon’s lively weekend nightlife of pubs, shows, and restaurants.

There’s more tastes of Leitrim on Irish Stew next week, including the story of the Malaysian chef who’s upending the local food scene, the new woodland lodging hideaway set on 100 acres of Irish history, and the slow adventure e-bike option for traversing the Jackalope Trail to Drumshanbo, home of The Shed Distillery of P.J. Rigney.

Links

Leitrim County Council

• Website
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Instagram
• X

Leitrim Tourism

Sinead McDermott

• LinkedIn

Landmark Hotel

• Website
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Instagram

 Ciara Maxwell

• LinkedIn

Irish Stew Links

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Media Partner: IrishCentral

Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 3; Total Episode Count: 143

Irish Stew Podcast is “Off the Beaten Craic” in Co. Longford for the sound of the low whistle and the sight of an Iron Age roadway at the Corlea Trackway Visitors Centre, located a half hour’s drive north from their home-away-from-home in Athlone. There they met their guide Noel Carberry who opens and closes the interview with his virtuosity on the larger, lower-pitched variation of the traditional tin whistle.

Noel is a 26-year-veteran of the Corlea Trackway Visitors Centre, a “life sentence’ as he jokingly calls it, but beyond the bog he’s best known as an expert musician of the uilleann pipes, the Irish tin and low whistles, and bodhrán.

He brings Ireland’s Iron Age dramatically to life through his expert commentary on the Corlea Trackway, the widest prehistoric road of its kind discovered in Europe. Laid down in oak planks between the autumn of 148 BC and the spring of 147 BC, this one-kilometer wooden roadway once stretched from dry land to dry land across the bog, a monumental and mysterious statement of power and belief in the Hidden Heartlands.

“What you’re talking about is a prehistoric planked road, for all the world like a railway track upside down, with planks of oak laid down on runners of ash, oak, or silver birch,” he says.

Noel tells of growing up in the nearby workers housing of Bord na Móna, the Irish agency which extracted peat to fuel power plants. That same industrial extraction uncovered the buried trackway in 1984, when milled peat operations stripped the bog down to the level of the ancient timbers and a worker with an interest in archaeology realized their importance.

For Noel, the ancient trackway may have been less a simple road than a display of dominance, possibly built with timber taken from defeated neighbors, their sacred oaks regarded as the reincarnation of ancestral spirits.

On view at Corlea are eighteen meters of preserved roadway saved from industrial destruction and maintained, presented and compellingly interpreted by the OPW, or Office of Public Works.

With tales of ancient kings, bog bodies, and spirited tunes like “The Rocky Road to Dublin” echoing through the Centre, Noel makes a compelling case that Ireland’s true story runs not just around the coasts, but through the deep, mysterious middle.

With thanks to Noel and the OPW, the podcasters depart for the final Off the Beaten Craic stops in the Hidden Heartlands series with episodes coming up next in County Leitrim.

Links

• Corlea Iron Age Roadway and Visitors Centre
• Facebook

Irish Stew Links

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Media Partner: IrishCentral

Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 2; Total Episode Count: 144

The Irish Stew podcasters venture across Westmeath one last time, to the county’s eastern reaches to explore the picturesque village of Tyrrellspass, where they once again find a story of community commitment…and a bog.

The community leader giving cohosts John Lee and Martin Nutty the grand tour of his charming town is Eugene Dunbar, a retired teacher who never retired from educating anyone who’d listen about the treasures unique to Tyrrellspass.

After meeting Eugene at the town’s centerpiece castle tower, the trio followed the signs to the Cloncrow Bog & Village Trail.

“I came here in 1972 as a geography teacher, and I was absolutely intrigued with the whole system of the bogs and having one so close to us here in Tyrrellspass,” he says. “It’s what they term an intact raised bog, with the same vegetation that would have been on it 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,000 years ago. So, you're looking at a unique landscape that hasn't changed in millennia.”

Eugene tells of how people moved from viewing bogs purely as fuel sources to recognizing them as vital carbon sinks and ecological wonders, driven locally by the volunteer effort known as ETHOS--Everything Tyrrellspass Has On Show. Refusing to be bogged down by  bureaucratic challenges, Dunbar and the other ETHOS volunteers created the interpretive raised boardwalk through the local raised bog, which morphs into a trail through the highlights the village itself, culminating in its picture-perfect town green with its evocative 1970 Imogen Stuart sculpture of three school children representing the future of the new Ireland.

After a restorative pint (or maybe it was two) in the snug, welcoming Willie’s Bar, Eugene took the podcasters back to his inviting home, decorated with the paintings of his wife Josephine who served the trio tea and scones while the podcast recording began in earnest.

Add signature Irish hospitality to Everything Tyrrellspass Has On Show!

It’s off to Longford next week when Irish Stew adds a mysterious Iron Age road to its Off the Beaten Track Road Trip itinerary as they explore the Corlea Trackway, discovered in 1984 by workers digging peat in the local bog--yes, again with the bog!

Links

• Cloncrow Bog & Village Trail Website
• ETHOS 
  • Website
  • Facebook
  • YouTube

Irish Stew Links

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Media Partner: IrishCentral

Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 1; Total Episode Count: 143

In this end of years politics episode, Martin Nutty sits down with Ted Smyth, former Irish diplomat and president of the advisory board at Glucksman Ireland House, NYU, to discuss the political landscape on both sides of the Atlantic.

Smyth offers stark assessments of Trump's second term, characterizing it as an assault on American democracy with unchecked executive power. However, he finds hope in recent Democratic victories, particularly Zohran Mamdani's New York City mayoral win and gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, suggesting voters are experiencing "buyer's remorse" and seeking balance.

The conversation explores affordability as the defining issue for upcoming elections, with both American and Irish middle classes struggling with housing costs and basic expenses. Smyth criticizes Ireland's failure to address its housing crisis despite available resources, and discusses coordinated campaigns by right-wing media to destabilize Ireland and the EU.

On Ireland-Israel relations, Smyth advocates for focusing on a two-state solution rather than symbolic gestures, drawing parallels to Northern Ireland's peace process. He addresses concerns about Ireland's defense spending and the need for a more proactive public relations strategy to counter negative narratives in publications like the oped pages of the Wall Street Journal.

Smyth concludes with an optimistic call to action: support local communities, businesses, and cultural institutions. Whether in Dublin or New York, he argues that strength comes from grassroots engagement and maintaining democratic values during challenging times.

Ted Smyth Links

• Website
• Glucksman Ireland House
• UCD Clinton Institute
• LinkedIn
• BlueSky
• X

Irish Stew Links

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Media Partner: IrishCentral

Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 39; Total Episode Count: 142

Irish Stew couldn’t make it to Dublin, so cohost Martin Nutty and John Lee settled for the Dublin House, a venerable watering hole on New York’s Upper West Side, known for its low-key vibe, high quality pints and its 10-foot-tall neon sign in the shape of a harp that has been lighting the way to a great craic for decades.

The occasion was a meet-up over a pair of those pints for “Stew in Review,” a holiday retrospective on their 2025 season.  

Martin reflected on the core message of the Joseph Kennedy III episode as the former US Special Envoy to Northern Ireland advocates for the healing power of civility over the destructive impulse of rage.

John notes for craic it’s hard to top the episode recorded in the cavernous, cacophonous Common Market with Belfast Night Czar Michael Stewart and Belfast Food Tours’ Caroline Wilson, and for raw, riveting emotions the episode with Northern Irish actors John Duddy and Ciaran Byrne as they relived their experiences of The Troubles.

That was one of two episodes of Irish Stew recorded live before a (paying!) audience as part of the Origin Theatre First Irish Festival, a 2025 highlight made possible by then artistic director Mick Mellamphy, an high-energy experience the pair hopes to expand on in the year to come.

With a pint or two oiling the conversational gears the pair shared recollections of The Irish Stew residency at the Solas Nua Capital Irish Film Festival, a standout episode with the groundbreaking Irish president Mary Robinson, the sense of commitment to community they found throughout their Off the Beaten Craic in the Hidden Heartlands Road Trip, the destination dining at Thyme Restaurant in Athlone, and the serendipitous stories they stumbled upon in their off-season Midlands ramble.

The podcasters also raise a toast to their travel partner Tourism Ireland, media partner IrishCentral, the Dublin House for welcoming them into their cozy confines, and, above all, the folks who lend their ears--the listeners. The episode wraps with a sneak preview of what’s to come in 2026, and, after settling their bar tab, the podcasters head back into the windy winter weather on West 79th Street, pausing for a selfie under the glowing green harp that heralds the Dublin House.

Irish Stew Links

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 38; Total Episode Count: 141

In this season of giving, Irish Stew welcomes Pennsylvania-born lawyer-turned-nonprofit leader Sean Granahan, the president of The Floating Hospital, a 160-year-old New York charity with deep Irish roots that still cares for the city’s poorest families. Founded in 1866 out of Trinity Church in the wake of the Civil War Draft Riots, it first served emancipated Black families and post–famine Irish immigrants crowded into lower Manhattan’s notorious Five Points district.

In the episode, Sean connects those early Irish arrivals, once left to die of tuberculosis considered “the natural death of the Irish,” to today’s homeless families in New York’s shelters, many fleeing violence, eviction, or aging out of foster care.

Sean describes the organization’s founding mission as a “three-legged stool” of meeting immediate needs, sharing health education, and delivering care, a model that still guides its work as New York city’s largest provider of healthcare to families in homeless shelters and domestic violence safe houses.

He recounts the organization’s colorful maritime era, when their ships took kids and moms out for fresh-air harbor cruises while they received vaccines, essential services, and vital health education. Sean had to hit pause on that chapter after 9/11 when their vessel, the Lia, was retired to a dock well up the Hudson River. The Floating Hospital may not be floating now, but the work continues full speed ahead at its Long Island City base and satellite sites where 30,000 people are cared for annually, from pediatric and vaccination services to mental health and dental care. Sean insists that their clean, bright, dignified, welcoming clinics have as much an impact on patient outcomes as their healthcare services.

That ethos comes alive in “Candy Cane Lane,” a holiday pop-up where homeless moms and kids experience the joy of holiday shopping as they choose free new coats, pajamas, toys, and hygiene items.

With Mayo and Dublin roots, Sean tells how his high-flying corporate law career was rerouted when he volunteered to help the then struggling Floating Hospital, and how he and his staff navigate through shifting political headwinds and funding threats.

And after 20 years at the helm, he still dreams big, yearning for the day The Floating Hospital floats again! “The ship is magical,” he says of his quest to refit the Lia and sail it again. “If you want to get 500 kids vaccinated, all you do is say, ‘We’re going out on the ship on Friday,’ and you’ll have a thousand.”

The episode closes with a “season of giving” invitation to make a holiday gift to The Floating Hospital or join their “Tugboat Society” of small monthly givers keeping homeless moms and kids afloat.

But to really understand this uniquely Irish New York story, you’ll want to hear Sean tell it himself on Irish Stew.

Links

The Floating Hospital

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Threads
• BlueSky

Sean Granahan

• LinkedIn

Irish Stew Links

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 37; Total Episode Count: 140

The Irish Midlands flow to the relentless rhythm of the River Shannon and along its banks the Irish Stew podcasters found themselves again, Day Five of their “Off the Beaten Craic in the Hidden Heartlands” wanderings, gazing across its broad expanse from the docks of the County Offaly town of Banagher.

There, cohosts John Lee and Martin Nutty met local historian James Scully and caught up with an old friend of John’s, Mark Boylan, who covers horseracing for The Irish Field, to explore the history, legend, music, and all that gives life and character to this small Shannon-side community with a population aspiring to hit the 2,000 mark.

James met us at the cozy, convivial Flynn's Pub on Main Street, but the craic there proved too mighty for recording purposes, so the trio beat a retreat to the hilltop Church of St Paul's for what proved to be Irish Stew’s first recording in a church (but not their last as you’ll hear in the final Hidden Heartlands episode).

A lifelong educator and noted local historian, James set about unraveling the history of the old Irish saying, “That Beats Banagher!,” in a book of the same name which he co-wrote with Kieran Keenaghan. In this richly illustrated volume they explore the murky provenance of “That Beats Banagher!” and how it entered Irish political and cultural lore. A beguiling spinner of the town’s stories, James shares tales of the earliest days of the town, the arrival of the international man of mystery from the 1600s Matthew de Renzy, the town’s unexpected literary links to Anthony Trollope and Charlotte Brontë, Banagher’s vibrant community life, and its status as a popular port of call for the river cruising crowd.

They started the day in a pub, absolved their sins in a church, and then retreated to a pub, J.J. Hough’s Singing Pub, a renowned destination for trad music fans and tourists alike run by Ger Hough, who IrishCentral called the most creative publican in Ireland.

There they met David and Mark Boylan who John got to know when the Breeders’ Cup flew the whole Boylan family to Kentucky so the then 14-year-old Mark could sing his Breeders’ Cup song before about 80 thousand fans at Churchill Downs for the 2011 World Championship race meet. Mark may be all grown up but he hasn’t outgrown his love of horses and of his hometown of Banagher which shines through in the closing segment.

And in such a small, tight-knit community it was no surprise to learn that James was Mark’s teacher at St Rynagh’s School.

Well, that beats Banagher!

Next week Irish Stew hits pause on their Off the Beaten Craic series to embrace the season of giving with the story of a New York City charity rooted in the plight of the impoverished Irish immigrants in the notorious Five Points district in our conversation with Sean Granahan, president of The Floating Hospital.

Links
James Scully

• Book: That Beats Banagher!

Mark Boylan

• The Irish Field
• X
• Instagram
• Facebook

Hidden Heartlands Travel Resources

• Ireland.com
• Discover Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands

Irish Stew Links

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Episode Details: Season 7, Episode 36; Total Episode Count: 139