Love and Courage

Joe Farrell on the Love and Courage podcast. Joe Farrell was born in an Irish mother and baby home in Ireland in 1960 where he lived with his mother who had been sent there as an unmarried mother. He lived there for the first 2 years of his life before being adopted by an Irish American family and brought to the United States. This is the remarkable story of his life and his quest for identity, understanding, and peace.

Joe is a writer who supports his work by working in the New York city restaurant business. His forthcoming play is about his time as a student in an all-boys Jesuit High School. It is titled ‘Now, and At The Hour’. He also has another upcoming stage play titled ‘The Original’ about his search for an original photo of his birth mother and subsequent discovery and meeting of her surviving nephews and nieces in County Clare and London.  

Subscribe, share, rate, review and donate to support this podcast. Thanks to patrons who chip in at www.loveandcourage.org Host Ruairí McKiernan is a well-known social innovator, charity founder, campaigner, counsellor, consultant, and author. Find out more via:  Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn and check out his book Hitching for Hope. He also has another podcast called Creative Souls of Clare.

Limerick man Tom Prendergast is an artist, a DJ, a former record store owner, former successful record label co-founder, a passionate community volunteer and so much more.

Subscribe, share, rate, review and donate to support this podcast. Thanks to patrons who chip in at www.loveandcourage.org Host Ruairí McKiernan is a well-known social innovator, charity founder, campaigner, counsellor, consultant, and author. Find out more via:  Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn and check out his book Hitching for Hope. He also has another podcast called Creative Souls of Clare.

A few words of reflection followed by a special song. Find links to the song and video by Susan Quirke, newsletter links, donation info etc. via this link: http://linktr.ee/ruairi

Subscribe, share, rate, review and donate to support this podcast. Thanks to patrons who chip in at www.loveandcourage.org Host Ruairí McKiernan is a well-known social innovator, charity founder, campaigner, counsellor, consultant, and author. Find out more via:  Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn and check out his book Hitching for Hope. He also has another podcast called Creative Souls of Clare.

Love and Courage podcast with Ruairí McKiernan. Originally from County Cork, Dearbhla Glynn is a multi-award winning documentary filmmaker, photo-journalist, artist, writer and yoga teacher. Her films explore themes of culture, human rights and conflict and have seen her travel to conflict zones around the world including Palestine, DR Congo, Iraq, and Haiti and she has also made films based around the Burning Man festival in Nevada and the Festival in the Desert in Malai.

In recent times she has been focusing more on her work as an advanced yoga teacher although at the time of recording this podcast she wasn’t long home from a trip to the Greek island of Lesbos, where people from Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere remain stranded in search of sanctuary. Our conversation explores Dearbhla’s fascinating life journey and I found it really insightful and inspiring to hear how she first found her path and has stayed true to it since. I do want to mention that part of Dearbhla’s work has involved looking at the theme of trauma and in the part of our conversation about Eastern Congo she talks about the devastating reality surrounding sexual violence there. Overall Dearbhla’s story is one of shining a light on the darkness and it’s one I hope many people get to hear.

Subscribe, share, rate, review and donate to support this podcast. Thanks to patrons who chip in at www.loveandcourage.org Host Ruairí McKiernan is a well-known social innovator, charity founder, campaigner, counsellor, consultant, and author. Find out more via:  Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn and check out his book Hitching for Hope. He also has another podcast called Creative Souls of Clare.

Originally from Sligo in the north-west of Ireland, Mari is an organisational wellbeing and leadership consultant, an integral facilitator, a mindfulness and meditation teacher, a social entrepreneur, a yoga teacher, and I might add she’s quite a stunning singer too. Mari has worked with former President of Ireland Mary McAleese, with leading companies such as Microsoft and Ernst And Young, and more recently she launched the Celtic Wheel – Radical Wisdom for Contemporary Women, a year-long online programme that has attracted huge interest from women from around the world. www.thecelticwheel.com 

Subscribe, share, rate, review and donate to support this podcast. Thanks to patrons who chip in at www.loveandcourage.org Host Ruairí McKiernan is a well-known social innovator, charity founder, campaigner, counsellor, consultant, and author. Find out more via:  Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn and check out his book Hitching for Hope. He also has another podcast called Creative Souls of Clare.

Luka Bloom is one of Ireland’s best known and most respected contemporary folk artists. Originally from County Kildare, Luka Bloom has been singing and performing since the age of 14. He released his debut album Treaty Stone in 1978 and soon after moved to the Netherlands, where he remains hugely popular. He also previously lived in Washington DC and in New York, where he was signed by Reprise records, the iconic label that signed Tom Petty, Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac and so many other greats.

Over 20 albums on, Luka Bloom is living not to far from me on the west coast of County Clare while continuing to tour the world. His brother is the folk musician and previous guest of this podcast Christy Moore and his sister Anne Rynne is also a singer, songwriter and musician.

I’ve seen Luka perform a number of times now and have always been struck by his unique sound and a real sense of social and ecological consciousness that ripples through his songs.

Subscribe, share, rate, review and donate to support this podcast. Thanks to patrons who chip in at www.loveandcourage.org Host Ruairí McKiernan is a well-known social innovator, charity founder, campaigner, counsellor, consultant, and author. Find out more via:  Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn and check out his book Hitching for Hope. He also has another podcast called Creative Souls of Clare.

At the time of this interview, the 84-year-old folk singer is still songwriting, touring, entertaining, informing, educating and inspiring as part of the great folk tradition that she embodies so well.

Born in 1935 to a folklorist and musicologist father and a mother who was an accomplished composer and music scholar, Peggy has lived her life surrounded by music and the great folk tradition. She learned to transcribe music at just 11 years old and the likes of Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly were visitors to her childhood home in Washington DC.

Her brother was the world-renowned singer and activist Pete Seeger who was famously attacked under the 1950s era of McCarthyism that fostered the so-called ‘red scare’ by the U.S government of the time.

Peggy has been on the road from a young age, hitchhiking around Europe at age 20, and being invited to perform in places like Russia, China and Denmark in her youth. In 1956 London, at the age of 21, she met her future husband, the legendary folk musician Ewan MacColl and they played a leading role in the British folk revival. The classic song The First Time Ever I saw Your Face was written by Ewan for Peggy.The pair remained together for over 30 years, until MacColl’s death in 1989.  In the period that followed, Peggy found love again and formed a civil partnership with Belfast-born New Zealand based singer Irene Pyper Scott and they have been a couple ever since.

Peggy plays 5-string banjo, guitar, Appalachian dulcimer, autoharp, English concertina and piano. She has written several hundred songs, covering everything from drugs, to war, hormones, politicians, unions, women, love and ecology.  Perhaps her best-known songs include Gonna Be an Engineer  (which has become one of the anthems of the women's' movement) and The Ballad of Springhill (about the 1958 Springhill, Nova Scotia, mining disaster, a song famously sung here in Ireland by Luke Kelly. 149 of her songs appear in her songbook, The Peggy Seeger Songbook, Warts and All. Overall, Peggy has made 24 solo records and collaborated with Ewan MacColl and others on countless more. She tells her fascinating life story in her award-winning memoir ‘First Time Ever’ published by Faber and Faber.

Peggy is a mother of 3 and grandmother of 9. Now 84, she is still living in England, writing songs and performing. She often plays alongside one of her two sons, Neill and Calum MacColl, who have been playing music with her since their teens. Her daughter Kitty, a graphic designer creates the artwork for her albums. Her daughter-in-law, co-founder of Red Grape Music, Kerry Harvey-Piper, is her manager. Her other daughter-in-law is the musician and member of Dream Academy, Kate St. John, with whom she co-wrote a track on her most recent album, ‘Everything Changes’.  

Subscribe, share, rate, review and donate to support this podcast. Thanks to patrons who chip in at www.loveandcourage.org Host Ruairí McKiernan is a well-known social innovator, charity founder, campaigner, counsellor, consultant, and author. Find out more via:  Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn and check out his book Hitching for Hope. He also has another podcast called Creative Souls of Clare.

Live public interview with the legendary Hugh O’Brien, or ‘Hugh Barney’ as he’s often known. It was recorded in the Darly School Hall as part of a full house at the Cootehill Arts Festival in my hometown of Cootehill Co. Cavan.

Hugh Barney is a 79-year-old historian, educator, actor and community activist. He taught me history and English at secondary school and left a lasting impression on me, as he did so many others.  

Topics Hugh discusses in this conversation include his childhood and upbringing, his 39 years as a teacher, his views on education, history, politics, religion, spirituality, alcohol, community involvement, and his love for cinema and drama.  

This is a man who has clearly lived a full life and as you’re about to hear, he continues to do so. Hugh has inspired countless people to think differently and to believe in themselves and so it’s great to be able to share this voice with more people through this podcast, especially international listeners and Cootehill people living and listening all over the world, including my brother Sean Og in China.

As well as being the author of 3 books and 3 booklets, Hugh is an accomplished actor, appearing in countless theatre productions, in the acclaimed TV show Fr Ted, and in several movies and documentaries including The Escapist, Ordinary Decent Criminal, Korea, and the Run of the Country.

It’s amazing that the one thing we never really got around to talking about was Hugh’s visual impairment. In recent years he has lost his eyesight but that hasn’t held him back. He now uses a stick to get around and he has also mastered phone and computer technology that allows him to stay connected and to keep up with his various projects. Hugh’s wife Noeleen was also an amazing person and she passed away in 2012.

I’m a big advocate of listening to and learning from our elders and it was a real privilege to have been chosen by Hugh Barney as his interviewer for this event, which attracted rave reviews. I want to say I feel particularly fortunate that Hugh is in good health and was able to do this interview given that back in 2017 he spent several months in hospital, including a few weeks in intensive care. Hugh was on flying form on the night of the interview and as you’ll hear shortly, it was a real rollercoaster ride that was peppered with some questions from the audience.

There was also an interval on the night and I have edited that out. There’s no shortage of laughs throughout the interview and there’s also a good few swear words, particularly in the first part, so keep that in mind if there are sensitive ears listening.

It was particularly inspiring to learn more about Hugh’s role in the setting up of Drumlin House. Established by a group of volunteers in 1982, Drumlin House is a pioneering training centre that provides opportunities for young people with special needs to enhance their rights and aspirations.

As well as being a training centre for dozens of young people, Drumlin House also includes a theatre and social enterprises including a garden centre and a print shop. We didn’t discuss it in too much detail in the interview but I thought it deserved a special mention here as it’s such a great example of community strength in action. Hugh had told me in a previous conversation that the founding of the centre was a real community effort, and made possible because of the generous donations and support from Cootehill Coop, who through its Manager Sean McDonnell helped secure the original premises, and also through a fundraising gig by country music legend Big Tom.

In total Hugh served as voluntary Chair of Drumlin House for 32 years and remains an active and involved supporter to this day, as well as being a champion for social inclusion in so many other ways.

Someone described the interview to me as a Love Letter From Hugh To Cootehill, although it is also the story of a remarkable life journey an

Subscribe, share, rate, review and donate to support this podcast. Thanks to patrons who chip in at www.loveandcourage.org Host Ruairí McKiernan is a well-known social innovator, charity founder, campaigner, counsellor, consultant, and author. Find out more via:  Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn and check out his book Hitching for Hope. He also has another podcast called Creative Souls of Clare.

Originally from County Kilkenny in the South East of Ireland, Vicky is a Limerick based married mother of two who has been at the forefront of exposing the Cervical Check screening scandal in Ireland after being told that she had been given incorrect smear test results.

In early 2019 she settled a high profile case with no admission of liability on the part of the laboratory or the health services involved but refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement that sought to silence her. The scandal has affected hundreds of woman and many of those who have been affected have died.

This is, without doubt, one of the greatest scandals of modern Irish history and a tragic case study into truth, transparency, power and healthcare.

At the time of doing this interview with Vicky, recorded in Doonbeg, Co. Clare on the west coast of Ireland, she had just recovered from a particularly difficult period of bad health but was very much still in treatment and facing a very challenging future. Despite this she took time out to share her life story in the hope that it will lead to much-needed change in the health services and in wider society.

The first half of this interview focuses on Vicky’s early life which will give you much deeper insight into her courageous campaigning efforts in the face of huge adversity.  

Vicky really is a true beacon of love and courage as you’re about to hear in this interview.

Subscribe, share, rate, review and donate to support this podcast. Thanks to patrons who chip in at www.loveandcourage.org Host Ruairí McKiernan is a well-known social innovator, charity founder, campaigner, counsellor, consultant, and author. Find out more via:  Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn and check out his book Hitching for Hope. He also has another podcast called Creative Souls of Clare.

David Jan Jurasek is a former child refugee from the former Czechoslovakia. His family escaped the regime there and eventually ended up in Canada where he grew up struggling to make sense of loss and trauma. He eventually turned to creative expression and martial arts to help him channel his emotions before later training as a child and family therapist. He has since become a husband, a father, and co-author of a series of children’s books, and he has helped developed a therapeutic martial arts program called Young Warriors that has been expanding into more than 15 schools.

As if that wasn’t enough he also runs an improve company called Inspired Playback Theatre, which focuses on reflecting back, with compassion and empathy, the true stories of diverse audience members who are often not listened to. Recently, David also had a brush with cancer, which he says he has thankfully healed from but it helped him to see more clearly what his life is all about. 

www.powerfulandloving.com

Subscribe, share, rate, review and donate to support this podcast. Thanks to patrons who chip in at www.loveandcourage.org Host Ruairí McKiernan is a well-known social innovator, charity founder, campaigner, counsellor, consultant, and author. Find out more via:  Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn and check out his book Hitching for Hope. He also has another podcast called Creative Souls of Clare.