It is another gloriously happy day, as Sinéad and Gavin continue to bask with the rest of you in the beautiful afterglow of Ireland’s victory in Hungary.

Gavin is back from Budapest and gives Sinéad the lowdown on how the whole, mad drama played out in the stadium. But truly it doesn’t matter where you watch Troy Parrott’s winning goal - what matters is that you are united with millions of Irish people in such total happiness.

Sinéad and Gavin dig into why Ireland’s wins mean so much to so many people. Is this merely proof that we are Football Country, rather than Rugby Country? Or is there something deeper at play?

How has the national football team become such a vital part of our national identity? Why is it so important that a whole generation of players and fans experienced this moment?

Basically - why are we so ludicrously happy?

Get in touch - [email protected] and [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How many times has Sinéad asked Gav is it possible? Could we?... is there any way? She should have been asking Troy Parrott.

Ireland's stunning 3-2 win over Hungary is all anyone wants to talk about today. Unfortunately, Gav and Sinéad record on Tuesdays and Gav, naturally, is a wanted man elsewhere today. But we wanted to give our loyal listeners an extra treat - free access to The 42's Football Family podcast.

We will be back tomorrow to talk more football, and the impact of a week like we've just had. But until then, enjoy the insights from The 42's David Sneyd and Shane Keegan, alongside our own Gav.

If you like what you hear, and honestly, how could you not? You can subscribe to The 42 on a trial basis for just 1 euro a month at the moment. What a no brainer. We're in for a busy year!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With the League of Ireland season over, clubs’ attention now turns to recruiting new players for next year, during which they will quickly run into the realities of Ireland’s housing crisis.

On this week’s show, Sinéad and Gavin explain how the crisis affects professional sport in Ireland, how it has come to define certain sports and competitions, and how these impacts articulate the wider issues felt by a whole generation of Irish people.

They then look at the reasons underpinning the crisis: do we simply not have enough houses? Or are there wider problems with the investment funds buying up the few houses that are put on the Irish market?

They then point to the incipient triumph of Ireland’s hosting of the Ryder Cup and ask whether politicians really believe this is a housing crisis, and whether they are committed as they claim to be when it comes to addressing it.

Get in touch - [email protected] and [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Irish language and hurling should be accessible and a source of joy to many. Has this always been the case? Is it even the case now? Or are they ring-fenced? Taught in specific environments - school and GAA clubs that happen to offer hurling, which are not so plentiful in much of the country?

But what could happen if the language and game of hurling were not restricted to these environments? How could they begin to thrive if attempts to make them more widely available were backed rather than thwarted?

These are some of the questions tackled by Ciarán Murphy of the Second Captains in his new book, Old Parish, where he takes up hurling in his early 40s.

Today, he chats with Sinead about the humbling effects of competitive hurling, and the life-affirming adventure of returning to his father’s club in the Waterford Gaeltacht to live, write and hurl.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gav and Sinead discuss the events of last week, when there were yet more job losses in Irish sports journalism.

This will affect sports fans in a number of ways, from there being fewer experienced people to hold organisations and individuals to account, to less depth and quality in the coverage of sport.

Why are some media organisations laying off their most seasoned journalists? Why is there less money in the fourth estate nowadays? How did the internet change the game and why did so many newspapers and websites fall foul of social media algorithm changes?

The pair ponder what’s next for the industry and Sinead explains why the future for media firms could be a return to more traditional journalistic practices.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why is it so hard to integrate the GAA, Camogie Association and LGFA? Why should it cost the mooted half a billion euro to do so, and why have the leadership of the GAA been so silent on the matter to date, with the vacuum being filled by naysayers?

Sinead and Gav address these and more issues around Integration, and consider how much of the €500 million project cost is down to the ‘centre of excellence culture’ which implores county boards to invest more and more money on land and facilities for players earmarked as elite.

Also, the FAI have been criticised strongly for not attending Oireachtas Committees. Why not the same volume of headlines for the GAA, Camogie Association and LGFA who have so far not engaged with elected representatives in public despite an invitation to attend Leinster House this month?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Irish Olympic swimmer Shane Ryan last week announced his retirement from competitive swimming before this week dropping a bombshell: he has signed up to compete at the Enhanced Games, a version of the Olympic Games at which competitors are allowed to take performance-enhancing drugs.

On this week’s show, Sinéad and Gavin explain just what the Enhanced Games are, and who its backers are. On the face of it, its creators are modelling the Games as not just an alternative but a successor to the Olympic Games, having made many compelling criticisms of the Olympic Games in its current guise. But why do they believe the alternative to the Games’ deeply-flawed anti-doping regimen is to simply allow athletes to dope? And why would sports fans tune in to simply watch world records being broken, rather than watch true competition?

Sinéad and Gavin explain why the Enhanced Games are not imagined as a sporting competition, but rather demonstrations of science, drawing a link to the libertarian and transhumanist beliefs of the Games’ founders, one of whom says that ageing “is a disease that we should be able to treat, cure, and eventually solve.”

Rather than merely highlight the Olympic Games’ many, many flaws, the Enhanced Games instead represents something else - it’s where Silicon Valley, libertarian tech bros get their hands on sport.

Get in touch - [email protected] and [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week’s podcast, Sinead and Gavin talk to Bláthnaid Raleigh.

In July 2019, Bláthnaid was raped by Jonathan Moran at a house party in Galway.

Back in their hometown of Mullingar, Bláthnaid would spend the next five years living with the effects; her attacker, unable to be identified for legal reasons, continued his life working, socialising and playing rugby, before he was jailed in July 2024.

Today, Bláthnaid talks about the attack, and its devastating impact on her life and family.

She also discusses sport, and how it heightened her sense of isolation following the assault. She talks about how becoming immersed in new sports in recent years has helped her to piece her life back together.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sinead and Gav sift through the wreckage of Jim Gavin’s presidential campaign and ponder why so many people thought the former Dublin manager was a suitable candidate.

Does this episode now force a reset in how we look at venerated GAA figures? Does success in football put you in any kind of stead to become President of Ireland, or to withstand the brutalities of the campaign?

What next now for Gavin, a man that has seen his team dominate Gaelic football, who has reshaped the rules to breathe new life into the sport, but now faces a most public humiliation? How can he atone for the actions that ended his already beleaguered campaign?

What will he do next?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gav dials in from New York City, following the most remarkable, the most epic and the most fractious Ryder Cup of all.

He tells Sinead about the personal and vitriolic abuse that was directed at Europe’s players, Rory McIlroy in particular.

He describes the febrile atmosphere and tries to make sense of how we’ve arrived at a stage where this passes as acceptable behaviour for some of the attendees at Bethpage Black.

Gav details how Shane Lowry summoned extraordinary courage to guarantee Europe retained the Cup, while Sinead wonders how seismic the Adare Manor episode of the competition will now be in 2027.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.