On today’s Free State, Dion and Joe are joined by Sally Hayden, a remarkable journalist covering the story of our time.

Sally’s book My Fourth Time, We Drowned exposed the incompetence and corruption in the EU’s treatment of the most vulnerable in society, desperate families crossing the Mediterranean and leaving poverty and war in African countries.

Sally reports from some of the most dangerous places in the world yet seems oblivious to danger. From Ballinrobe to Rosslare, hearts are hardening and human beings are brutalised and dehumanised. Sally talks about what she has witnessed, the mass death that has been normalised and gives an insight into what drives a remarkable and relentless young reporter.

Sally Hayden's book "A magnificent, engagé investigative report… [an] act of witness...It is clear from [Hayden’s book] that the current politics of immigration have turned & twisted human nature against itself and our own kind and are fostering unimaginable maltreatment of those who wish only to survive and live a better life… [It] strongly convey[s] the urgency of fundamentally rethinking immigration policy… It is already late to act, but that is a poor reason for inaction.” - The New York Review of Books

Sally Hayden: Winner ‘journalist of the year’, Irish Journalism Awards 2023

Winner best ‘foreign coverage’, Irish Journalism Awards 2023

Finalist in the 2023 BookTube Prize

Nominated for the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature 2023

Finalist for the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism 2023

Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning is a Gold Hat Production in association with SwanMcG.

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