Don O’Leary was told last February that he had less than a year to live. Despite that he has still not missed a day at work as the director of the Cork Life Centre, which caters for youths who are unsuited to the confines of the education system. He talks about how the system fails so many and how the Life Centre has managed to succeed with youths who might otherwise have had nowhere to go. He looks back over a life that included a term in Portlaoise Prison for membership of the IRA in the 1980s and how after he was released he grabbed a chance to get involved in education, which became his passion. Last year he received an honorary doctorate from UCC and he insists that he’s won’t let his condition dictate how he lives.

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The killing of Tom Oliver in Co Louth in 1991 was one of the more shocking murders associated with the Troubles. The IRA claimed he was an informer, a charge his family deny. In 2017, the gardai re-investigated the murder and the team believed they had advanced the case. However, the case is now the brief of a British operation investigating collusion, called Kenova. But why has there been no prosecution? And what do two former British agents in the IRA know about the murder? And what does the garda commissioner know about it through his former role in the PSNI?

Retired chief superintendent John O’Brien spoke on the podcast about a case that plumbs some murky depths and for which Mr Oliver’s family have not received any answers.

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The enveloping inflation spiral and cost of living crisis is dominating public life today and practically everybody has been impacted in one form or another. This is the third major crises the country has faced in little over a decade, following a recession and the pandemic. But it is the first time in a generation that inflation is creating havoc in everyday lives.

Irish Examiner columnist Fergus Finlay was at the frontline the last time there was such a crisis, working as a union official and then for the government that grappled with the issue, as well as rearing a young family. He talks to this week’s podcast about what it was like, the differences today and how we can tackle the current crisis.

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With the centenary of the start of the Civil War arriving next week and the conflict having been marked by a major conference in UCC last week, we are looking at the role of women in what unfolded at the time. For most of the last hundred years, women were largely written out of the period but that is now changing. Apart from the general omissions there were women who played particularly prominent roles in the Civil War.

Dr Mary McAuliffe and Dr Hilary Dully joined Mick on the podcast for some fascinating insights in the role of women in the Civil War. 

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