The Women's Podcast

Somali-Irish activist Ifrah Ahmed is one of the world's foremost campaigners against Female Genital Mutilation. Ahmed came to Ireland in 2006 after fleeing her war-torn home country and during a medical examination it was found that she had suffered terrible trauma as a result of FGM. A founding member of the United Youth of Ireland, she has been gender adviser to the prime minister of Somalia and has worked with Unicef, Amnesty International and the Irish Refugee Council.In today’s podcast she talks to Kathy Sheridan about her decision to channel the anger she felt about her experience of FGM and turn it into a force for change. “If I didn’t speak, how many more girls would be the victim of FGM today?” she says. Now her life story has been made into a film by director and producer Mary McGuckian. McGuckian joins Ahmed in this podcast to talk about that film, A Girl From Mogadishu.Before you go – A reminder that our sixth and final 'Big Night In' will happen this Saturday December 12th 2020, with the wonderful broadcaster Olivia O’Leary. If you haven’t got a ticket remember you can still get them on www.irishtimes.com/bignightin and keep an eye on our Instagram too as we’ll also be giving away some tickets.

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This year marks the fifth anniversary of a pivotal moment in Irish cultural history. In November 2015, the Waking the Feminists movement emerged in response to decades of underrepresentation for women in Irish theatre and performance practice. In today’s episode, Róisín Ingle is joined by Lian Bell and Sarah Durcan, the two powerhouses behind the campaign which began on social media, gained traction all over the world, and can count Meryl Streep amongst its many supporters. The pair reminisce on a seismic time for women’s equality, the progress made and the work still to be done. But first, we’re championing #ShopLocal on The Women’s Podcast and each week in the run up to Christmas, we’ll be showcasing an Irish business that we think deserves your attention. This week, Roisin caught up with Cara Dunne from Cara Luna Designs, a small, design studio with values of eco-friendliness, inclusivity and non-binary representation at its heart. Amongst her wares are greeting cards, calendars and personalised illustrations. You can see more at www.caralunadesigns.com

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In today’s episode, we’re bringing you the recording from our recent Women’s Podcast Live event. On Thursday evening, in front of a very festive Zoom audience, our crack squad of Irish Times columnists presented the ultimate Christmas 2020 survival guide. Joining us on the evening was beauty reporter Laura Kennedy, who came bearing the best gift ideas this side of Bethlehem, including a pandemic themed beer and a candle which smells like the Westbury bathrooms. Advice columnist Roe McDermott came bearing insightful counsel on how to deal with everything from tricky family situations to self-care. Food writer Lilly Higgins brought us gorgeous recipes that will help make your feast the finest around. And finally, Hilary Fannin, who writes a weekly lifestyle column, came grinning and bearing it, because whatever happens this Christmas, we have to laugh. It was a wonderful evening spent in the company of four very wise women, all thanks to our sponsor Green & Black’s.

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Rhonda Byrne shot to worldwide fame in 2006 with her massively successful film and book, The Secret. With fans like Oprah Winfrey, the book went on to sell more than 30 million copies, making Byrne a multi-millionaire.The Secret claimed to show us the path to create anything we want to be, do or have. Now Byrne has written its follow-up, The Greatest Secret, through which she hopes to help people learn how to find true peace without having to spend hours meditating each day. She talks to Róisín Ingle about writing her phenomenally successful first book The Secret, the 14-year search for truth which led her to The Greatest Secret, why none of us has to suffer if we stay “aware” and how the pandemic can be an opportunity to change the course of your life for the better.

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In this book club podcast Róisín, Ann Ingle, Bernice Harrison and Niamh Towey discuss our latest read, Nick Hornby’s ninth novel, Just Like You. The author, known for his portrayal of the interior lives of men in books including the much loved, High Fidelity, is back with a funny age-gap love story set to a backdrop of Brexit London. In it, Hornby attempts to inhabit the point of view of a black man in his 20s and a woman in her 40s, with excursions into football and music.Does he successfully embody the lives of the two protagonists? In the era of Black Lives Matter, has the author managed to handle the issue of race appropriately? And, how does Brexit work as a literary device? As usual there were some strong opinions among our book clubbers, minor disagreements and even a slightly uncomfortable exploration of a hypothetical age-gap love story involving two of our panelists. We’ll have details of our upcoming Christmas book club meeting in a later episode and on our social media channels.

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It's Food Month in The Irish Times but you might say it's been Food Month pretty much everywhere since last March when the pandemic took hold and we found ourselves spending a lot more time in our homes and particularly in our kitchens. We were delighted to welcome resident Irish Times Food Columnist Lilly Higgins back to the podcast to discuss the foods that have been keeping her and her family going over lockdown - did anybody say duck pancakes? She also made a compelling case for her one woman campaign to bring back the Vol-au-vent, the giant variety of course. Living in Cobh, Co Cork with her husband and small children, Higgins talks about the dishes that have been the crowd pleasers with her family and with readers over Lockdown including a Goan Fish Curry that takes only fifteen minutes to prepare. She's also been cooking up a storm on Instagram and she told Roisin Ingle all about building a new community of foodies on that platform.Here's the three recipes featured in this episode:Yee-Haw! Cowboy Beans with Roast Chickenhttps://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/food-and-drink/yee-haw-cowboy-beans-with-roast-chicken-1.3869324Goan Fish Curryhttps://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/food-and-drink/a-quick-easy-curry-that-can-be-made-in-15-minutes-goan-so-1.3993016One Pot Paprika Chickenhttps://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/food-and-drink/recipes/one-pot-paprika-chicken-1.4071851%3fmode=amp

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While many of us were rightly outraged by the Government's approach to rushing through the Mother and Baby Homes Bill, and relieved by the U-turn that followed the public campaigning of survivors and human rights experts, one aspect of that story got very little attention. For black or mixed-race people born or raised in mother and baby homes and industrial schools, the abuse they received was of a different nature than that meted out to their white-skinned inmates. Rosemary Adaser was one of those people and she came on the podcast to talk about her experience of systemic racism, physical and sexual abuse and the trauma of having a non-Irish heritage which meant she was, as she puts it, "at the bottom of the pecking order". Rosemary was dehumanised in these institutions, called a savage, demeaned and made to feel ashamed of her heritage, her Irish mother and Ghanaian father. It was only in her fifties and living in London that she began to look back at her past and at her Irish identity. In this powerful interview, she spoke to Roisin Ingle about why we need to tell the whole story of these institutions, and the people that were brutalised in them, if we are to fully understand our past.

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You might have seen a shocking and disturbing news story in The Irish Times this week by Kitty Holland who wrote about a cluster of suicides among young women in west Dublin last year which was linked to the housing crisis, domestic violence, social media and recreational drug use. Though the area has had a female suicide rate three times the national average since 2015, it was the deaths of eight women in their 20s and early 30s over a 10-week period that prompted a HSE report. Four of the women who died between April and July 2019 were from Ballyfermot and the others were from neighbouring Clondalkin, Tallaght and Palmerstown. Several were young mothers. One of the most striking things from the report into these suicides was fears by some of these young women that their children could be removed by Tusla and that was cited as a reason why some mothers in distress don’t seek help. On the podcast to discuss this were reporter Kitty Holland, People Before Profit Councillor Hazel Norton and S.W.A.A.T. Co-ordinator (Supporting Women to Access Appropriate Treatment) with Ballyfermot Star Denise Joy.

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In this episode, we meet Ruth Medjber the talented young music photographer who, having lost all her work due to the pandemic, found a novel and engaging way to capture the story of Ireland in Lockdown. Medjber told Roisin Ingle about why she began taking photographs of people at their front windows, to show the rich and diverse tapestry that made up the universal details of our locked down lives. She traveled the country taking photos of people (and sometimes their dogs) and the result has been made into a beautiful book called Twilight Together: Portraits of Ireland At Home. Medjber spoke about growing up with photography in her DNA and about how this latest project has made her reevaluate her art in a positive sense. Also in the episode, we hear from Drogheda teenager Victoria Adeyinka who has 11.5m followers on Tik Tok where she entertains the masses with funny, heartwarming skits.

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Four years ago this week, we called an Emergency Episode of this podcast to lament and analyse the ascent of racist, sexist Donald Trump to The White House. Four years later we assemble again in a slightly more hopeful mood against a backdrop of Biden possibly emerging victorious. We can't forget though that nearly 70 million voters choosing Trump again, despite or perhaps because of, his four year reign which has included white supremacist allegiances, children in cages, lies, sexism, narcissism, meltdowns and more lies. Joining our host Kathy Sheridan for this invigorating conversation which included an exploration of 'tenacious optimism' and 'fuck you feminism' was feminist giant Mona Eltahawy, human rights lawyer Simone George and Irish Times Washington Correspondent Suzanne Lynch. Cheerful is not an option, says Mona. Righteous anger and activism are what we need to dismantle the patriarchal structures that are still alive and well whether, when all the votes are finally counted, Biden/Harris or Trump/Pence take The White House.

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