The Women's Podcast

For the past couple of weeks, and even months in some cases, canvassers have been working hard on either side of next week's referendum on the Eighth Amendment, going door to door in a bid to persuade the electorate of their side of the argument. We sent our co-producer Jennifer Ryan out with groups on either side to meet some of those people who have been giving up their evenings and weekends to do so. Later on, Roisin Ingle will be talking to former Sydney Rose Brianna Parkins who you might remember caused a national gasp during the Rose of Tralee festival, when she used her platform to call for a referendum on a repeal of the Eighth amendment. She has a piece in The Irish Times today where she explains why she has taken leave of absence from her job as a journalist in Australia to campaign for Yes.

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As a crisis pregnancy counsellor with One Family, Marguerite McCarthy has seen and heard it all when it comes to women and pregnancy. She speaks to Kathy Sheridan about her concerns that the debate around the referendum on the Eighth Amendment is focusing too much on what we call the 'hard cases' and the voices of those 'ordinary women' who make the decision to end their pregnancies are not being heard enough. Also on today's podcast, one of those so-called 'ordinary women', Louise White, speaks about her experience of crisis pregnancy and the shame she carried about it for too many years.

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“He needed to be heard, after 34 years of silence,” says Irish Times journalist Rosita Boland, of her interview in last Saturday’s paper with Richard McDonnell, the former boyfriend of Ann Lovett. On today’s episode of the Women’s Podcast, Boland talks to Kathy Sheridan about the latest chapter in the story of the young woman who died in 1984 after giving birth at a grotto in Granard, Co Longford.

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79-year-old friends, Ann Ingle and Mary Fleming, are on opposite sides when it comes to the referendum on the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which recognises the equal right to life of the mother and the unborn. Mary tells Kathy Sheridan she will be voting no on May 25th because she feels abortion is killing a baby. Ann, meanwhile, will be voting yes. In a robust conversation, the women, who are in a writers group together, explain how, even though they disagree strongly on the issue of abortion, they won’t be falling out with each other over the referendum.

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Earlier this year, Ciairín de Bush was appointed CEO of Women for Election, the not-for-profit, non-partisan organisation helping to get more women into politics. The Kerry woman was previously the director of Start Strong, an advocacy organisation campaigning to improve early childhood care and education policies in Ireland. In this episode, she talks to Kathy Sheridan about her new role, the kind of training Women for Election offer, why it’s so important to keep working on female Dáil representation – which currently stands at 22 per cent – and why a strong female leader is nothing to be afraid of.

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Irish actor Amy de Bhrún has been in Vikings, Coronation Street and the most recent Jason Bourne film. Next week she returns to the theatre with a female-led production that she has written herself. ‘I See You’ runs from May 11-26th at Theatre Upstairs in Dublin and it tells the tale of Limerick-born Lady Mary Heath, the first female commercial pilot and all-around trailblazer. Fellow Irish actor Roxanna Nic Liam plays the role of Modern Mary, to de Bhrún’s Mary Heath. In today's podcast, they perform an extract from the play and explain why this story deserves to be told.

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Well over a year since we were shocked to our cores by Hillary Clinton's defeat in the 2016 US Election, we still can't quite stop talking about it or trying to make sense of it. It may be even harder when you're Jennifer Palmieri, former communications director for Clinton's presidential campaign. Before stepping into that role, Palmieri served as White House Communications Director for U.S. President Barack Obama and she also worked for President Bill Clinton. She has just published her book, Dear Madam President: An Open Letter to the Women Who Will Run the World. Kathy Sheridan spoke to her about that and lots more.

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Later in this episode, co-producer Jennifer Ryan talks to lifestyle blogger Lily Pebbles about her book about female friendships, The F Word. But first, Women’s Aid warned last week that Ireland’s overstretched legal system and insufficient resources for survivors of domestic abuse, are leaving women at risk of further harm even after they leave an abusive partner. Director of the charity Margaret Martin spoke to Róisín Ingle about their 2017 annual report and about the many issues raised in it, including marital rape, sexual consent and victim blaming.

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Irish Times journalist Sorcha Pollak is the writer of the weekly New to the Parish series, which focuses on migration and immigrant communities in Ireland. Sorcha’s book based on the series has just been published and to celebrate its release we hosted a special live episode of the podcast at The Dean Hotel in Dublin. Our guests on the night were Sorcha and three women she has interviewed for the series:Syrian woman Maisa Al-Hariri, a student in business and economics at UCD who came to Ireland from Greece with her family in December 2016. Flavia Camejo, who grew up in the city of Coro in northern Venezuela and worked as a journalist for a national newspaper before moving to Ireland in 2014. And Janneke van Nijnanten who moved to Ireland from the Netherlands in 2011.

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In today's episode, we go time travelling back to the Ireland of 1983, to the unusually hot summer and autumn of that year, in the run up to the contentious abortion referendum. You will hear letters to the editor of the Irish Times during the campaign, and in its aftermath, from the referendum that resulted in the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.

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