The Women's Podcast

The Artist’s Way was first published in 1991 by screenwriter and teacher Julia Cameron. A classic guide to creativity, the book has sold over five million copies and has recently been redesigned and relaunched for a new generation. Hailed by celebrities such as Alicia Keys, Russell Brand and Reece Witherspoon, it’s key ideas include Morning Pages, a daily ritual designed to declutter the mind, and the Artist’s Date, a commitment to set aside time each week to nurture your creative soul. Even if you feel like you haven’t a creative bone in your body, Cameron maintains ‘there is no such thing as a non-creative person’. In this conversation with Róisín Ingle, the author explains how the book came about after her recovery from alcoholism, how the practises work to move past creative blocks and why you're never too old to try something new. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

By age sixty-four, Jenni Murray's weight had become a disability. The broadcaster and author avoided the scales, wore a uniform of baggy black clothes and refused to make connections between her weight and health issues. A successful author and the host of BBC Woman’s Hour, Murray appeared to have it all, but in private she lived with a growing fear that she wouldn’t even make it to seventy. In this episode, she speaks to Kathy Sheridan about the life changing surgery which helped her lose eight stone in less than a year and why she decided to document her weight loss journey in the new book, Fat Cow, Fat Chance. This latest offering from Murray is a refreshingly honest account of what it’s like to be fat when society dictates that skinny is the norm. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The last Big Night In of our first season took place on Zoom last Saturday night with author, literary historian and playwright Emma Donoghue. The Room-author joined us from her home in Ontario, Canada where she lives with her partner and two teenage children. Donoghue has just released The Pull of the Stars, a novel set 100 years ago in Dublin during The Great Flu. The pandemic setting was a complete coincidence she told Roisin Ingle, explaining that the book had been written and submitted before Covid-19 hit. She spoke about her writing life, going to the Oscars, sexuality, parenting and her swotty tendencies which began in childhood. This was our last Big Night In for a while so we wanted to thank our sponsor Green & Blacks for providing gorgeous hampers of chocolate and every single one of you who joined us over these distracting, joyful and entertaining Lockdown conversations. We'll definitely be bringing The Big Night In back. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Yoga has had an excellent pandemic. There's been a boom in online classes and even President Michael D Higgins was still getting his downward dog on in the Áras during Lockdown. So it's the perfect time for a free online yoga festival and in this episode we talk to Cathy Pearson, the woman behind the Celtic Woodland Yoga Festival, a three day gathering for people who love yoga or who are just yoga curious. Pearson spoke to Roisin Ingle about the festival, about how she went from a job in the film industry to a life in the healing arts in the jungles of Thailand and about how she juggles her practice and motherhood. For more details and to register for free go to celticwoodlandyogafestival.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode Roisin Ingle talks to Susannah Dickey, the author of a stunning debut novel Tennis Lessons which is set in Northern Ireland and follows a young woman as she struggles to find her place in the world. Dickey is an award-winning poet from Derry but her new novel shows her gift for the longer novel form. She has written a fantastic book containing rich dialogue and a gritty, authentic coming of age story. We follow the unnamed protagonist from the age of 3 right up to her late twenties, as she deals with the break-up of her parents marriage, various sexual encounters and trying to reconcile the life she imagined for herself with the one that is playing out. It's also the story of friendship, the kind that puts you back together when you are lost. Also, in this episode Ingle announces our final Big Night In with special guest Room-author Emma Donoghue. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On today's episode, we are talking about life, death and grief in the time of Covid-19. This is a fraught issue, not just for those who've lost loved ones to the virus but for those with friends or relations that died during this very strange time of socially distanced funerals where numbers are severely limited. Roisin Ingle spoke to Orla Keegan at The Irish Hospice Foundation’s Bereavement Support Line which launched on the 9th June to provide a confidential space for people to speak about their experience or to ask questions relating to the death of someone during the COVID-19 pandemic or a previous bereavement. Also, back in March The Irish Times put forward an open call to readers to share their personal experiences of bereavement during the pandemic. Some of those who contributed also shared their story on the confronting coronavirus podcast. Today we bring you some of those recordings to shine a light on the very different kind of mourning that has been happening at this time. See acast.com/privacy for

In this episode, Roisin Ingle talked to Green Party Councillor Hazel Chu who has just been elected Lord Mayor of Dublin, only the 9th woman in the city's history to take on the role. On a Zoom call from her new home the Mansion House in Dawson Street, Chu told Ingle why being the first person of colour in the role is important and reflects the rich diversity of the city. She spoke about her experience of racism, why she wants her daughter Alex to grow up being proud of her Chinese heritage and the Green Party leadership challenge. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

For many women the Spring and Summer of 2020 will always be the time when their much anticipated weddings were prevented from happening because of the pandemic. While not exactly life or death, there’s no getting away from the fact that the cancellation of these special and meticulously planned days were a cause of disappointment for everyone involved. In this episode, two almost-brides author Laura de Barra and Women’s Podcast co-producer Suzanne Brennan talk about how they feel about their weddings not happening, what they did to mark the day and whether the pandemic has changed their approach to the postponed Big Day. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On today’s episode, Róisín Ingle speaks to American crime writer Karin Slaughter from her home in Atlanta, Georgia. Slaughter has just released her 20th novel, The Silent Wife, which follows the investigation into a brutal attack on a young woman. In this conversation, the author paints a picture of lockdown life with her two and a half cats and takes a look at the US response to coronavirus. They also talk about Karin’s stand-alone book Pieces of Her which is being adapted for Netflix and why crime novels are the perfect form of escapism. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Activist, writer, addiction specialist and senator Lynn Ruane was the brilliant guest for our seventh Big Night In hosted by Róisín Ingle. An audience of over 150 joined us on Zoom to watch this force of nature speak about some of the lighter moments from inside the Seanad, her learnings from lockdown and why The Real Housewives of New York has become her new obsession. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

No pandemic is gender-neutral and neither is Covid-19, which is negatively affecting the lives of women and girls. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is the Executive Director of UN Women and she spoke to Roisin Ingle from lockdown in South Africa about the three areas where women and girls are particularly at risk in the current crisis: Domestic violence, frontline work - the majority of workers are women - and financially. Previously, Mlambo-Ngcuka served as Deputy President of South Africa, the first woman to hold the position and at that point the highest ranking woman in the history of South Africa. Also in the episode, singer songwriter Megan O'Neill spoke about her new song Fire With Fire, inspired by the way women in the music industry are pitted against each other. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

During the pandemic, there has been increased pressure placed on one parent families, from shopping struggles and homeschooling demands to dealing with feelings of loneliness and isolation. In today’s episode, we hear from Clare O’Leary, a single parent living in Wexford with her 5 year old son Peter. Clare has just completed the first year of a psychology degree at Waterford IT and spoke to Róisin Ingle about lone parenting and studying while in lockdown. We also hear from Niamh Wynne, from One Family Ireland, who coordinates the New Steps, New Futures programme which helps single parents going back into education or the workplace See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Where are you going on your holliers? That's the question we are asking on this episode with travel writer Joan Scales who has been uncovering deals up and down the country from castles to hotels, from campsites to cottages. Whether you are the adventurous type or fancy a bit of luxury, there is an Irish holiday for you so we wanted to help you with all the options that are available. In pandemic times. supporting our homegrown tourism industry and the 250,000 jobs reliant on that industry feels positively patriotic. From June 29th the tourism sector will start to slowly crank back into gear and in this episode we explore the many wonderful possibilities when it comes to a great Irish holiday. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Born in Ireland, to Breton parents, Olwen Fouéré is a writer, producer and theatre maker. A reviewer once said of her that if she sat on a stage doing nothing it would still be completely compelling. Fouéré makes theatre that people find disturbing or unsettling and much of her extensive body of work is provocative, the kind of art that stays with you or even might change you a bit. Since the 1970s she has been working solidly in film and theatre. Her film work includes This Must Be The Place with Sean Penn, Mandy with Nicolas Cage and The Survivalist which is very apt these days. In theatre, she is best know for a powerhouse performance of Salome at The Gate and Riverrun, her own seminal work which evoked the voice of the river in Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake and toured all over the world. Fouéré spoke to Roisin Ingle at our sixth Big Night In on Zoom about life, loss, art, love, family and open relationships. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Some listeners may remember Cindy Gallop from 2009 when she did a hugely popular Ted Talk in which she shared her experience of how hardcore pornography had distorted the way a generation of young men thinks about sex - and now she's fighting back. This was the genesis of her social sex company Make Love Not Porn, a user-generated video-sharing platform where people can submit videos of themselves having “real world” sex. Make Love Not Porn has been positively thriving during the pandemic and Gallop joined Roisin Ingle to discuss how dating younger men led to her creation of the company and why her mission to get people talking about sexual activity in a normal, shame-free way could mean the end of rape culture and gender-based abuse. In this episode, we also pay tribute to the seven sisters and their aunt in Co Tipperary, members of the traveling community, who this week spoke out about the horrific sexual abuse they were exposed to over decades. Their bravery followed the sentencing of their father James O'

It feels like a lifetime ago, but it was only March when Morning Ireland presenter and best-selling author Rachael English came in to the Irish Times studio talk to us about her fifth novel The Paper Bracelet. The gripping story centres around a fictional Mother and Baby home in the West of Ireland and the paper bracelets that were used to identify the babies born there who were then sent away for adoption. Each bracelet contains details of the lives of the young women incarcerated in these homes and the secrets, shame and lies that still echo in Ireland today. Roisin Ingle talked to English about her writing, about her 30 year career in RTE and about the excitement of covering the last General Election. (Remember that?) In this episode, we also bring you an update into some of the issues raised at the recent Webinar: Unpacking The Impacts: Covid-19 and Women's Mental Health particularly around domestic violence during the pandemic. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It was not on the agenda at her career guidance meetings at school, but somehow in Lockdown 17-year-old schoolgirl Hannah McSorley has ended up as a "Tik Tok Tadpole Influencer". The tens of thousands of tadpoles in her garden have earned more than half a million followers on the platform and a US Influencer agent has come calling, so it looks like tadpoles are going to be this teenager's lucrative new career. You can see why we needed to get her on the podcast. We also had to talk about women's mental health in this episode, because we know that women are disproportionately affected in terms of depression, anxiety and sleeplessness. We spoke to two women, Louise O'Leary and Dr Cliona Loughnane, working in this field about the mental health Webinar they are running on Friday June 12th. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Our fifth Big Night In happened on Zoom in front of an audience of 250 on Saturday June 6th with author, playwright and Irish Times columnist Hilary Fannin. She spoke about her debut novel The Weight of Love, her early childhood memoir Hopscotch and about life in lockdown with her sons, partner and long suffering cat. Fannin also reflected on her decision to become a college student - doing a masters in creative writing in Trinity College - for the first time in her fifties. She spoke with warmth and humour about her insecure childhood with bohemian parents Bob and Marie, which at one point saw the family being evicted from their home. We had a lot of excellent feedback about the event and are delighted to bring you this conversation between Irish Times columnists Roisin Ingle and Hilary Fannin. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The year 2020 will not just be remembered for the pandemic. It will also be remembered for George Floyd and his final words 'I can't breathe' as he lay dying, the knee of a Minnesota police officer on his neck. The incomprehensible killing of Floyd, a father of two, shone a light yet again on the pervasive racism experienced by the black community all over the world. The protests in America saw people express collective outrage and solidarity. In Dublin thousands gathered to do the same, kneeling together in silence and calling for an end to the Direct Provision System. It's not good enough, as political activist Angela Davis said, to not be racist. We need to be anti-racist. And we need to talk about what that means. Three young black Irish women Amanda Adewole, Tobi Lawal and Felicia Olusanya aka Felispeaks came on the podcast to discuss their experiences of everyday racism, the events in America and the ways in which white people, with all of the privilege we benefit from because of the colour of our skin

The sex in the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney's novel Normal People became a huge national talking point. It was praised for its authenticity and complained about on Liveline for very different reasons. In this episode Ita O'Brien, intimacy coordinator, talks to Roisin Ingle about why her job choreographing the sex scenes between Marianne and Connell was akin to the role of a choreographer brought on set to oversee a fight scene. Nothing was left to chance from consent to safe words, which meant the actors were protected and the sex in Normal People was always integral to the story and never gratuitous. A former dancer and actor, O'Brien previously worked on programmes such as Sex Education and Gentleman Jack and offers a fascinating glimpse behind a relatively new part of the film and TV industry. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.