The Panti Personals is a child of the award winning podcast Pantisocracy. Hosted by the Queen of Ireland, Panti Bliss, it's an intimate one to one conversation with a single guest and a unique performance by that artist for the Queen herself.
The podcast launched May 1 2021 and is in all podcast places under #Pantisocracy #ThePantiPersonals. 
Find out more on the mothership and enjoy extra video content : http://pantisocracy.ie/panti-personals/ 
If you like what we do, support us, share the podcasts, rate and review in iTunes, and let us know in places like Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #ThePantiPersonals 
The Panti Personals is an independent podcast production by Athena Media. The producer is Helen Shaw,  the digital editor is John Howard.
Season 3 starts May 2022  
Follow @pantibliss on twitter and you can find us twitter @athenamedialtd and @podcastingire

The Panti Personals with Panti Bliss

Pantisocracy with Panti Bliss (2016-2020)
Panti Bliss hosts a cabaret of conversations with, and about, contemporary Ireland.
The show broadcasts on RTÉ Radio 1 (Season 5 runs Thursday 10pm Summer 2020)  and this podcast channel featured extended versions, closer to the shows recorded with audiences, with additional bonus material which is additional to the broadcast versions on RTE Radio 1. 

In this series the Queen of Ireland Panti Bliss invites a diverse gathering of intriguing, high profile and articulate guests into her parlour to chat about their life’s journey and share stories. From singers to scientists, athletes to actors, writers to rebels – all are citizens of the Pantisocracy where Panti herself holds court in a wry and incisive programme combining talk, song and performance. A cabaret for the times we live in. Pantisocracy is a society of equals.

www.pantisocracy.ie pantisocracy is an Athena Media production for RTE Radio 1 in Ireland and available as podcasts online via the project website.

Pantisocracy Podcasts ( Extended versions of Pantisocracy)

www.thefamilyofthings.com #TheFamilyofThings 
The Family of Things is an podcast series from award winning production company Athena Media about ideas, life and how we choose to live it. In the series, host Helen Shaw talks to people about their life journey, what forms them, informs them and what drives them forward. 

Season 1 (2014-2018) has 15 episodes and features Rory O'Neill aka Panti Bliss, Linda Buckley, Tony Bates, Frank Berry, Mark O'Halloran and Iarla Ó Lionáird. Season 2 launched April 2nd 2021 with singer and broadcaster Ruth Smith. 
“Every week in my job I meet someone I would love to sit down with and talk in depth. Often I just get to chat about the day and never get the opportunity to take an hour and explore the questions that define us. That curiosity, that wonder made me create The Family of Things”

-Helen Shaw
 
The project takes its name from the closing line of the Mary Oliver poem ‘Wild Geese’.
The theme music is from Ana Gog 'The Old Haunt' composed by Michael Gallen. 
The podcast was first launched in Winter 2014, and Season 1 was recorded in Athena Media Ltd studios. Season 2, launched April 2nd 2021, and is recorded remotely.  Guests in this new run include Ruth Smith, Robert Hope, Dr Kathleen Turner, Paddy Woodworth and Professor Gerardine Meaney.  

http://thefamilyofthings.com for more

The Family of Things is an independent podcast so if like what we do and want to support the making of Season 2 please consider becoming a supporter for as little as a euro a month via our Patreon community https://www.patreon.com/tfot

The Family of THINGS with Helen Shaw

This is Where We Live is an audio podcast & transmedia series exploring what it takes to shape great places to live and how Ireland is facing up to the challenges of its future.  Across 2019 Athena Media is recording and sharing conversations about home and homelessness, about housing and belonging, about what makes a place somewhere to live, thrive and call our own. While the series has been inspired by the housing and homelessness crisis our focus is on the policy behind urban planning, the story of how we got here, and how we begin to navigate a better future.
The producer is Helen Shaw, the digital editor is John Howard.
www.thisiswherewelive.ie
This independent storytelling project is supported by its listeners via patreon and, since April 2019, by its sponsors Happy Scribe and the Dublin Housing Observatory.

This is Where We Live

This is a short podcast series showcasing the public seminars that took place in April 2019 in tandem with The Vienna Model: Housing for the 21st Century exhibition.
The events were co-sponsored by Dublin City Council and the Housing Agency and hosted by the Dublin Housing Observatory.  In this 6 part series we explore what is The Vienna Model, and how it help Irish cities like Dublin re-think their provision of housing, particularly public housing? We look at cost rental, and explain how it works, and how it can be funded as well as other models for shaping affordable housing like co-housing, cooperative purchase models.  

To find out more about the topics and the speakers go to www.housingmodeldublin.ie
To follow our full channel of content go to www.thisiswherewelive.ie

The presenter/producer of this series is Helen Shaw, the audio editor is John Howard.

The VIENNA MODEL: Housing for the 21st Century

The Family of Things ; Season 2 E 1 : Ruth Smith  Released April 2 2021 

The Family of Things is a podcast about life, and how we chose to live it hosted by Helen Shaw and created by Athena Media. All of Season 2 conversations have been recorded remotely due to the pandemic. 
Website: www.thefamilyofthings.com #TheFamilyOfThings  
Ruth Smith is well known to radio listeners for her weekly RTÉ Radio 1 show Simply Folk but Ruth is a woman of many hats and talents. She is also part of the female singing trio ‘The Evertides’ with her singing sisters Ruth McGill and Alma Kelliher and her creative work includes writing poetry and fiction. 

She was born, as Ruth says, a middle child in a family running a busy and bustling Portumna pub in Co. Galway, she grew up performing, doing turns in the pub playing fiddle and became an accomplished pianist. She went to Trinity College Dublin to study drama and theatre, she still has an occasional life on stage as an actor, and today she lives in East Clare, with her husband, fellow musician Fergal Scahill (of We Banjo 3), and their rescue cat and two dogs. 

In this episode of The Family of Things Ruth shares an often deeply personal journey of self-discovery and how a turbulence time in her late twenties, and early thirties, when her first marriage ended, and she felt lost, helped her find confidence in her own voice, and the power to use it for a positive purpose.

You can find out more about Ruth follow her on twitter https://twitter.com/theruthsmith, so you can see her hiakus and you can hear The Evertides music on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/artist/3KORys5YygyWKuTocK1mbB?autoplay=true

In the episode Ruth uses the Irish word 'altramas' - which means to foster, to take care of someone, to nurse, so an altramaí is a foster person, foster parent, in the idea that it takes a village to raise a child.
The music you hear in this episode includes: 
The Evertides - Silence Falling, in the opening & Mayfly in the closing 
Billy Joel - Goodnight My Angel Sung by Ruth 
Mary Keane/ Mary MacGabhann - Whispering Hope  (Ruth's Aunt) 
Julie Feeney - Life's Nudge 
You can hear, and buy, the songs Ruth's Aunt Mary recorded to raise fund for St Francis Hospice here: https://marymacgabhann.bandcamp.com/releases
You can hear Julie's performance of the song performed live with Cormac de Barra for the Pantisocracy show 2017 here: https://audioboom.com/posts/6166686-pantisocracy-performance-season-2-e-4-julie-feeney-life-s-nudge
Ruth reads The Philip Larkin poem ' This Be The Verse' and you find the text here : https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-verse
The Family of Things is an Athena Media independent podcast production. The host, and producer, is Helen Shaw. The digital editor is John Howard.
The theme music is 'The Old Haunt' by Ana Gog - composed by Michael Gallen.
The Family of Things is an independent podcast without other sources of funding. If you like what we do and want to support the creation of Season 2 consider becoming a member of our Patreon community for just a euro a month. Help make things happen. 
Support Season 2 of The Family of Things: https://www.patreon.com/tfot

Episode Transcript: https://www.happyscribe.com/transcriptions/ba128f78e0c94c06ab33fd5760b5ca97/edit_v2

The title 'The Family of Things' comes from a poem by Mary Oliver 'Wilde Geese' 
https://www.vanderbilt.edu/olli/class-materials/2017Summer.MindfulnessWk1.pdf

@AthenaMedia2021 All rights reserved
#TheFamilyofThings is available in all podcast places including YouTube. Susbscribe where you get your favourite ones.

The Family of Things : S2 E1 : Ruth Smith (2021)

The Panti Personals - Season 1 Episode 1 
Panti Bliss meets Bressie' Niall Breslin (released May 1 2021) 
www.pantisocracy.ie #ThePantiPersonals 
*trigger warning. This conversation touches on mental health, and references child abuse and suicide. 

Panti Bliss is breaking out of lockdown and shaping a new podcast, a child of Pantisocracy, The Panti Personals, where she gets up close (two metres anyway) and personal with someone, for an intimate conversation and a private performance. 
Her first guest is a man of more hats than Philip Treacy. It's the handsome beast, mindfulness and music man, Niall Breslin, 'Bressie' of the Blizzards. This time Niall is Blizzardsless and performs two of his new spoken words pieces, 'Teen Spirit', which was first performed for this year's St Patrick's Day Festival, and inspired by the death of his teenage hero Kurt Cobain, and a brand new piece 'Closing Time', a tribute to the saving grace of Tom Waits, with Cian Boylan on piano.  Niall is co-founder of the mental health advocacy group 'A Lust for Life' and he hosts two podcasts, 'Where Is My Mind?' and one focussed on mindfulness 'Wake Up/Wind Down'. In this powerful and revealing conversation Panti and Bressie talk love, life, anxiety and resilience, and swap stories on how physical and sexual abuse, witnessed during their school years, has stayed with them, and haunted them. 
Find out more about Niall and his work : https://www.niallbreslin.com/
Or 'A Lust for Life': https://www.alustforlife.com/tools/mental-health/where-is-my-mind-podcast
And to hear the Blizzards check out : https://open.spotify.com/artist/5wzUAvSTqE7BXNSL0OOzZR
The Panti Personals is an Athena Media independent podcast production. The producer is Helen Shaw and the digital editor is John Howard. The Panti Personals sessions are recorded in Camden Recording Studios Dublin and this first season of the show has been made with the kind support of Camden Recording Studios and Cian Boylan. 
For more, and to see videos of performances from The Panti Personals, visit the mothership http://pantisocracy.ie/panti-personals/

Episode Transcript: https://www.happyscribe.com/transcriptions/f970aaabdeea4310b0bf0f11e69af05e/edit_v2

All rights rest with Niall Breslin & Athena Media @AthenaMedia2021

The Panti Personals : S1 E1 'Bressie' Niall Breslin

The Panti Personals - a new podcast hosted by Panti Bliss, starts May 1 2021.

Panti Bliss is breaking out of lockdown and getting up close ( well two metres) and personal. In this new podcast, a child of the multi-award winning Pantisocracy, Panti Bliss is escaping her husband, Penny the dog and Crayon the lockdown cat, to have some intimate and revealing conversations with old and new friends who also, since, they're all performers, entertain her in a private audience of one. In this season she meets the handsome beast, mindfulness and music man, Niall Breslin, ala Bressie of the Blizzards, American singer and songwriter, Galia Arad, film-maker and musician Myles O'Reilly, the unstoppable Bronagh Gallagher, and the Dutch singer and songwriter Jane Willow. 

For more go to the mothership http://pantisocracy.ie/panti-personals/

The Panti Personals is an independent podcast production by Athena Media. The producer is Helen Shaw and the digital editor is John Howard. This first season of The Panti Personals is made with the support of Camden Recording Studios in Dublin.

The theme music for The Panti Personals is Knots by Lisa Hannigan, and used with her kind permission. Thanks Lisa!

THE PANTI PERSONALS  : a new Panti Bliss podcast starts May 1

The Panti Personals : S1 E2 
Panti Bliss meets Galia Arad. (released May 14)
http://pantisocracy.ie/galia-arad/  #ThePantiPersonals 
Galia Arad describes herself as 'Bob Dylan meets Britney Spears' and if that doesn't make you want to listen to this episode of The Panti Personals, whatever will? Galia hails from Bloomington, Indiana, but this singer-songwriter with a comic punch, has made Dublin her home. When she's asked by taxi drivers what fella brought her to Dublin? Galia smiles and says 'Glen Hansard' but in truth it's as much Shane MacGowan's work, as Glen's. But then you'll have to listen to the podcast to find out why! 

Galia's comic work is often with the gleeful Lollipops but her new release, 'Lion's Den' is a classic break-up song, a powerful pop ballad you can just imagine Britney covering. Galia's 'Britney crush' often means she includes a Britney cover in her gigs and her very dark and mysterious cover of 'Baby One More Time' made it to screen in a Marvel TV series 'Cloak & Dagger'.
In this episode of The Panti Personals Panti Bliss finds a new soulmate in fellow podcaster Galia Arad, who she decides is 'a gas bitch' and ideal company for the habitual lockdown season. Galia, who has toured with Jools Holland, performs her latest release 'Lion's Den' and a song inspired by possibly her most embarrassing moment, when Elvis Costello emailed her to hook up for a gig. 

Music in this episode includes: 
Galia & The Lollipops : What a Time
Galia's cover of  Brittney Spears 'Baby One More Time'
Galia Arad's Lion's Den - accompanied by Cian Boylan 
Galia Arad and the Elvis Costello Song
To find out more about Galia go to www.galiaarad.com
And follow her on twitter https://twitter.com/galiaarad

The Panti Personals is an independent podcast production by Athena Media. 
The producer is Helen Shaw, the digital editor is John Howard. 
The theme music is Knots by Lisa Hannigan and used with her kind permission.

The Panti Personals : S1 E2 Galia Arad

The Panti Personals : Myles O'Reilly 
www.pantisocracy.ie #ThePantiPersonals 

The guest with Panti Bliss in this episode of The Panti Personals is Myles O'Reilly, a multi-talented artist of words, film and music. Myles composes and releases his own beautiful ambient music under the moniker Indistinct Chatter. He is celebrated for his gorgeous music docu-videos with artists like Villagers, Imelda May, Lisa O’Neill, Ye Vagabonds and of course the lovely Lisa Hannigan - whose music is our theme song. He’s one half of the music show ‘This Ain't No Disco’ with Donal Dineen and has curated a stage at Body & Soul Festival for some seven years.  Myles began his stage and music life as the band Juno Falls, which was effectively just him, and in this conversation with Panti Bliss he invites his good friend Rónán O' Snodaigh in to perform and sing Rónán's 'Tá'n t'Ádh Liom (Lucky Is Me)'. 

You can see Myles film of this song here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RknDQJtJkOs

You can find out more about Myles and his work on https://arbutusyarns.net/about/ and support it via his Patreon. 
https://mylesoreilly.bandcamp.com/music to buy his music.


Music you hear in this episode includes: 
Crowded House - To The Island (Myles O'Reilly video can be seen here https://arbutusyarns.net/2021/03/20/crowded-house-to-the-island/ 
Emmi Leisner DANK SEI DIR,HERR Ernst Reijseger
Indistinct Chatter - My Mother's Star
Indistinct Chatter - The Conservatory
Indistinct Chatter - Your Excitement

Episode Transcript: https://www.happyscribe.com/transcriptions/d2af713b626447a3811708785d6e313e/edit_v2

The Panti Personals is an independent podcast produced by Athena Media. The producer is Helen Shaw, the digital editor is John Howard and the theme music is by Lisa Hannigan, an instrumental version of her song 'Knots' 
(Myles made the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYdPtcx-4mo) and it is used with her kind permission.

The Panti Personals : S1 E3 Myles O'Reilly ( with Ronan O Snodaigh)

The Family of Things : S2 E 5 Gerardine Meaney 
www.thefamilyofthings.com #TheFamilyofThings 

Today's The Family of Things guest with Helen Shaw is writer, feminist, digital humanities leader and researcher, Professor Gerardine Meaney of University College Dublin. Helen and Gerardine were both students in UCD studying English and History in the early 80s but while Helen moved on to journalism, Gerardine, a self-confessed book addict, stayed in research and began hunting for the loss voices of women writers, written out or censored in Ireland. Her quest to give voice to the women who were always there but erased led to her work in books like 'Reading the Irish Woman' (2013) and her seminal study 'Gender, Ireland and Cultural Change' (2010). Gerardine embraced digital technologies as a means of opening access to learning and has been a pioneer in digital humanities using tools like audio podcasting to share knowledge. 
In this wide ranging conversation Gerardine, who is now Professor of Cultural Theory in the School of English, Drama and Film at UCD, explores what made her focus her attention on women, and how her new research work, around Victorian cultural values and migrant stereotypes, resonates with issues, like Brexit, today.  She also talks about her own experience of surviving breast cancer, and how it has, in some ways, made her think bigger, and with more focus, around her work, and her life. 
You can find out more about her work here https://people.ucd.ie/gerardine.meaney
You can visit and explore Joyce's Dublin, the pioneering digital humanities project that Gerardine and Helen collaborated on in 2009 on www.joycesdublin.ie 
Some of her projects mentioned are:
www.contagion.ie
www.nggprojectucd.ie
www.joyceportrait100.com
http://www.ucd.ie/englishanddrama/staff/meaney.html

Transcript of the episode: https://www.happyscribe.com/transcriptions/86f541e3fb2b4f85bbdc675b92f62b8a/edit_v2?share_code=6642aa035b440f402125

The Family of Things is an independent podcast production by Athena Media. The presenter and producer is Helen Shaw. The digital editor is John Howard and the theme music is by Michael Gallen - 'The Old Haunt' - an instrumental version of a song released by Michael's band Ana Gog.

The Family of Things : S2 E5  Gerardine Meaney (2021)

The Panti Personals:  Jane Willow
www.pantisocracy.ie #ThePantiPersonals 
Panti Bliss is with a gorgeous young Dutch woman, singer and songwriter Jane Willow in this episode of The Panti Personals. But of course Jane's real name is Janneke van Nijnanten and much like our Queen, Panti Bliss and her homeboy Rory O'Neill, she loves the freedom a stage persona and name gives to her. There's a weird Glen Hansard theme going on in The Panti Personals as we heard how Galia Arad was inspired to come to Ireland by a Glen gig, and our Janneke took off to Dublin after hearing Glen talking about the glories of street busking as a musician in Dublin. Janneke went back to busking, more parks than streets, during lockdown, just to find an audience and have the joy of the singing in public again. In this episode she shares her story of coming here from her home town in the Netherlands, Breda which of course Panti thinks is a great name for a drag queen, Heavy Breda! 
During the show Janneke pops into her Jane Willow identity and performs twice for the Queen, a beautiful cover of Nick Cave's 'Into My Arms' and her own lovely song 'Let There Be Light', a suitable anthem for the times we're in. 
In this episode you also hear Jane singing her poignant cover of Leonard Cohen song,  Chelsea Hotel. Here's her lockdown video of it : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRESTppQB4M
The Panti Personals gets closer to being a 'personals' column with Panti putting the call out for a gorgeous ginger haired guy for Jane ( she has a thing for red-heads!). 
Find out more about Jane Willow here : https://www.janewillow.com/blog

Transcript of the episode: https://www.happyscribe.com/transcriptions/7447b1ec0d554ce08360d18cb50c7532/edit_v2?share_code=5b049bfd4bae1e562d56

The Panti Personals is an independent podcast production by Athena Media. The producer is Helen Shaw, the digital editor is John Howard, the theme music is by Lisa Hannigan, it's an instrumental version of her song 'Knots' used with her kind permission.
The shows are recorded in Camden Recording Studios with Conor Brady as audio engineer and we thanks Camden Recording Studios and Cian Boylan for their support in the making of this series.

The Panti Personals: S1 E4  Jane Willow

The Family of Things S2 E6: Steafán Hanvey
www.thefamilyofthings.com #TheFamilyofThings

Helen Shaw's guest in this episode of The Family of Things is Steafán Hanvey an Irish singer-songwriter and poet, from Downpatrick, who has long found his home in Finland. Steafán's father is the well known Northern Irish photographer Bobbie Hanvey, and his poetry-photography book 'Reconstructions' (2018) presents his poems as conversations with his father's iconic photographs of 'The Troubles'. Today Steafán, as the pandemic paused his music career, has started a new professional life as a photographer, following once again in his father's footsteps, although his photos are often beautiful portraits and landscapes from Finland. In this episode Steafán shares how lockdown, and the pandemic year, crossed with one of the worst in his life, one of heartache and heartbreak. 

Music you hear in this episode includes: 

Rigmaroll (Finnish band & Steafán Hanvey) 
Hands of a Farmer & Vanha häämarssi
Bobbie Hanvey & Houl Yer Whisht 'The Muttonburn Stream '
& 'All Around the Loney;
You can find Bobbie's music here; https://music.apple.com/gb/album/the-muttonburn-stream-and-a-wheen-more/1025150269
Steafán Hanvey ' Deep Blue Sea' 
Steafán Hanvey 'Secrets and Lies' 
Steafán Hanvey & Tarja Merivirta"Masters of War' (Bob Dylan) with Janne Lappalainen: Nylon string guitar, banjo, electric guitar, bass, strings and drums programming.
Steafán also shares an extract from his poem 'Late Developer' from 'Reconstructions'.
You can find out more about his work, music and poetry https://steafanhanvey.com/
Steafán Hanvey YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiOpZJkO_iL0pYykVY7JixQ
And his photography is here: https://www.steafanhanveyphotography.com/

Transcript of the episode: https://www.happyscribe.com/transcriptions/37f20e9c77d347b8967fa8b7958706d9/edit_v2?share_code=a0e034f887c5ed02abc8
Read a piece by Steafán about his father Bobbie Hanvey and the story behind Reconstructions. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/portals-to-a-past-a-father-and-son-s-impressions-of-the-troubles-1.3726425
The Family of Things is an independent podcast by Athena Media, the producer and host is Helen Shaw, the audio and digital editor is John Howard, our theme music is by Michael Gallen

The Family of Things S2 E6:   Steafán Hanvey (2021)

The Family of Things S2 E7 Paddy Woodworth 
www.thefamilyofthings.com #TheFamilyofThings 

Helen Shaw's guest in this episode is journalist, author and environmentalist Paddy Woodworth. Paddy is the author of 'Our Once and Future Planet' (2018), an exploration of how we restore our environment. In this conversation he shares how he became a nature lover when he was a young boy and his parents would de-camp from Bray to a nissan hut in Co Wicklow for the long summer months enjoying the outdoors. Helen and Paddy crossed paths in the mid 1980s when they were both journalists in the Irish Times and Paddy was well known as an expert on the Basque conflict. His earlier work 'Dirty War, Clean Hands' (2001) charted how the Spanish State confronted ETA and is seen as a seminal study on post-Franco Spain. 
Paddy grew up in Bray in the 1950s, his family were Protestant, middle-class, and his early school days were seeped in what he describes as a 'little Britain' ethos. He reacted against it, and became more attracted to left-wing politics and republicanism, in an era of student activism and protests. In the 1970s he joined Official Sinn Fein and he talks about his disenchantment with it by the 1980s and how the only political agenda he now stands with is the environmental one, but he sees that movement as intrinsically tied to social justice. 

You can find out more about Paddy's work here  http://www.paddywoodworth.com/ 

Transcript of Episode: https://www.happyscribe.com/transcriptions/252c8250eb414a71a6f375eccda10f45/edit_v2?share_code=0999fb931a670e12e81d

The Family of Things S2 E7 Paddy Woodworth (2021)

The Family of Things S2 E8: Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan 
www.thefamilyofthings.com #TheFamilyofThings
The Dublin based Indian poet and arts manager, Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan is Helen Shaw's guest in this episode of The Family of Things. Chandrika was born in Delhi and as child lived in the Presidential Palace with her grandparents as her grandfather was K.R. Narayanan, the first Indian President to be elected from the Dalit community.  Chandrika's mother is an Indian diplomat and, as a young girl, she moved with her to Sweden and later to Turkey where she finished school. University brought her to the UK and after completing a BA and MA in Art History she began working in art auction house Christies but her plans to stay and take a Masters ended when the UK changes its immigration regulations and she was forced, quite quickly, to find to new home. She came to Dublin in 2012, took a Masters in Arts Management & Cultural Policy at UCD, and since then, as she says herself, she has found both a home and her tribe here, particularly in the queer, creative community. 
Her work has been published in Writing Home: The ‘New Irish’ Poets from Dedalus Press, The Ireland Chair of Poetry Hold Open the Door anthology by UCD Press, the Green Carnations: 25 Young LGBTQ+ Poets from Ireland anthology by Book Hub Publishing, Banshee, Honest Ulsterman, Impossible Archetype, and Poetry Ireland Review. She has been featured on The Moth and Mortified podcasts, with work aired on NPR and Irish radio. She regularly performs at literary and cabaret events in Ireland. Chandrika was selected for the Irish Writers Centre XBorders programmes in 2018 and 2020. Chandrika is editor of Poetry Ireland’s Trumpet issue 9, and book reviewer for Children’s Books Ireland’s Inis magazine. 

In this conversation she shares some turning points and her ode to Dublin 'You City, You Boyfriend', as well as two short poems inspired by her mother, Chitra. 
You can find out more about Chandrika and her work here: http://www.chandrika.ie/about.html   
Watch her talk for Bright Club Ireland in April 2021  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lH3MKsl3yM&t=1s
The Family of Things is an independent podcast by Athena Media. The producer and host is Helen Shaw, the digital editor is John Howard. Our theme music is by Michael Gallen.

The Family of Things S2 E8 : Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan (2021)

The Family of Things S2 E9  : Lauren Arrington 
www.thefamilyofthings.com
Professor Lauren Arrington is a Florida native who has made Ireland her home, and the focus of her research and writing. In this episode of The Family of Things she shares with Helen Shaw how Ireland, and its writers, drew her in, and how when she first came to study at Trinity College Dublin she thought Dublin was a big metropolis because her roots were in rural and small town Southern America. Today she is Professor English Literature at Maynooth University and her new work 'The Poets of Rapallo' on the shadow of fascism on the lives and work of writers, including WB Yeats, is just out. In this revealing conversation Lauren shares how she gave birth to her second child, just about the day she moved to Dublin at the beginning of lockdown in 2020, and how lockdown affected her and her young family. 

Her new work 'The Poet of Rapallo' charts how a group of Anglophone writers, including the American poet Ezra Pound and Irish poet and statesman WB Yeats, came together in the 1920s and 1930s in Rapallo, Italy, drawn by Mussolini's Italy and attracted by its authoritarian, fascist culture. Pound and Yeats become friends and kinsmen, through their wives George and Dorothy who are cousins,  and Lauren's work points to the sustained influence both couples had on each other, and how fascist Italy became, for a time, their shared home. 

You can find out more about Lauren here: https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/people/lauren-arrington 

And more about the background to Lauren's research and the book 'The Poets of Rapallo, How Mussolini's Italy shaped British, Irish and US writers' is available here:  https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/irish-studies/research/research-projects/rapallo-research/
and you can buy it here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-poets-of-rapallo-9780198846543?facet_narrowbybinding_facet=Hardcover&facet_narrowbypubdate_facet=Next%203%20months&lang=en&cc=us

Transcript: https://www.happyscribe.com/transcriptions/13b723f25a36422794febd95fda6e9e3/edit_v2?share_code=300185dc9df4c7401f2a

The Family of Things is an Athena Media independent podcast production. The producer and host is Helen Shaw. The digital editor is John Howard and the theme music is by Michael Gallen.

The Family of Things S2 E9 Lauren Arrington

The Panti Personals S2 E 8 - Xona

To close Season 2 of The Panti Personals we've a man that Panti Bliss can look up to, even while wearing high heels! It's 6 foot 7" Afro Irish soul singer and songwriter Xona - aka Jordan Onubogu. Xona was born in Lagos but calls Mullingar home, and has now made London his address. He tells the story of how he changed his name to his middle name Jordan, when he came as a ten year old to Ireland and started school. Then, he wanted to fit in and be the same as all the other children but today, as a confident Black Irish performing artist, he has returned to using his birth name.  Xona shares with love the story of how his mother, a single mum, made sacrifices and worked hard to make a better life for her children in Ireland. He talks of the challenges too of being the gay kid in a church based Nigerian Irish community and both Panti Bliss and Xona swap their 'coming out' stories. 
Xona, accompanied by the gorgeous farmer/musician Colm Conlan, performs two of his songs live for the Queen - 'This Could Be Us' and 'Slow Dancing' both from his recent EP 'In My Head' and you hear the EP version of the title song during the show when he shares his story of writting the album during the pandemic.  


To find out more follow Xona on twitter https://twitter.com/xonatheartist

Transcript: https://www.happyscribe.com/transcriptions/f9605b61c5164697975696ef1ddb2165/edit_v2?share_code=3a8e06689ededc3f7ab8

The Panti Personals is an independent podcast produced by Athena Media, made by Helen Shaw and John Howard with additional research by Dara Shaw. 
Our theme music is Knots by Lisa Hannigan - used with her kind permission. 
To find all the shows, and see videos of the performances, go to www.pantisocracy.ie

The Panti Personals  S2 E8  - Xona

Tóchar Community Stories is a collaborative storytelling project with and about communities living close to the wetlands, bogs and fens of Ireland's Midlands. In Mountbellew the Men's Shed are exploring audio stories with the project curator Helen Shaw and the group's PRO Gerry Rushe began by sharing the poem 'Changing Times'by Patsy Cunningham ( 'The Vicar') about the changing days of cutting turf and the old days and ways of 'slaying' turf.  Patsy died in 2018.
The Men's Shed meet twice a week in the Teleworks Centre close to ‘Galway’s Living Bog’, aka Carrownagappul Bog SAC, just outside Mountbellew, one of the biggest and most accessible raised bogs in Ireland.
Check out Tóchar on https://www.tocharwetlands.ie and the Galway Living Bog - Carrownagappul here : https://galwayslivingbog.com/index.php/take-the-tour/

Gerry Rushe Reads 'Changing Times' by Patsy Cunningham

Rachel Ryan is one of the 10 years old in 4th Class Tyrrellspass Westmeath who took part in our bog art and nature project for Tóchar Community Stories. The children got to spend time with local volunteer ecologist and passionate bog expert Eugene Dunbar and Eugene spent time in class before they did their bog walk sharing the wildlife and story of the bog and how sphagnum moss is as he says 'the business'. The children then got to do a bog walk on Cloncrow Bog with Eugene and artist Annie Holland and later Annie mentored them on their art drawings of the bog nature and wildlife with children picking plants, birds, insects or animals from the bog - their artwork then became a printed panel at the entrance to the bog so everyone can see their work and experience the stories they've created. In this short audio clip Rachel tells us why she picked the Butterwort and how she is sending the postcard version of her art to the champion athlete and Olympian Rashidat Adeleke. 
to find out more about the project visit Tóchar on https://www.tocharwetlands.ie

Rachel's Butterwort and Rhasidat Adeleke

Abby took part in the nature bog and creative arts project where the children from 4th Class St Anne's NS Tyrrellspass Westmeath got to create the new visual arts boardwalk entrance to the Cloncrow Bog. Abby drew a fallow deer for her piece and besides it becoming part of the new entrance to the bog loop you - like all the children - got printed versions of her card so she could send cards to people and share the visual stories of the bog. Abby decided to send it to her friend Maya in Longford and in this audio clip tells us why and shares her postcard.

Abby and her bestie Maya

Before the Summer break the 4th Class children of St Anne's NS Tyrrellspass Westmeath got to take part in a bog nature and creative art project under Tóchar Stories - led by local ecologist and volunteer community leader Eugene Dunbar with artistic mentorship by artist Annie Holland.  In this short package you hear Eugene begin the project in the classroom showing the children the history, ecology and biodiversity of the bog before they went on a guided bog walk to find and identify species like sundew ( always a favourite with children because this tiny plant eats insects) and the vital sphagnum moss. After the children worked with artist Annie Holland on creating drawing and then moving in water colours, when these were finished they were assembled into the entrance panel that was installed on the Cloncrow Bog. Tóchar Stories then printed postcard versions of the 24 art works so the children could send postcards out to the world - sharing the image and story of their bog - and Annie showed them how to make fun badges of their art so they could literally wear their art. Tóchar Stories is a public engagement and storytelling project under Tóchar Wetlands Restoration in the Midlands - a three year project co funded by the EU and Irish Government and operating under National Parks & Wildlife Services (NPWS). You can find out more on www.tocharwetlands.ie

Tyrrellspass children get to tell their own bog stories

Shane Hynan is a visual artist from Cadbury, Co Kildare. He draws inspiration from the changing landscape of the Midland bogs and is involved as a volunteer in his own local bog, Knockirr Bog. Shane is an artist collaborator with Tóchar Stories, working with communities in the region, and he took part in the Tóchar Stories Bogland - Between the sights of the sun public event in the National Library, Seamus Heaney 'Listen Now Again' exhibition venue, on July 26th to mark International Bog Day. The event drew on Seamus Heaney's bog related work and in particular his early poem 'Bogland' to facilitate a conversation about our changing relationship with the bogs as we  move from using them to extract fuel in turf to realising bog nature restoration where bogs become a vital carbon store to assist climate action and protect biodiversity.  In this short clip Shane responds to our question 'what does the bog mean to you?' and shares his own childhood memories growing up and learning to cut and foot turf at Knockirr which is a community owned bog since 1906.

Bogland :  Shane Hynan, visual artist

Eileen Fahey is Chair of Kilteevan Tidy Town, Roscommon and in this Heritage week presentation shares why she became an advocate for bog conservation and made protecting the local bog, Cloonlarge Bog, a mission of the Tidy Towns group.  Photo credit Shane Hynan
Find out more of tochar wetlands restoration on https://www.tocharwetlands.ie
Tóchar Wetlands Restoration is a 3 year wetlands restoration in the Midlands co funded by Irish Government and EU under Just Transition Programme in Ireland. It is managed by NPWS through Dept of Housing Local Government and Heritage.

Eileen Fahey - Kilteevan  Tidy Town on  protecting the local  bog

Seamus Corcoran is Chair of the Lemanaghan Heritage and Bog Conservation Group and we invited him to be one of our guest speakers at the Bogland - between the sights of the sun - International Bog Day event on July 26 2025 in the National Library. Seamus is a local historian who shared the rich heritage and archeology of his place, and the story of the early Christian treasures which have been found buried and preserved in the bog there. 
Lemanaghan community has a long running campaign to oppose the proposed BnM wind farm on Lemanaghan which was a cut peatlands bog under Bord na Móna. For Seamus and many of his neighbours in the area the land there has already contributed enough, has been harvested enough, and they wish to see it conserved and the archaeological riches that may be buried within the bog preserved and saved. 
In this audio version of the presentation by Seamus - Helen Shaw - Tóchar Stories curator introduces him to the live audience in the Seamus Heaney Listen Now Again exhibition venue space and starts by asking him about what the bog and the concept of the boglands means to him.
To find out more about Tóchar go to https://www.tocharwetlands.ie/tochar-stories/ 
Tóchar is a Wetlands restoration project in the Midlands of Ireland co-funded by Irish Government and the EU under the Just Transition Programme in Ireland. It is managed by NPWS through the Dept of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. 
You can find out more about Lemanaghan through some videos that also feature Seamus and tell the story :https://youtu.be/emrm_H78iFc?si=ur1Gw3lFO0PGHJpp

Seamus Corcoran - Lemanaghan Bog  -  Bogland Presentation July  26 2025

Anne Coffey has been working in Coffey's Drapery Store all her life and she took over the running of the business from her late father. He set it up in 1947 when the Bord na Móna peat harvesting industry was taking off and like many retailers and businesses in the town the shop thrived as Kilcormac thrived. Today Bord na Móna has stopped harvesting the bogs as a fossil fuel and has switched to both bog restoration and renewable energy but the suddenness of that transition has been hard for places like Kilcormac. On September 25th Tóchar Stories co-hosted a community storytelling event with Kilcormac Development Association called 'Sharing our Past, Imagining our Future' and we talked to some of the locals there - including Anne- about their sense of place and belonging.

Anne Coffey, Coffey's Drapery Store, Kilcormac, Co Offaly

Tina Claffey is a nature photographer from Birr, Co Offaly well known for her beautiful macro photography work in the boglands of Ireland where she draws our attention to the flora and fauna that lies, often hidden, beneath our feet. IN September Tóchar Stories co hosted a community storytelling event in Kilcormac close to Birr and invited Tina to share her own story, her relationship to the bogs, and her creative and artistic work.

Tina Claffey, nature photographer on her bog work

Sean Craven - Kilcormac Development Association

At Tóchar Stories we've been re-creating a 'rambling house' vibe with the Men's Shed, Mountbellew where Tómas leads on guitar. They opted for an ideal ramblin' tribute song by Mike Denver - "The Story I tell You Is True" with its memories of a past rural Ireland when the rambling house tradition was alive and thriving. The Men's Shed group in Mountbellew come together twice a week Tuesdays and Thursdays at the mart beside the Galway Living Bog Teleworks centre just outside Mountbellew. It's an area surrounded by gorgeous bogland and the men have lots of stories of traditions and life growing up in the district from turf cutting to match-making! 


The Story I Tell You is True - known as a Mike Denver song but written by John Joe Reidy (J. Reidy) - singer and piano accordion player from Newmarket, County Cork, Ireland, and a friend of accordion player Liam O'Connor. John Joe passed away tragically some years ago at the age of 39.
words. 
https://www.bellsirishlyrics.com/this-story-i-tell-you-is-true-lyrics.html

Mountbellew Men's Shed Rambling House : "The Story I Tell You Is True"

Katie Smirnova is a nature conservationist who works in community engagement and she's been a freelance support with Tóchar Stories in its Midlands work. Just before Halloween Tóchar Stories led a bog and art creativity project in Ballydangan Bog with the children of Camcloon NS nearby. Katie mentored the children with artist Sophie Carroll Hunt across the week, exploring the bog, supporting the Ballydangan Bog Red Grouse Project - Pat Feehily and David Fallon - who co-hosted the project with Tóchar Stories.  In this short audio piece Katie shares with Helen Shaw from Tóchar Stories how the project worked across the week, what she tried to leave with the children and how they reacted when she dressed up as a red grouse herself on the final day - for the Halloween dress up party.

Katie Smirnova on working with Camcloon NS In Ballydangan Bog

Martin Naughton is as he says himself  'going on 83' and one of the older men in the Mountbellew Men's Shed. Katie Smirnova chatted with him about his life and his memories of working in the bog as a boy and young man.

Martin Naughton, Mountbellew Men's Shed with Katie Smirnova

Stephen King shares memories of the bog when he was a boy. He is coming up to 80 years of age and part of the Men's Shed in Mountbellew, Co Galway near the Galway Living Bog.

Stephen King - Mountbellew's Men Shed

Tómas loves music, he's a big fan of the 60s music, country and folk. and played with bands for many years.  As a member of the Mountbellew Men's Shed he's known for taking out the guitar and starting a session. Katie Smirnova for Tóchar Stories sat down with Tómas after a session in the Men's Shed to get a little of his own story, why he loves music, playing guitar, and how singing songs together in the Men's Shed is "great craic".

Tómas Crehan - Mountbellew Men's Shed with Katie Smirnova  -music mix

Tom Gavin is not long retired and enjoys the company of the Mountbellew Men's Shed. He  loved growing up on the bog and has stories to tell about life and nature then. He understands the changes in how we are using the bog, and shifting to conservation and not cutting turf, but thinks it is hard for olderpeople who are dependent on turf for their fuel with solid fuel burners and without the resources to change their fuel for heating. He will strike a memory with many in Ireland when he talks about the 'parlour' a room that was well-kept with the good china but 'no-one went into' unless the priest was visiting and there was a station mass.

Tom Gavin, Mountbellew Men's Shed

Mountbellew Men's Shed  "The Wild Rover "

Mountbellew Men's Shed in a 'rambling house' session with Tómas on guitar and Michael singing those bass baritone notes as gaeilge.  "An Puc ar Buile" is a beloved folk song from the 1960s about a goat! Here's the lyrics : https://genius.com/Gaelic-storm-an-poc-ar-buile-lyrics

Mountbellew Men's Shed - "An Puc ar Buile"

Jimmy Noone is part of the Mountbellew Men's Shed in. Co Galway and shared his memories of growing up working on the bog : "it was hard work, dirty work" he says but 'great fun, great craic". Jimmy's memories from the 1960s and 70s are of long hot, hard days on the bog, tortured by the midges,  waiting for the mother's coat to go on the back of the door to let them know dinner (usually cabbage and bacon because they grew the cabbage and had pigs)  was ready.  
Tóchar Stories recorded stories with the men in November 2025 in a 'rambling house' style session - In the photo Jimmy is in the blue jumper.

Jimmy Noone,  Mountbellew Men's Shed

Martin Higgins, Mountbellew Men's Shed

Vincent Flynn was part of the group that set up Mountbellew Men's Shed and gives an insight to its origin story three year ago and why networks like men's sheds are so needed in rural Ireland where isolation and loneliness have become a ready in communities where services like post offices, banks, pubs and shops have closed. Vincent is passionate about the men's shed movement - but says what's special about the Mountbellew group is the atmosphere where everyone is equal and welcome - 'there's no boss'.

Vincent Flynn Mountbellew Men's Shed

Tom Kenny grew up with his grandmother and his aunt and uncle "surrounded by bog" as his father was a builder working away from home so as a child , which was very common then, he was sent to the country to be minded and reared. He shares a rich world of tradition, of turf cutting immersed in the Irish language and particular to the region. By ten  and eleven he was driving the donkey and cart on his own to cut turf and remembers vividly the soaring skylark and the wilderness of the land in those days out on the bog.

Tom Kenny, Mountbellew Men's Shed

Michael Ryan, Mountbellew Men's Shed, on his memories of growing up around bogs and the stories he grew up with including that of a buried body from the 'troubles' marked by a hawthorn tree.  

Michael Ryan, Mountbellew Men's Shed

Sean Mooney's late father and uncle uncovered Ireland's oldest wheel technology in the 1960s - a wooden chariot wheel - dated to 400 BC - in a Roscommon bog, near Kilteevan.  Sean shared the story with Katie Smirnova in a community storytelling session for Tóchar Stories. The wheel is now on public display in the National Museum in Kildare Street where you can visit and see many of the ancient antiquities found in Midlands bogs including the bog body of Old Man Croghan. Sean Mooney is on the board of management of Kilteevan NS where Tóchar Stories has worked this year with the children and Tidy Towns Chair Eileen Fahey on a bog butterfly and art project.

Sean Mooney and the discovery of Ireland's oldest chariot wheel in a Roscommon bog

We start at 15 Usher’s Island, the house at the centre of the Misses Morkan’s Epiphany dinner party on January 6th 1904. Set in a Dublin of 300,000 souls, on a bitter cold night, we are looking out across the river to the west to the Phoenix Park and to the east towards the Four Courts. As the story begins, Lily, the over-worked housemaid, opens the door. What does the story tell us about Dublin in 1904? Professor Mary Daly helps us step back in time while Professor Kevin Whelan connects The Dead to Dublin’s history, geography and landscape. What do the archives hold and tell us about not just Joyce’s Dublin but also about his own life story? We visit the National Archives and the census records of 1901 with Catriona Crowe while Katherine McSharry opens the National Library collection. Architect Sean O’Laoire helps us imagine Joyce’s Dublin and shares the story of the house itself 15 Usher’s Island.

Joyce's Dublin - E1 - The Dead; 15 Usher’s Island, Joyce’s Dublin 1904

TS Eliot described it as one of the greatest short stories ever written. James Joyce finished the final story in his collection Dubliners, The Dead, in Trieste 1907. This story of the Misses Morkan’s annual gathering of family, friends and music students is framed by the elderly sisters’ nephew Gabriel Conroy and his wife Gretta and a personal epiphany triggered by the fragment of a song. Professors Declan Kiberd, Anne Fogarty and Gerardine Meaney help us unpack the story and find out why it has such resonance and power.

Joyce's Dublin - E2 - The Dead; Why The Story Resonates.

Joyce described The Dead as a ghost story. The ghost of Michael Furey, who as Gretta says ‘died for me’ haunts the final scenes. But the story also echoes with the ghosts of Irish history and politics. Professor Kevin Whelan peels back the layers and references from the Battle of the Boyne, the 1798 rebellion, O’Connell’s Catholic Emancipation, Parnell’s Home Rule and the tension in early 20th Century Ireland between the emerging Gaelic Nationalist movement and the Catholic middle classes. Social historian Mary Daly places the story in its contemporary politics and illuminates what is going on behind the dance scene between Gabriel and Molly Ivors when her final retort is ‘West Briton’. We look at the physical landscape of the story and the map it draws from the Wellington Monument to the O’Connell statue and the tensions between east and west both for the characters and the country. What is Joyce telling us? The past is ever present in The Dead and the party itself takes on a wake like quality not just for a marriage but for a city as well. Dr Luca Crispi, working on the Joyce papers at the National Library, shows how the manuscripts illuminate how Joyce wrote.

Joyce's Dublin - E3 - The Dead; Looking East or West?

The Dead is rich in music from Italian opera to popular folk songs. Music and song is the soundtrack to the dinner party while the conversation around the table shares stories of Enrico Caruso and the music halls of the city. The story’s epiphany hangs on a memory provoked by a song ‘The Lass of Aughrim’. Professor Harry White unpacks the power of music in Joyce’s narrative and we discover how central a force music and song was in the author’s life. Professor White sees the story itself as an operatic composition. We visit the National Library to see sheet music of the day and from the UCD folklore collection we hear Elizabeth Cronin’s version of ‘The Lass of Aughrim’ which gives us a sense of how the song sounded in 1904. Singer and musician Noel O’Grady, who performs the music of Joyce, shares his rendition of ‘The Lass of Aughrim’ as he plays the part of Bartell D’Arcy and re-creates that moment which froze Gretta on the stairs of 15 Usher’s Island.

Joyce's Dublin - E4 - The Dead; Distant Music and The Lass of Aughrim

At the end of the night we leave 15 Usher’s Island and follow Gabriel and Gretta Conroy’s journey up river and down O’Connell St (then Sackville Street) to the Gresham Hotel. With Professor Anne Fogarty we re-visit the Gresham Hotel and Gabriel’s own moment of self-revelation. Gerardine Meaney and Declan Kiberd explore the story’s love stories and how they relate to Joyce and his own life’s love, Nora Barnacle. Love and loss are intertwined in the personal epiphanies in The Dead and through the archives we look at what was happening in Joyce’s own life with the death of his mother May and his family’s decline into poverty. Declan Kiberd, Gerardine Meaney, Kevin Whelan and Anne Fogarty explore the story’s ending and that final scene of a snow covered Ireland. Is it one of despair or hope?

Joyce's Dublin - E5 - The Dead; Sex, love and longing at The Gresham Hotel

James Joyce’s short story ‘The Dead’ is set in the heart of Dublin City on January 6th 1904. As part of our audio podcast series Barry McGovern takes a walk through the city of ‘The Dead’ and explores the landscape which frames the story from 15 Usher’s Island to the Gresham Hotel on O’Connell Street. What remains of Joyce’s Dublin today and what inspired his locations? ‘The Dead’ brings us on a journey from the quays on the River Liffey looking towards the Phoenix Park and references a city which can still be found today. Have a look at our slideshow of photographs from the National Library collections and from Dublin today to get a sense of the city of ‘The Dead’.

Joyce's Dublin - E6 -The Dead; a walking tour with Barry McGovern

The Dead is regarded by many as the greatest short story of the twentieth century. The closing story of Dubliners, first published in 1914, it begins with a party at 15 Ushers Island on January 6th, the feast of the Epiphany and the last night of Christmas. Hear the full story read by renowned actor Barry McGovern.
An Athena Media production for UCD Humanities as part of its Digital Joyce project,
for more go to www.joycesdublin.ie
All rights rest with the content creators and UCD. No commercial use permitted.

Barry McGovern Reading James Joyce's "The Dead"

Eoin Carroll is a housing researcher with 13 years experience working with the Jesuit Centre for Faith & Justice in Dublin's city centre. Eoin has just moved to a new role as Policy and Public Affairs Officer with EXTERN, an NGO working with marginalised people including the homeless. Helen Shaw met Eoin for the podcast in Mountjoy Square, in the heart of northside city Dublin, just before his move to the new job to talk about Eoin's work and his take on the need for a formal right to housing and shelter and how he sees Government policy shaping the housing environment we have in Ireland.

https://www.jesuit.ie/tag/eoin-carroll/

If you support the concept of this independent podcast series and want to see it grow and continue then support us. Go to our website Link to our website  - and click on support us and consider becoming a Patron of the podcast by contributing as little as a euro a month to make our work sustainable. Beside our patrons, the podcast is now sponsored by Happy Scribe http://happyscribe.co/ a clever online tool which provides automatic transcripts of audio and which grew out of DCU's start up lab. We've also got the support of the new Dublin Housing Observatory led by Dr. Daithí Downey. 

Our thanks to our patrons and supporters - https://www.patreon.com/tiwwl

Please like and review the podcast online and share with your own network so more people can hear our stories.

Music: Ana Gog 'Study of Her Painted Face'(Instrumental)

TIWWL: Eoin Carroll Housing Researcher on the Right to Housing

Kieran Rose is a man who has had two passions driving his life, urban design and planning and human rights, particularly rights for the LGBTQ community in Ireland. He hails from Cork himself but works as a city planner with Dublin City Council while campaigning and fighting for rights and was a founder of GLEN the Gay Lesbian Equality Network in 1988. Helen Shaw met up with Kieran in his neighbourhoodThe Liberties in the courtyard of the digital media enterprise zone The Digital Hub and in the shadow of Guinnesses to talk about his life as a city planner and how activism informed it. 

https://twitter.com/kieranarose

https://www.thisiswherewelive.ie/ Support us via Patreon https://www.patreon.com/tiwwl

This series is sponsored by the Dublin Housing Observatory and https://www.happyscribe.co/


music credit: Ana Gog - Easy Rider(instrumental)

TIWWL: Kieran Rose,  on a Life of Activism and City Planning.

The Dublin suburb of Ballymun has a rich story to tell us about creating community and how we plan new urban villages, particularly when we put public housing at the heart of them. Over ten years ago the famous tower blocks of Ballymun, a social housing project from the 1960s, came tumbling down as part of a massive regeneration scheme for the area.  Across 2008-09 producer Helen Shaw recorded in Ballymun for the Athena Media radio documentary 'Tower
 Songs' a project where the children and young people of Ballymun told their story of how their place was changing through music and song. 
For this episode of This is Where We Live Helen went back to chat with Mark O'Brien, Director and CEO of Axis Arts Centre, in the heart of Ballymun about how the arts and creativity can help shape place, community and belonging.

http://www.axisballymun.ie/
https://www.thisiswherewelive.ie/
Become a Patron Supporter:
https://www.patreon.com/tiwwl

Our thanks also to support from Happy Scribe https://www.happyscribe.co/
and the Dublin Housing Observatory at Dublin City Council

Tower Songs: The Athena Media radio documentary won Gold at PPI Radio Awards 2009
https://soundcloud.com/athena-media/tower-songs

Music credit: Ballymun Lullaby scored by composer Daragh O'Toole with the children and young people of Ballymun Music Project. 
Watch this short video to get an idea of what the Ballymun 7 Towers looked like:
The Story of Ballymun and the 7 Towers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPVMmq3fwtY ( credit: Dublin City Libraries)

TIWWL: Mark O'Brien Axis Arts Centre, Ballymun on how art can shape belonging

Dr Ellen Rowley is a cultural and architectural historian, a Dubliner with an eye and an ear for the stories of the people who lived in the buildings around us. 'If walls could talk' she says they'd tell us a multi-layered story of the lives of the people who passed through and made it a home. 
Ellen is the editor of the book series 'More than Concrete Blocks, Dublin's 20th Century buildings and their stories' (https://www.fourcourtspress.ie/books/2019/more-than-concrete-blocks-vol-ii-194072/).  She is a Research Fellow with the School of Architecture, Planning & Environmental Policy, UCD and previously worked as an Irish Research Council Fellow on heritage projects with Dublin City Council and that included working as a curator on the new Tenement Museum, 14 Henrietta Street, Dublin which is now run by the Dublin City Council Culture Company. 
Ellen's interest in people as much as buildings ensures 14 Henrietta Street brings to life the rich tapestry of tenement Dublin and in this episode of the podcast This is Where we Live, recorded in Henrietta Street,  she talks to producer Helen Shaw about how the past shines light on the present as we once again grapple with the challenge of housing shortages, of high rents and private profiteering landlords and the need for affordable and public housing. 

Follow Ellen on Twitter : https://twitter.com/Elsorowley
Bike tour of Dublin with Ellen (Video) http://cyclingwith.com/ellen/

And do book a tour of 14 Henrietta Street : https://14henriettastreet.ie/ ( Henrietta St is run by Dublin City Council Culture Company) 

Watch this little video to see pictures of what Ellen and the team created: 
"Set in a Georgian townhouse, 14 Henrietta Street tells the story of the building’s shifting fortunes, from family home and powerbase to courthouse; from barracks to its final incarnation as a tenement hall.
The stories of the house and street mirror the story of Dublin and her citizens."https://www.independent.ie/life/travel/travel-tv/watch-inside-14-henrietta-street-dublins-newest-museum-37313710.html
The house features film and audio storytelling and has a powerful bed chamber centred around women and birth that uses poetry by Paula Meehan. 

www.thisiswherewelive.ie
Support us on Patreon www.patreon.com/tiwwl
Music credit: Michael Gallen 'Graceful' michaeljgallen.com/
Our thanks to our sponsors Happy Scribe https://www.happyscribe.co/ a fast and efficient way to transcribe audio and to the Dublin Housing Observatory.

Dr Rowley's recent book titles are :
2019: Architecture, Housing and the Edge Condition
https://www.routledge.com/Housing-Architecture-and-the-Edge-Condition-Dublin-is-building-1935/Rowley/p/book/9781138103801
2019/2016: More than Concrete Blocks, Vol. I and Vol.2
http://www.fourcourtspress.ie/index.php/books/2019/more-than-concrete-blocks-vol-ii-194072/
http://www.fourcourtspress.ie/books/2016/more-than-concrete-block
Photo Credit : The Irish Times

TIWWL: Dr Ellen Rowley, Architectural Historian on 14 Henrietta Street, the Tenement Museum

This Is Where We Live  - Ciarán Ferrie on creating a family friendly city.

Architect and cycling activist Ciarán Ferrie says a living city is one that's designed for both children and the elderly, for families and young people, not just for transient populations or tourists to visit.
"Fundamentally we want Dublin to be a liveable city. You want it to be a city that people want to live in. And people of all ages and particularly that it would be a place where young families would be would feel comfortable living in so making making Dublin a city where you know you a seven year old can cycle on the streets. If we can focus on getting the city working in that way and it means reducing the amount of cars in the city and that means improving public transport. But most of all it means making the place more comfortable for people to walk and to cycle. And for people of all ages to walk and cycle around the city" he says.
Ferrie is an architect and one of the co-founders of the Fumbally Exchange, the creative co-working community in the Newmarket district in Dublin City. He is also one of the forces behind Ava Housing, formerly the Abhaile Project, a not for profit scheme for older homeowners in residential zones to reshape their home for multi-family units, keeping the elderly in the community and also opening up new rental capacity.  Ferrie wears many hats and he is also a passionate advocate for a cycling city and part of I BIKE Dublin, a community of people who cycle and want a safer cycling city for all.

For this episode of This is Where We Live producer Helen Shaw met up with Ciarán at his open plan offices in the Fumbally Exchange overlooking the massive development in the area including new hotels and student accommodation, but not much new housing. 

You can follow Ciaran on twitter at https://twitter.com/ccferrie

and for more information on Ava Housing go to www.avahousing.ie 

Catch up on our housing and cities conversations on www.thisiswherewelive.ie and please do share the podcasts and consider becoming a supporter through patreon https://www.patreon.com/tiwwl

Our thanks to our sponsors Happy Scribe https://www.happyscribe.co/ the new tool for automatic transcripts of audio for content creators, and the Dublin Housing Observatory.

TIWWL: Ciarán Ferrie - Architect on Shaping a Living City

In this series we showcase highlights from the Vienna Model : Housing for the 21st Century exhibition and seminars held in Dublin in April 2019. The events were co sponsored by Dublin City Council and the Housing Agency and hosted by the Dublin Housing Observatory. In this first podcast we feature Michaela Kauer, Director of the Vienna House in Brussels and Rory O'Donnell Director of NESC, the National Economic and Social Council in Ireland. Michaela gives the 
background and history of the Vienna Housing Model and why Vienna sees housing as a human right and also why the city is so keen to export its ideas on public housing to other parts of Europe. In his response Rory O'Donnell explores the opportunities and challenges the Vienna Model presents to Dublin and Ireland and looks at how a massive investment in public and affordable housing could be funded.

For more information on the topics and speakers go to www.housingmodeldublin.ie
Pictured: Grainia Long, Commissioner for Resilience, Belfast City Council, Dr Rory O'Donnell, National Economic Social Council and Michaela Kauer, Director Vienna House, Brussels and spokesperson for the City of Vienna. credit: Arthur Carron Photography

If you want to read a transcript of the podcast click here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pLU1rK4iTfaW27hKsdIDqVSV02H8utz9/view?usp=sharing

The Vienna Model: Housing for the 21st Century : What is the Vienna Model? Podcast 1

In the Vienna Model: Housing for the 21 Century podcast series we're showcasing highlights from the conversations and talks in seminars held last April in Dublin. The events, and the exhibition, were co-sponsored by Dublin City Council and the Housing Agency and hosted by the Dublin Housing Observatory. Seminars took place in several venues in Dublin City including two days of discussions at the Rediscovery Centre in Ballymun where people shared their sense of where Ballymun had come from and its potential development in the future. In this podcast we've brought together some of the voices; Dr Sarah Miller, the scientist heading the Rediscovery Centre, Pamela Connolly, a Dublin town planner for the area, Robert Murphy, the chair of Ballymun 4 Business, and Padraig Flynn of SOA Self Organised Architecture who presented on co-housing models.
You can find out more about the topics in the series by visiting www.housingmodeldublin.ie

Pictured: Dr Mel Nowicki (left), Oxford Brooks University, Daithi Downey, Dublin City Housing Observatory , David Silke, Housing Agency, Pamela Connolly, Dublin City Planning Excutive and Padraig Flynn, SOA Co-Housing - image credit: Arthur Carron Photography

Music: Ballymun Lullaby from the suite of music composed by Darragh O'Toole with the Ballymun Music Programme.

If you want to read a transcript of the podcast click here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tc4Y6AJTnizg0bt9dVAmUvn-wj2ZcQnM/view?usp=sharing

The Vienna Model : Housing for the 21st Century. Re-imagining Ballymun. Podcast 3

In this short podcast series we're showcasing talks that took place in April 2019 in Dublin under The Vienna Model: Housing for the 21st Century, an event with exhibition and seminars co sponsored by Dublin City Council and The Housing Agency. In this podcast, the second in the series, you can hear Irish voices exploring how we create affordable housing in Ireland. You hear Jim Baneham, of the Housing Agency, describing what the cost rental model is and how it can work, as well as the first pilot using this model.
In 'cost rental' homes, often apartments are provided at cost not profit in a public housing initiative with tenants paying rent which will cover the cost and maintenance of the property. Since Jim Baneham talks of the critical importance of land you then hear John Coleman from the new agency, the Land Development Agency (LDA)exploring the role of the LDA and how it is seeking to ensuring public land is used to achieved quality housing.  Professor Michelle Norris, a social scientist from UCD who is an expert in housing policy and in particularly social housing, then shared her comparative research between Ireland and Austria so we have a better understanding of how both systems work and what we, in Ireland, can learn from Austria. Professor Norris is Head of School, School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice at UCD. Check out a recent publication : Byrne M, Norris M. (2019) Housing market financialisation, neoliberalism and everyday retrenchment of social housing, Environment and Planning A,  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X19832614 

Here's a piece from January 2019 on the affordable housing scheme that Jim Baneham is referencing on Enniskerry Road 
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/work-to-start-on-first-cost-rental-scheme-near-sandyford-1.3778016 

Pictured are: Prof Michelle Norris, UCD, Dr Rory O'Donnell, Director BESC, John Coleman, CEO, Land Development Agency, Ailish Comford, Fair Rent Homes, Jim Baneham, Housing Agency and David Silke - image credit Arthur Carron Photography

And the music you hear in the podcast is by Michael Gallen.
For more about this short series The Vienna Model : Housing for the 21st Century go to www.housingmodeldublin.ie  and for our main podcast channel visit www.thisiswherewelive.ie 
The producer/presenter of this series is Helen Shaw, the audio editor is John Howard.

If you want to read a transcript of the podcast click here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OfkiJUVxKyB7xxOel_zdHADzsaAIxyO-/view?usp=sharing

The Vienna Model: Housing for the 21st Century: How do we create affordable housing? Podcast 2

In this the last episode in our 4 part series The Vienna Model: Housing for the 21st Century we're bringing out the stories and conversations of those most affected by housing and homelessness, in particular community voices from St Michael's Estate in Dublin. St Michael's Estate has had a long, protracted and painful experience of regeneration with over a decade lost due to the recession. 
In this series we're showcasing the seminars that took place in April 2019 as part of a discussion around solutions for the housing crisis in Ireland, particularly in Dublin. In this podcast you hear Eilish Comerford, a community worker from St Michael's Family Resource Centre in St Michael's Estate who is also part of a grassroots activism network around housing. Eilish talks of the need for new funding sources to ensure the affordability of these new cost rental homes planned for St Michael's Estate and we hear from the European Investment Bank on its role as a potential funding source to secure affordability housing.  Cormac Murphy is the Head of the EIB here and he described the new Land Development Agency, the LDA as a game changer in providing affordable housing. Ireland, he says, has a profile with just 10% social housing and that's out of step with other European cities and this change in models and funding is critical to making an attractive, sustainable city that works for all. nterestingly we also hear from David Joyce, a solicitor who works with Mercy Law Resource Centre, who works in the field of housing and homelessness, and is himself from the traveller community,  who responded to the discussion by drawing on the comments that Michaela Kauer from Vienna made earlier ( and in Podcast 1) that in Vienna housing is for all, and is invested in heavily because it is seen as a human right that underscores society. 'We stigmatised social housing', he said and stigmatised the people who live there. 'The provision of homes as a right should be our target', he said. Rita Fagan, a community activist, who is also with the St Michael's Regeneration Team, made the case for a fairer, more equal city and for commitment and action to provide fair and equitable housing for people in the city. 'Who gets to live in the city?' she asked and pointed to places like The Liberties, where she comes from, where local and long rooted communities are being replaced by student accommodation and hotels.  'A living city needs local people', she said underscoring her support for cost rental housing but warning she, and many in the community, feared that the State did not have the will, and commitment, to implement change. 



If you want to find out more about the speakers and the topics in this series go to www.housingmodeldublin.ie and for our full channel go to www.thisiswherewelive.ie

If you want to read a transcript of the podcast click here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dhF4kYYg_WXQqETPlafae0d5QtPL1DUB/view?usp=sharing

The Vienna Model : Housing for the 21st Century. Visions for the Future. Podcast 4

The Vienna Model: Housing for the 21st Century
In this series we showcase highlights from the Vienna Model. 
In this interview Karin Ramser, Director of the City of Vienna’s Community Housing (Wiener Wohnen) talks to Helen Shaw about Vienna's history of social and public housing (Gemeindebau) and how it's seen as a social good, and an integral part of the city's approach to creating a just, equitable and peaceful community.

Karin's office looks after 220,000 flats, over half a million people, in the city and she explains why, for nearly 100 years now, public housing is so important to Vienna City. Vienna is one of the fastest growing cities in Europe and is heading back to 2 million people in a few years time. Helen Shaw talked to Karin during the December 2018 Housing for All conference in Vienna on social and affordable housing in Europe when Vienna hosted over 300 people from 39 countries and showcased its social housing philosophy. Irish delegates attended and that prompted the April exhibition and seminars in Dublin.


Karin explains that in Vienna someone's address can not tell you how much they earn or what social class they are. ‘We don’t have areas in Vienna where, as a woman, you are afraid to go when it’s dark.’

https://www.thisiswherewelive.ie/viennamodel for more

If you want to read a transcript of the podcast click here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11nlfYwgWT3adrnpRwiD2CFzR3iT0Jt8n/view?usp=sharing

The Vienna Model: Karin Ramser, Director of Vienna's Community Housing. Podcast 5

Actor Robert Sheehan narrates Wilde Stories, a creative re-imagining of Oscar Wilde through the prism of his fairytales 'The Happy Prince and Other Stories'. This five part series brings together Irish artists and actors to celebrate and explore the work and life of Oscar Wilde. Robert Sheehan reads The Happy Prince. 
An Athena Media production - all rights rest with the producers - no commercial use of the series is permitted.
For more on this transmedia series go to www.wildestories.ie
http://www.wildestories.ie/the-happy-prince.html

'The Happy Prince' - Read by Robert Sheehan

What does it take to become the person you are born to be? In this episode of Pantisocracy host Panti Bliss meets five people who share their stories of becoming ‘at home’ in their own skin. Joining Panti Bliss are writer and wheelchair user Louise Bruton, poet Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, minimalist composer Úna Keane, transgender activist Noah Halpin and singer Melina Malone who all share moments of intense change and transformation in their lives.  Both Úna Keane and Melina Malone perform from their work, and Nidhi shares a poem that connects to her roots in India.  

In The Panti Monologue Panti Bliss talks of how she sees the relationship between Rory and Panti, where Rory is the type of guy who likes to wear an old comfy jumper while Panti is the peacock who struts out like Alexis Carrington Colby Dexter.

Una Keane performs a piece she wrote for the show called 'RISE' and also a piece which requires a manual typewriter 'Typewriter 111' which Panti Bliss remarks gets her thinking of Dolly Parton and '9-5'!.

http://pantisocracy.ie/pantisocracy-s5-e4-phoenix-rising/ for more
For more about Una Keane go to www.unakeane.com 
and on Melina Malone go to www.melinamalone.com

Pantisocracy is an Athena Media production, the broadcast version of the show goes out on RTE Radio 1 and extended podcasts cuts like this are released by Athena Media to reflect the full richness of the recordings. 
The producer is Helen Shaw, the digital editor is John Howard and the audio editor for this mix is Andrew Byrne. The show was recorded in Camden Recording Studios.

Pantisocracy S5 E4 'Phoenix Rising' Extended Podcast Mix

Sometimes, to make things happen, we need to go out on our own, to fly solo, and realise our inner vision. In this episode of Pantisocracy host Panti Bliss is with three people who did just that; musician and singer David Geraghty, theatre director and founder of Anu Productions, Louise Lowe, and queer, autistic novelist Naoise Dolan who is creating quite a stir with her debut work ‘Exciting Times’.

David Geraghty, a founder member with the band BellX1, created a solo, alter identity, some six years ago, in Join Me in the Pines, and David performs two very apt songs for Panti Bliss ‘Two to Fall in Love’ inspired by the 2015 marriage equality vote, and ‘She Steps Into The Light’ starring, in the video he made, – a drag queen! 

http://pantisocracy.ie/s5-e5/ for more

http://anuproductions.ie/ ANU productions

http://joinmeinthepines.com/ Join Me In The Pines

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/exciting-times-naoise-dolan Naoise Dolan's 'Exciting Times'

Pantisocracy with Panti Bliss is an Athena Media production, the producer is Helen Shaw, the digital editor is John Howard and this episode was mixed by Simon Cullen. 
All rights rest with the content creators @athenamedia2020 
Photo credit is John Howard

Pantisocracy S5 E5 ‘Inner Vision’ Extended Podcast Mix (2020)

Pantisocracy Season 5 Episode 6 : "A Place to Call My Own'

What does it take to call a place your own, or for that place to let you own it? In this episode of Pantisocracy host Panti Bliss is with three people who answered that question. She meets Santis O’Garro, a proud Black Irishwoman from the Caribbean island of Montserrat, Martin Beanz Warde, a comedian who shares his story of growing up gay in the traveller community in the west of Ireland, and singer Roisin El Cherif, a Palestinian Irishwoman from Oranmore, Co Galway. Roisin performs two of her own songs, Cinnamon Eyes and Cross Your Mind, accompanied by musician Alma Kelliher on keyboards and backing vocals.

for more go to : pantisocracy.ie/s5-e6/

Full Transcript of Broadcast Show:  *This podcast mix is longer and reflects the show recorded on the day. 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NBIHf3lzwSsEpc0-R3rMvLVjxoattkx2/view

Pantisocracy is an Athena Media production for RTE Radio 1. The producer is Helen Shaw, the digital editor is John Howard. This episode was recorded in Belvedere House, Great Denmark St Dublin 1 by Simon Cullen.

Pantisocracy S5E6 ‘A Place to Call My Own’ Podcast Mix (2020)

Pantisocracy - S5 E7 'Skin Deep' with Panti Bliss and guests Lisa Essuman, Dana Masters and Leon Diop.

What does it mean to ‘look’ and be Irish in contemporary Ireland? In this episode of Pantisocracy with Panti Bliss, the last in this season, Panti is joined by people who challenge the stereotypical Irish freckles and fair skin and talk of an Ireland where it’s cool to be Irish and proud, regardless of your skin colour. Panti’s guests are singer and songwriter Dana Masters, who hails from South Carolina, USA, and moved to the north of Ireland ten years ago, Leon Diop one of the founders of the virally popular Black and Irish social media accounts, and documentary maker Lisa Essuman.
Dana, who tours with Van Morrison, performs two of her own songs during the show - ‘Little Girl’ inspired by her grandmother who was a black civil rights activist in USA, in the 1960s, and a song ‘Call You Home’ that she penned for her new home - Ireland - where she says she has found peace and healing.

For more go to: pantisocracy.ie/s5-e7/

Pantisocracy is an Athena Media production for RTE Radio 1 - the producer is Helen Shaw, the digital editor is John Howard and this episode was recorded in Camden Recording Studios and edited by Andrew Byrne and John Howard.

Pantisocracy - S5 E7 'Skin Deep' Extended Podcast Mix (2020)

At the close of a year that has turned our lives upside down Panti Bliss hosts a special edition of Pantisocracy exploring what gives us solace and comfort and what inspires us to find the light, even in darkness. On Christmas Eve, by the fireside of a Joycean living room, she brings together a gathering of conversation and song.

With her, at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin’s inner city, are singer and songwriter Maija Sofia, actor Aaron Monaghan, traditional singer Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh and her husband folklorist Billy Mag Fhloinn. 
Maija and Muireann share several songs and Billy accompanies Muireann, even playing the most unusual instrument - the Yabahar - a Turkish invention that creates the most electronic acoustic sound you'll ever experience!. 
http://pantisocracy.ie/s5e8/ for more

Check out the Turkish inventor of the Yabahar https://vimeo.com/110633932 and see what it looks like.

Pantisocracy S5 E8 ‘Solace’ Extended Podcast

Pantisocracy "A Cabaret of Conversations with host Panti Bliss" 

Pantisocracy - The Panti Personals is a child of #Pantisocracy - intimate one to one conversations between Panti Bliss and her guest, with unique performances. 
An independent podcast production by Athena Media - the producer is Helen Shaw and the digital editor is John Howard. 
All rights rest with the content creators.

Athena Media

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