Men Episodes

Speechwriter, novelist, essayist, and now memoirist Peter Quinn returns to Irish Stew to share tales from his home borough of New York City and beyond, captured in his new book, Cross Bronx: A Writing Life. Join us as Peter spins stories from his rise up through Irish American middle-class respectability in New York’s northernmost borough, The Bronx, which Quinn describes as “a small-scale Yugoslavia. Ethnic enclaves were interspersed amid areas in which, though physically mingled; groups lived...

Gregory Harrington has stayed busy since our initial episode back in February 2022. Since that conversation, the accomplished violinist released a recording titled Gregory Harrington: Live From The Irish Repertory Join Martin Nutty as he chats with Gregory about the risks of recording beloved traditional Irish tunes as a classically trained violinist. Learn how Gregory approaches the recording of music outside classical repertoire and how he approaches the challenge of bringing something fresh ...

In times past, the Irish language (Gaelic) was thought by some to be a mark of backwardness. In this episode, husband and wife team, Colm Bairéad and Cleona Ní Chrualaoi reveal how Ireland's native tongue provided entrée to the world of movie-making leading ultimately to the creation of An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl), Ireland's nominee for the Best International Feature Film Oscar. While there are a number of hurdles to jump before the final five Oscar nominees are announced, there is little ...

Our 50th episode comes to you on the most ancient of Irish holidays - Halloween or Oíche Shamhna (eee-ha how-na) in Irish/Gaelic. It is the night that celebrates the transition from the old to the new Celtic year. That transition point, between the present and the past, was a space where the Celts believed the spirits or pucaí (pook-ee) of the past roamed. Halloween seems a particularly appropriate date for us to introduce Neil Jackman, a man with an insatiable interest in Ireland's mysterious ...

It wasn’t planned this way, but we recorded our episode with writer Brian McDonald on Sept. 11, a date that looms large in his new book Five Flights Up, which traces the Irish American story of four generations of the Feehan family in the Fire Department of New York, the FDNY, a story which would tragically culminate with the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. From the days just after the horse-drawn firetruck, to the devastation of the 1970s when the Bronx was burning, to the unspea...

We’re not sure what’s more impressive—that Larry Kirwan originated and co-wrote the Broadway hit Paradise Square, or that his early band with Pierce Turner was banned from the notorious New York punk rock club CBGB for being “too demonic.” Larry talks of how his unusual childhood in Wexford and his need to maneuver through different points of view--Republican vs Free State, Catholicism vs Atheism, Irish vs British—laid the foundation of an artistic vision that could see the world through the pr...

Our Bloomsday episode with the engaging James Joyce scholar John McCourt takes us to Italy for the first time, specifically its outpost across the Adriatic Sea, Trieste. “There, I can safely say I discovered James Joyce,” McCourt says of Trieste. “Having encountered him occasionally in Ireland, I found myself in the city that had been his home for ten years.” After earning his BA, MA, and PhD. from University College Dublin, McCourt launched an international academic career, focused mainly...

Our new season of Irish Stew opens with trailblazing journalist Mark Little, a former RTÉ newscaster working to make sense of social media. Coming from a family where there was a daily scrum over who got the newspaper first, armed with “premature cynicism” and blessed with an insatiable curiosity for what made the world work, journalism beckoned and after graduating Trinity College he landed a job with RTÉ, Ireland’s national broadcaster. In this episode he shares stories from his “eyewitn...

We last spoke with Ted Smyth back at the start of 2021. A lot has happened in the world of politics in the intervening period. Ted’s experience on both sides of the Atlantic in the worlds of diplomacy and corporate life make him a thoughtful and well informed commentator on recent Irish and American developments. Join Martin Nutty as he talks with Ted about the current state of American politics and how the Irish American community continues to be one of the more important constituencies within...

We first sat down with Liverpudlian, Jack Byrne back in Season 2 when we talked about his first novel: Under the Bridge. You can catch that episode here: Jack Byrne: Mystery Writer. Now Jack is back with the second installment of his Liverpool Mystery Series - Across the Water which continues the story of Paddy and Vinnie Connolly. The action moves from Liverpool to Wicklow as Vinnie traces the story of his long-deceased father against a backdrop of corruption and political violence. Join Mart...

Season III of Irish Stew concludes with our conversation with a very Global Irish citizen, Dan Mulhall, Ireland’s Ambassador to the United States and your guide to one of the classics of Irish literature through his recently published Ulysses: A Reader’s Odyssey. Join us as we tour the world with one of Ireland’s top diplomats as he wields Ireland’s soft power and uses Ireland’s culture to open doors and strengthen ties. And from one diplomatic posting to the next, he lugged one weighty to...

From Carnegie Hall to Lambeau Field, Gregory Harrington elevates the Global Irish Nation Conversation through his music. Born in Dublin, based in New York City, he is redefining the classical violin virtuoso for the 21st century, pairing his expressive lyricism, tonal beauty, and impeccable musicianship with his uncanny ability to transform film scores, jazz standards, rock and pop music into compelling violin concert pieces. Gregory talks of performing in a hard hat and safety vest for co...

In this episode we explore the “roots” and “routes” of the Irish diaspora for a very “Global Irish Nation Conversation” with CEO Patrick Greene and Historian-in-Residence Maurice J. Casey Ph.D. of Dublin’s EPIC: The Irish Emigration Museum, voted Europe’s leading tourist attraction the last three years running. Patrick shares how an apprenticeship in archeology led him into a lifelong international career at the forefront of the movement to make museums more vibrant, relevant, and engaging fo...

On this serving of Irish Stew, we travel from Manhattan (pop. 1.6 M) to Inisheer (pop. 250) to explore the sights, sounds, haunting landscape, natural history, and vibrant culture of the Aran Islands with our affable tour guide—Irish language advocate and sean-nós singer, MacDara Ó Conaola. MacDara guides us over the common ground all three of the Aran Islands share, what makes each one distinct, and makes a compelling case for extending your day trip to Inisheer into an overnight stay. Al...

Colin Broderick likes to tell stories, needs to tell them, be they dark, dank, and dangerous, be they bright, affirming, and knowing. It’s all there in his new film A Bend in the River, his highly personal tale of a writer returning to his native County Tyrone still in the shadows of “The Troubles,” confronting the life and loves he left behind and writing as if his life depended on it, with boxer-turned-actor John Duddy in the title role, and featuring Kathy Kiera Clarke of Derry Girls fame....

For Paul Finnegan it all goes back to his hometown of Galway City, “a small city but I refuse to call it a town” he says and a “crucible of many great things,” notwithstanding its reputation for being “where ambition goes to die.” But Paul explains why, despite his love for “The City of Tribes,” he traded “one great city for another'' and moved from Galway City to New York City, where he embarked on a career as a career changer--becoming the executive director of the Emerald Isle Immigration ...

How much of our history would remain buried if not for a few intrepid explorers of the past? In this episode we explore little known Irish diaspora stories buried in cemeteries over 1,300 miles apart in Colorado and Georgia. Drawing on his research of an abandoned cemetery high in the Rocky Mountains, historian Prof. Jim Walsh tells the tale of the Irish miners who migrated to work hard and die young in Leadville, Colorado, the highest incorporated town in America. Archaeologist and his...

WASSUP? Season III of Irish Stew is WASSUP! We launch with an episode on the Irish ad man responsible for the memorable Budweiser commercial that had people around the world shouting WASSUP--Vinny Warren. Vinny takes you from his native Galway to London, New York, Boston and finally Chicago, relates why his time as a bartender would later prove so valuable, how being a Central Park carriage driver fit into his unorthodox career strategy, his near death experiences with both the mafia and a...

Dublin born Paddy McGrath represented his native country at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. For many, that pinnacle achievement would represent an end point to the pursuit of glory in an athletic career. Most, who chase perfection in the hammer throwing circle, leave the sport for more lucrative endeavors. While Paddy hung up his hammer glove some 20 years ago, he has continued his involvement in the sport giving back to an event that provided him a college education in the form of an athletic scho...

Fin's Links Irish History Podcast Twitter Instagram Episode Details Fin Dwyer has always been interested in history. He grew up in Castlecomer, Kilkenny surrounded by the vestiges of the past and so when he went to college, he pursued this passion, graduating with a master's degree in archaeology. However, the best laid plans often go awry, the freshly minted graduate started out in his chosen field only to have his career prospects crushed by the financial downturn of 2008. Coincidental...

With the republication of his epic novel Banished Children of Eve, the Bard of Hastings-on-Hudson Peter Quinn joins us for a sometimes serious, occasionally irreverent, always insightful look into the global Irish identity from the Irish American perspective. We follow the immigrant’s evolution from the “Paddy” of the famine Irish who washed up on U.S. shores and into Banished…to “Pat” in dogged pursuit of the American dream, to the brash urban swagger of ”Jimmy” personified by actor Jimmy Cagne...

Michael Dowling Links Website: www.michael-dowling.com After the Roof Caved In: Amazon Leading Through a Pandemic: Amazon Publisher: Simon & Schuster LinkedIn Twitter Episode Preview Episode Details Growing up in rural poverty in Co. Limerick, Michael Dowling was surrounded by a “cacophony of nos.” Fortunately for Dowling there was no better motivation than being told he couldn’t do something. That spirit and a prodigious amount of hard work propelled him through University Col...

Jack Byrne Links Under the Bridge: Amazon Publisher: Northodox Press Blog Twitter Facebook Episode Details Jack Byrne grew up in Liverpool, the son of post WWII Irish emigrants. In his first novel, Under the Bridge, Jack takes the Liverpool of his parent's era to craft an engrossing mystery featuring the post war Irish and their struggles as they try to make there way in a country that at times is hostile to their presence. We talk with Jack about his life, the challenges of writing and...

Turlough Links “Seamus” Plug: History Loves A Parade: 260 Years of the St. Patrick's Day Parade - Online on Wed, March 17, 2021, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM ET · Website: Turlough McConnell Communications · LinkedIn · Twitter · Facebook Preview Video Episode Description A brick came through the window and an idyllic life in the Co. Donegal resort town of Buncrana was shattered as The Troubles spilled over from Derry with the realization that “This can end.” Working to ensure that it doesn’t end ...