Róisín Ingle

Okay.

Well, we'll look forward to a great weekend of Irish cinema and just cinema that will uplift and make us happy.

Now, the situation in Iran is changing all the time, but we wanted to talk to some women about the conflict in that region and about how it's affecting people both in the country and those in exile.

Academic Maya Ostavar and engineer and advocate Nassim Salamonian are both from Iran, but are now based in Galway.

And they came into the studio to give us an insight into what is happening there and how it is affecting people there.

Together they have been part of founding the Iranian Democratic Diaspora Network in Ireland, a women-led initiative with the aim of engaging with media and policymakers so to better illuminate and explore the situation on the ground in that country.

We're really grateful to them for coming in.

We talked about how their initiative came about, what they're hearing from friends and family in Iran and their hopes for a secular democracy in the country they love so much.

Here are Maya and Nassim.

Maya and Nassim, thank you so much for coming all the way from Galway into the Women's Podcast Studio today.

We're delighted to have you.

Now, Maya, we've spoken to you before a couple of times, but online.

So it's lovely to see you IRL, as the kids say.

And Nassim, it's lovely to meet you as well for the first time.

But Maya, you were telling me earlier you have a sort of a friendship now.

You've known each other a few months.

How did you get to know each other?

Nassim, you're very moved by that.

So you're kind of revolution friends, revolutionary friends.

We are indeed.