IRELAND'S EDGE
Episodes
Rabharta Gaeilge (Irish language epsiode)
08 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Tá athéirí suntasach ag tarlú thart orainn i saol na Gaeilge – rabharta mór Gaeilge atá ann. Tá an teanga ina gné lárnach agus tathag...
“Weak Become Heroes”: Culture, Coalition and DIY Collectivism
01 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Audre Lorde described the margin as a site of radical possibility, a place to experiment, play, ask different questions, subvert, resist, and imagine ...
Oró Sé do Bheatha ‘Bhaile: Housing, Gentrification & the Gaeltacht
25 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What began as an issue in isolated pockets of Ireland’s cities has become a national crisis affecting every facet of Irish life. Though it consisten...
The Maker Makes: The Art of Irish Craft
18 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In an age of mass production, craft offers a way of imagining a better world, a slow, human process that connects us to material, to place, and to one...
"What's Left?": A Conversation with Dimi Reider
11 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Left-wing journalists across the world continue to report on injustice and violence, but their work has become ever more difficult in the face of risi...
Rage Against the Machine? AI and Its Discontents
04 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The internet has become a very different place thanks to the rise of AI, with automated content, generative bots, and dynamic algorithms changing the ...
The Tide is High: Protecting Ireland’s Coastal Future
25 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
With nearly half the Irish population living within a few miles of the coast, rising sea levels and extreme weather are putting our coastal areas at r...
Bearing Witness: Voices and Testimonies from Gaza and Palestine
18 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
As the horrors of the genocide in Palestine have unfolded, the reaction from policy-makers and the international community has not matched the will of...
Reporter at Large – A Conversation with Ed Caesar
11 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In our age of ever-shorter attention spans, long-form reporting has become an endangered art. But some stories require months and years of investigati...
A Tangled Web: Disinformation, Riots, and the Rise of Extremism in Ireland
02 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Host Christopher Kissane is joined by Aoife Gallagher (Institute for Strategic Dialogue, author of Web of Lies) and journalist Una Mullally (The Irish...
Parks and Recreation: How Do National Parks Fit Into the National Picture?
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Can Ireland’s newest national park protect the sea and the people who depend on it — or is conservation becoming a top-down photo op?Last year, th...
Paved Paradise? Rethinking Tourism and Housing in the West of Ireland
29 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How can we create a socially sustainable future for tourism, and provide places for people to live in their own communities? Tourism has become vital ...
New (Dis)Order: How Can We Make Sense of Geopolitical Turmoil?
16 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From genocide to corruption, it is increasingly hard to escape the feeling that in geopolitics today, anything goes. Recent months have seen an e...
It's Not Easy Being Green - In conversation with Eamon Ryan
26 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On the day of Ireland's general election in December 2024, the longtime leader of the Green Party Eamon Ryan sat down with Chris Kissane at Ireland’...
Stay Tuned!: RTÉ and the Future of Public Service Broadcasting with Kevin Bakhurst
26 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It has been a rough couple of years for Ireland's national broadcaster RTÉ, with a series of scandals damaging public trust and support for its fundi...
'We Didn't Start the Fire': Addressing Climate Chaos
11 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On today’s episode, the generational divide over climate action.While most of the world agrees with the scientific fact that humans are dangerously ...
University Challenge: What is the State of Ireland's Education Sector?
03 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For centuries, Irish universities have been bastions of intellectual life, shaping education, politics, culture, and debate. With over half of young p...
'Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On': The Abbey Theatre’s Caitríona McLaughlin in Conversation
28 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It is no exaggeration to say that the history of modern Ireland has been played out on the stage of our national theatre, The Abbey, founded in 1904, ...
Don’t Believe Everything You Read in the Papers
19 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Irish were once the biggest newspaper readers in Europe, but in recent years our interest has begun to decline. With news reporting and investigat...
OK Computer: The Age of AI
28 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial Intelligence has already begun to change the world around us, at a speed that few of us anticipated. Will the advancement of AI bring posit...
Disrupting Opera, AI and the Art of Co-Collaboration: Dumbworld
21 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Artists all around the world are trying to make sense of what the advance of artificial intelligence will mean for their creative work. Will the very ...
Everybody Hurts: Reforming Irish Healthcare
16 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Once again this winter, the Irish healthcare system has been overwhelmed, with thousands of appointments cancelled, hundreds lying on hospital trollie...
A View From the Hill: In conversation with Fiona Hill
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"I’ve worked on a lot of conflicts that looked like they were intractable. A solution takes a lot of international effort; you’ve got to look for ...
'Cowards and Women': Reporting the Rise of Sinn Féin
01 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Series 4 / Episode 1Chris speaks to BBC Ireland correspondent Aoife Moore about the controversial rise of Ireland’s largest political party, Sinn Fe...
The People Have The Power: Fidaa Marouf, Kevin Baker + Dinny Galvin
25 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode, The People Have The Power. While debates about social change often focus on Government policy, all across Ireland there are citi...
After the Gold Rush: Leo Clancy, CEO Enterprise Ireland
05 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ireland is enjoying an unprecedented boom in corporate tax receipts, with tens of millions from multinationals and the tech and pharmaceutical sectors...
'Seen But Not Heard': Shon Faye
21 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Trans people continue to face discrimination and demonisation with their real lives and experiences too often ignored by a public debate fuelled by to...
What Future is in the Fields?: Ella McSweeney, Lisa Fingleton, Dinny Galvin + Tommy Reidy
13 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Our rural and coastal communities are facing great environmental and economic challenges. The dominance of industrial agriculture and the threat of cl...
CAN THE CENTRE HOLD?: Paschal Donohoe and Philip King
03 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Brexit, the housing crisis and the covid pandemic have all presented challenges to Ireland’s economy and public finances in recent years. Overseeing...
How has 'Fortress Europe' created a humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean?: Sally Hayden
23 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this month at least 86 men, women and children drowned off the coast of Calabria trying to seek refuge in Italy. In the last decade tens of th...
Fieldwork: Edwina Guckian, Cúán Greene + Ella McSweeney
16 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
With environmental and economic pressures squeezing those who grow, process and cook our food, how can we think creatively about building a fairer and...
POWER PLAYS: Geopolitical upheaval and a new global order: John Kampfner
08 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How do we make sense of geopolitical upheaval? The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has highlighted radical changes in international affairs&...
THE HOME FRONT: Larysa Samosonok and Olesya Zdorovetska
01 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"Russia’s invasion of Ukraine today is a neo-colonial war, it’s an attempt to restore their imperial geopolitical blueprint" - Olesya Zdorovetska&...
TAKING ON THE MIGHT AND MONEY OF AARON BANKS: Carole Cadwalladr
01 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What is the price of holding power to account? Carole Cadwalladr won the Orwell prize for her investigation of the shadowy role of data and donors ...
ATOMIC HOPE + THE CLIMATE CASE FOR NUCLEAR ENERGY: Frankie Fenton, Kathryn Kennedy + Iida Ruishalme
22 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On today’s episode, is there hope in the atom?We live in an energy crisis, with environmental catastrophe and war questioning our reliance on fossil...
AOIFE MOORE + SÉAMAS O'REILLY REEL IN 2022 - A CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
28 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What a year it has been! From pandemic, to war, to political upheaval, the news just never seemed to stop in 2022. On today's special episode we take ...
THIS IS NOT A DRILL: Sello + Ayomax
24 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Being Irish now is the thing"One of Ireland’s most exciting voices right now is Sello, who has been making waves at home and abroad with his infect...
‘THE MOST POWERFUL ENTITY ON EARTH: Áine Kerr, Brian MacCraith + John Mulholland
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Malcolm X once called the media 'the most powerful entity on earth', with 'the power to make the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent'. Social medi...
ALTERED STATES: Dr Roberta Murphy
08 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Once regarded as breakthrough drugs in the treatment of a wide range of psychiatric illnesses and addictive conditions, psychedelics were the subject ...
ART + TECHNOLOGY: ARCHITECTS OF A DECENTRALISED EXISTENCE: GAIKA
28 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Critically acclaimed auteur Gaika speaks with Síobhra Quinlan about his work with GKZ, Nine Nights Collective, The Spectacular Empire, and his NFT co...
WHEN DATA GETS PERSONAL: Dr David Kenny
21 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The use of data has become one of this century's most contentious legal and moral issues. But while the GDPR was designed to give citizens control of ...
COP ON!: Dr Michael Dorsey
15 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode, time to COP on: can the world still avoid climate change catastrophe?In the past year both wildfires, floods, and droughts have highl...
BY MEMORY INSPIRED: Séamas O’Reilly
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Writer Séamas O'Reilly's 'Remembering Ireland' project satirised our national obsession with historical memory, and the layers of distortion behind t...
THIS IS AMERICA: John Mulholland
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Editor of the Guardian U.S John Mulholland reflects on an extraordinary few years in American news and considers the challenging road ahead. In Decemb...
LIVING ROOM: Rory Hearne, Orla Hegarty + Rob Curley
24 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
‘What we saw happening around us was essentially death by a thousand cuts to Dublin’The results of Irish housing policy have created a crisis that...
CONTAINING MULTITUDES: Diarmaid Ferriter + David Kenny
29 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We live in an age of fake news and social media, propaganda and conspiracy theories. From politics to pandemic, science to history, our public debates...
TRAVERSING THE UNCANNY VALLEY: Roisin Kiberd
21 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode, Traversing the Uncanny Valley: how do we navigate the wild and wonderful world of the internet?Roisin Kiberd is the author of The Dis...
"THE SCIENCE DIDN'T FAIL US": Aoife McLysaght and Orla Hegarty
14 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode, What We Know Now: why did different truths dominate at different times of the Covid-19 pandemic? From hand washing and sanitising to ...
MANCHESTER AIR: Saint Sister
15 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Morgan McIntyre from Belfast and Gemma Doherty from Derry met as students at Trinity College, Dublin, and formed the duo ‘Saint Sister’. Their deb...
VIEW FROM A ROCK: Stephen Kinsella
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“It’s the society first, and the economy comes afterwards”On this episode, View From A Rock: what does the world’s turbulent political economy...
POETIC LICENCE: FeliSpeaks + Dyrt
01 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ireland’s Edge host Chris Kissane explores the past, present and future of spoken word poetry in Ireland with two of its most excit...
CHAOS THEORY, CREATIVITY + TAYLOR SWIFT: Sinéad O’Sullivan
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
‘What is creativity, what is the process of creativity?’Sinéad O’Sullivan is an aerospace engineer from Armagh who worked on the planning for h...
MY BODY IS A CAGE: Mark O’Connell + Bush Moukarzel
18 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 2017, the writer Mark O’Connell published a book about the transhumanist movement, To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, ...
32 WORDS FOR FIELD: Manchán Magan
11 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What can we make of a language that has 32 words for field?Writer and broadcaster Manchán Magan encountered the remarkable richness of the Irish lang...
SCHOOL'S OUT: Senator Lynn Ruane, Prof. John Halloran + Billy Mag Fhloinn
04 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Covid-19 pandemic led to months of school and university closures that forced young people, and their parents and teachers, to adapt to different ...
"JUST A BANJO PLAYER": Rhiannon Giddens
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Once referred to as a ‘performing historian’ Rhiannon Giddens is a musician from Greensboro, North Carolina whose career has ranged from folk to c...
OPEN COURT: Chief Justice Frank Clarke + David Kenny
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Supreme court justices can often seem remote and mysterious, cloaked by their position and their commitments to impartiality. But recent controversies...
TRAILER: Things look different from the edge
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Join us at the edge for stories, ideas, discussion, debate, poetry and more to set your brain alight... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for mor...