Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning

346 Episoden

How the CIA really operates with David McCloskey
14.2.2026 | 47 Min.
David McCloskey says he was once a clandestine journalist. Another way of putting it is that he once worked for the CIA.
McCloskey is now a spy novelist. His first book took readers inside the CIA, now he is exploring Mossad, Israel and Iran in his new novel The Persian.
On Free State, he talks about the shadow war between Israel and Iran.
He explains what has happened to agencies like the CIA under Trump and why as more true Trump believers are appointed, the demand is not for truthful intelligence. They do not just believe what they see, they only see what they believe.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Democracy Dies in Darkness - Trump’s dismantling of the US media
12.2.2026 | 39 Min.
‘Doors open at the Watergate’. Those words in June 1972 signalled a break in at the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Building. They were picked up on a police scanner by a reporter at the Washington Post. They began a chain of events which would eventually bring down a president.
Last week the paper of Woodward and Bernstein, of Ben Bradlee and publisher Katharine Graham, laid off a third of its staff. The paper that stood up to the White House and took down a president now has an owner in Jeff Bezos who can’t do enough to be a supplicant.
On Free State today we look at how democracy dies in the darkness. We explore how history has a lesson for what happens when oligarchs and authoritarians come together and why it isn’t only democracy that ultimately dies.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Derry or Londonderry? The DUP’s doomed war on reality.
10.2.2026 | 45 Min.
When Gregory Campbell approached President Connolly in Derry last week, what was the purpose of his intervention?
Was he trying to make a good faith case for Protestant and unionist people in Derry or was he just throwing some red meat to his base?
On Free State today Dion and Joe look at the life and times of Gregory Campbell.
Dion and Joe argue about the merits of his argument and whether who is saying it matters.
Joe explains how progressive unionism has been denied oxygen while Dion offers Gregory Campbell an invitation to come dance with him in Ireland - or at least south Dublin.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
These Sacred Vows
07.2.2026 | 51 Min.
In Ireland, we like to think that the class system is something that dominates Britain. But it shapes this country too.
RTE’s new comedy drama These Sacred Vows is a series which challenges what we believe about class, identity and religion in Ireland in 2026.
On Free State today, the show’s creator John Butler talks about what he wanted to say in the series about the middle class, the priesthood and homosexuality.
He explains how he was only now able to write comfortably as a gay man about Ireland and he talks with Dion about their own school days and the oppressive culture of the time.
They also consider the new conformity. They wonder what has really changed and ask what it tells us about the country when the religion of old has now been replaced with saunas.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Peter Mandelson and Epstein’s island. The spider in the elites’ global web
05.2.2026 | 39 Min.
In the House of Commons, Keir Starmer said that Peter Mandelson had ‘betrayed our country, our parliament and my party’.
But what was that betrayal and who was actually complicit?
On Free State today we look at the rise and fall of Peter Mandelson. We explain why the election of a football mascot monkey as mayor in Hartlepool was an early sign of who Mandelson was.
We explain how Mandelson worked to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and advance a corporate agenda where New Labour would be ‘intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich’.
We also examine the link between Starmer’s right hand man Cork’s Morgan McSweeney and Mandelson.
In the House of Commons Starmer said ‘if I knew then what I know now, Mandelson would never have been anywhere near government.’
We show how it was impossible not to know who Peter Mandelson was. Only more details have been revealed.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Über Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning

Free State is a podcast for the curious that stimulates, provokes, challenges and entertains, while never taking itself too seriously. Free State covers topics from sport to politics, love to loss, the human condition and how to fix the world, with guests from across the planet including Nigerian princes, former Prime Ministers, ex convicts, footballers, boxers and extraordinary people from every walk of life. Free State is presented by Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning. Brolly is a barrister, an original thinker with a fascinating backstory, who donated a kidney to a stranger and then led a crusade to transform organ donation on the island of Ireland, and Fanning is an award-winning interviewer and author. They are not motivational gurus or life coaches. They will never try to sell you a penis scented candle. They are two people from very different worlds, with one core belief uniting them - this is not a high performance podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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