#24 – Damien Dempsey

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack In this very special episode of The Fresh Batch, Dean and Sparky chat with their longtime friend; singer-songwriter, Damien Dempsey. Hearts open, vulnerable and full of love. This is a conversation about Aboriginal wisdom, spiritual healing, the power of singing and friendship and why we’re all dancing with our own madness. “If I’m going to […]

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4. Gaza and the Price of Speaking the Truth

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack Shahd Abusalama is a Palestinian academic from Gaza based in the UK. She lost 40 family members during the ongoing genocide; her family is displaced and scattered. She speaks to PalCast hosts Yousef Alajamal and Tony Groves about the pain of enduring this genocide, the feeling the responsibility to rebuild and to fight defamation from […]

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7. Kath Browne: ‘Beyond Opposition’ – How can we live together when we don’t agree?

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack In this episode, Niamh chats with Professor Kath Browne, a social and cultural geographer at UCD. We discuss her fascinating ERC-funded project, Beyond Opposition, which seeks to explore the everyday experiences of people who are opposed to, or have concerns about, legislative and cultural changes around same sex marriage, abortion, gender self-identification and other sexual […]

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1221. An Omnishambles Inside a Clusterf@ck!

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack (Note: This podcast begins with a conversation about the use of ChatGPT in the polling for the referendums that is very, very interesting) The votes are in and no matter what your preference (FWIW, I was a Yes/No voter) it is a humiliation for the government, an omnishambles for lots of the opposition and a […]

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1220. Exclusive: The Ditch on the Attorney General’s Advice Leak

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack Minutes after the broadcast moratorium began, in advance of the vote on the Family and Care referendums, online independent media outlet, The Ditch, dropped a bomb. They’d only gone and gotten the unpublished Attorney General’s advice to the government on the contentious wording of both referendums. Joining us to discuss the makings of this scoop, […]

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3. The Palestinian Voice with Fady Joudah

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack Fady Joudah is a Palestinian poet and physician who just released a poetry collection on the genocide in Gaza. In this episode, Yousef Aljamal, Helena Cobban, and Tony Groves talk about poetry, memory, Gaza, Refaat Alareer and silence. Fady argues that the world should listen to the Palestinians and practice silence when they do. The […]

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1217. Vote No on the Care Referendum

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack No one should have been shocked to hear that Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, say that he sees care as the responsibility of families and not of the State. He is who he Ayn Rand is. But that’s not the Ireland most people want to live in. Joining us on the podcast are three wonderful disabled women, […]

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1211. Candidate Rory Hearne

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack Our friend and fellow tortoise shack podcast host, Dr Rory Hearne, has announced that he’s seeking to run for the Soc Dems in the upcoming European Elections. So you knew that we were going to sit down and ask him all about it. We discuss his reasons for getting into party politics, the type of […]

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