Ed Spence is the nephew of Gusty Spence. In the late 1960s Ed, along with his father Billy, campaigned for the release of Gusty Spence who maintained his innocence against a murder charge. When the Northern Ireland conflict began to escalate Ed and Billy started a Loyalist prisoners welfare association called The Orange Cross. In this episode of Shrapnel, Ed […]
On Friday Nov 18th, Shrapnel cohost Sam Mcilwaine came down from Belfast to the wonderful Axis Theatre in Ballymun to chat all things Northern Ireland, Loyalism, Unionism, socioeconomic issues and politics with Echo Chamber host, Martin McMahon. This is a great conversation and features an engaged and lively Q&A with members of the audience. Don’t miss it. We want to […]
E.S. ‘Ed’ Haggan is a former Royal Ulster Constabulary officer who is active on Twitter as @redbrickedslums. He describes himself as ‘a writer of fiction about Irish terrorism and the lives it damages’. In this episode Ed talks about his experiences of living with CPTSD, shifting from wanting to be a marine biologist to joining the RUC as a teenager […]
This week on the Shrapnel Podcast I am joined by Lauren Kerr. Lauren was an Ulster Unionist Party candidate for East Belfast in the early 2022 assembly election, in which the UUP grew their share for the area. Lauren was the first openly lesbian candidate for East Belfast and uses her voice to advocate for the LGBTQ+ community within the […]
This week’s guest Danielle Roberts is currently researching a PhD on barriers to political participation among women from a Protestant, unionist and loyalist background. Her work focuses on feminist activism and she is involved with Belfast Feminist Network and Reclaim the Night. Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack https://media.blubrry.com/rebootrepublicpod/media.blubrry.com/1468254/content.blubrry.com/1468254/Shrapnel_Ep11a.mp3Podcast (shrapnel): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:58 — 34.7MB) | […]
It’s been quite an eventful day and around here we are used to eventful days, but this one stood out a bit. We have had statements from every quarter, we have had recalls and deadlines. But what we don’t have is a working Executive or election date (not quite yet). We chat about the de ja vu of Northern Ireland […]
Paul Donnelly has been the lead tour guide at DC Tours since 2013. Before that he worked in adult community and political education, earning his stripes in conflict resolution and mediation work. In 2019 he was voted UK tour guide of the year at the Wanderlust World Guide Awards. In this episode Paul talks about showing tourists and locals alike […]
On this episode we have Derry-based journalist Leona O’Neill, who is a former Belfast Telegraph journalist, a columnist for the Irish News, the course director of journalism at Ulster University and now the co-editor of a new book entitled ‘Breaking: Trauma In the Newsroom’. We chat to Leona about mental health and the once prevalent stiff upper lip attitudes in […]