Aoife O’Brien came to her subject the hard way. Before the podcast, before the consultancy, and before her debut book, there were two bruising corporate experiences that forced her to examine what work actually asks of people and what organisations too often fail to provide. O’Brien had spent 20 years in market research, advising large global brands and working in a field that suited both her skills and temperament. Then came the setbacks that changed direction. In one role, after being repeatedly told she would be promoted, she found that a male colleague had instead been made her manager without any proper conversation. In another, she found herself in a culture that shifted from energising to corrosive. Listen to the radio show here (13 May) What matters in O’Brien’s account is not grievance but analysis. She does not present herself as a victim of bad luck. She presents herself as someone who began asking better questions. “What could I have done differently to choose something better for myself?” she said. Then came the organisational question. “How can we create these environments where people actually want to stay and they want to do their best work?” That line of thinking took […]

Mo O’Connell has built a career across acting, writing, directing and producing, but it is in the hard practical world of independent film that her instincts seem most fully at home. Founder of 3 Hot Whiskeys Films and the driving force behind the Dublin International Comedy Film Festival, O’Connell speaks about cinema not as an abstraction but as work: difficult, collaborative, underfunded work that still, at its best, can produce something remarkable. Listen to the radio show here (March 23) Her latest success, Horseshoe, is a case in point. The film, which O’Connell co-produced, has already made an impression, winning Best Irish First Feature at the Galway Film Fleadh and later receiving three IFTA nominations. Yet what makes the film especially interesting is not simply its accolades, but the way it was made and what it says about the current state of Irish filmmaking. O’Connell describes the film: “It’s a contemporary drama slash comedy. It’s about four siblings who have to reconvene at the family home in Sligo to hear the will being read for their father. And basically, things go awry.” In that brief summary lies much of the film’s appeal: family tension, a recognisable Irish setting, emotional pressure […]

Sharon Fitzmaurice has built a professional life out of work that began as personal necessity. Based in the west of Ireland, she describes herself as an intuitive holistic wellness coach, but the foundation of that work lies in experience rather than branding. In conversation on Making a Difference, Fitzmaurice spoke with clarity about a childhood marked by sexual abuse, silence and fear, and about the long process of understanding what that had done to her. “I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse,” she said. “We came from what we would call now a dysfunctional family, but at the time, we just thought it was our family.” Listen to the radio show here (March 16) She placed that experience in a broader Irish context. Growing up, she said, much of what happened in families was not discussed. “Back in Ireland in the 70s and 80s and 90s, lots of things were covered up, brushed under the carpet, and they weren’t spoken about.” The result, for her, was anxiety as a child, depression as a young adult, and a deep uncertainty about identity. “I didn’t really know who I was. I didn’t know who I was supposed to be.” By the […]

Listen to the radio show here (16Feb) Aoife Feeney’s second novel, The Throat of Birds, took a long route to publication. Completed years ago, it was accepted by one publisher and later rejected by the same house, a reversal that set it back significantly. A newer, smaller Irish publisher, Transat Books, ultimately took it on. Feeney contrasted that slow, uncertain process with the speed of her first novel, Rule of War, published with Somerville Press and supported by literary agent Jonathan Williams. “He brought the book forward very rapidly,” she said. Feeney does not present herself as prolific. She writes when she has something she cannot leave alone. “The reason I write is because certain things occur to me, certain things inspire me,” she said. She is also a painter, and she spoke candidly about having decided not to write again, at least for now. The point, as she framed it, is not output but impulse and attention. “I write because I have read,” she said. “I do not write from just an abstract notion that comes into my head.” That habit of reading as a generator of ideas sits at the heart of The Throat of Birds. The novel […]

In a tourism industry that increasingly trades on authenticity, Annie Williams has built a business that is both practical and quietly ambitious. From a base in the South African bush, she runs Kingfisher Creek Safari Lodge, welcoming guests who want the iconic safari experience, but also the flexibility to shape a stay around their own pace, interests and budget. Listen to the radio show (Feb 9). Williams did not arrive in Limpopo through a conventional hospitality route. She spent years in aviation, starting on the ground with Aer Lingus before flying with British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. “I always loved being around people,” she says, but her move to South Africa was not motivated by a grand plan to open a lodge. She met a South African and soon found her life rerouted away from Cape Town and Durban to a place many visitors only know as a name on the map. “He decided we were moving to the African bush,” she says. “We packed up our lives in the UK, and we headed off to a town called Hoedspruit (which is basically known as the gateway to the Kruger.” From there, the shift from idea to execution was decisive. […]