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Making a Difference: Paddy’s had his day and Brigit is back
On Making a Difference this week, I spoke with Gillian Henderson, one half of the Jill and Gill duo, alongside her creative partner Jill Deering, the pair behind jillandgill.com. With three Jills in the mix, the naming can get comical quickly, but Henderson is clear about what they are: “a collaborative practice, is probably where we would feel most comfortable.” Listen to the radio programme here (Dec 22) Henderson came into creative work through design rather than art. “I actually studied product and furniture design initially, before adding in graphic design after university,” she says. It was in Dublin, while working, that she first encountered screen printing, and fell for its method and discipline: “I think it led really into my background in design. It was kind of process driven. You kind of had to follow a particular way of doing things.” For anyone who has heard the term but never quite grasped it, she explains screen printing plainly. “You would burn an image into a screen, and it’s a mesh screen, and then you would be able to literally push ink through that and create a print.” The magic, she says, is in repeatability and layering: “you can work […]
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Making a Difference: Unearthing the Past with Dr Ger Moane
Dr Ger Moane is many things: a retired psychology professor, a shamanic practitioner, and now a published novelist. Her debut fiction work, Keeper of Stones, is a meditation on life, identity, and mythology set in Ireland’s deep prehistory. Speaking with Dublin City FM, Moane shared insights into her transition from academic writing to creative storytelling, and how her work explores both ancient wisdom and modern themes. Listen to the show here (December 15) “I had to learn the craft of storytelling,” she said, reflecting on the decade it took to write the novel. “You can write a story, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. I had to figure out how to create character, tension, and drama.” Moane is no stranger to the written word, having authored academic books and countless articles over her long career at UCD. Yet fiction was a new territory, requiring a different rhythm and emotional intensity. Her novel is set around Newgrange, the 5,000-year-old monument older than the pyramids or Stonehenge, and intricately aligned with the rising sun during the Winter Solstice. “The monument has never let in water in all those years,” she remarked. “The engineering precision is astonishing. The sun shines into the chamber […]
Continue readingMaking a Difference: Brian McGleenon on Writing, Films and the Long Road to Housejackers
Brian McGleenon grew up in Armagh in the 1980s and 1990s, a place and time that shaped his eye for detail and his instinct for story. Today he is a journalist and screenwriter living in the UK, working at the intersection of news, culture and film. It has not been a straight line. His writing life has been forged through obsession, restlessness and a willingness to pursue the story wherever it leads. Listen to the show here (Dec 8th) “I don’t think I was always a writer,” he says. “I was more of a drawer of pictures.” The habit of watching closely, of observing and framing, stayed with him. Writing arrived later, during his teens, when he discovered film as a language. His epiphany was Taxi Driver, which he watched repeatedly. “I probably watched it about 80 times,” he admits, laughing at the memory. “My mum banned it from the house.” McGleenon describes these periods as creative fixations. One film will grip him, and he will watch it obsessively until he has extracted something essential from it. “A good movie,” he says, “invigorates your whole idea of what life’s about.” From Architecture to Storyboards to Journalism His professional path zigzagged. […]
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Wishing Well: Conor Walton Painting the Music of the Universe
For Conor Walton, painting has never been just a craft. It is a philosophical inquiry, a childhood instinct refined into adult discipline, and a lifelong effort to render visible what he calls the “cosmic harmony” that underpins the world. A painter based in Arklow, Conor’s work spans realism, symbolism, and imaginative invention, resisting easy categorisation while welcoming curiosity. Listen to the radio show here (December 2nd) Growing up as the youngest of seven, Conor drew constantly. “Any chance I got, I was on the floor with paper and pencils,” he recalls. Art was encouraged, if not practised, in his home. His parents valued beauty, and his eldest sister Eorna, also an artist, became an early mentor. Yet when Conor entered art school at NCAD, the experience was not the straightforward continuation of childhood talent he had imagined. He encountered an environment in transition. Traditional techniques, once core to European academies, had been swept away in the 1960s. “What they wanted to teach was expression, not technique,” he says. The new conceptualist teachers saw technical training as restrictive; Conor saw it as essential. The clash was formative. “They thought I was the Antichrist. I wanted skills. They wanted ideas.” The criticism […]
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Making a Difference: Larry Meyler’s Journey from Chaos to Clarity
In this episode of Making a Difference on Dublin City FM, Jillian Godsil speaks with Larry Meyler, a barber and author whose life has taken him from a chaotic childhood in Wexford to the streets of London, and around the world in a journey that ultimately led him to write Being Brave, a memoir that blends travel, trauma, and self-discovery. Listen to the radio show here (Dec1) Larry was born to older parents, an only child raised largely by his father after losing his mother at the age of six. His father, a complex man with his own troubled past, relied heavily on alcohol. The pair moved often, seldom settling, and Larry describes them as the Artful Dodger and Fagin. Despite the instability, love existed between them. “My dad loved me to pieces and I loved him,” Larry said. “But we were very different.” He left school at 15 after being expelled twice. Years later, he was formally diagnosed with ADHD and OCD, giving clarity to his past behaviours and difficulties with traditional learning environments. “There was no such thing as neurodiversity then,” he said. “You were just a troublesome kid.” His first job was in a fast-food outlet, working […]
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