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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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The Treacherous Pea
Imagine that. I have cancer. Not the roaring, headline kind. Not the cinematic diagnosis with violins swelling in the background. No. Mine is small. Early. The doctors say the prognosis is good. But it’s there. A pea-sized trespasser in the right breast, a quiet betrayal. I keep thinking of it as an uninvited guest who has slipped in under the radar, polite but persistent, waiting to be noticed. And now that I’ve noticed it, I can’t unsee it. I keep brushing up against death in the corners of rooms. It’s never frontal, never theatrical. Just sly, a flicker, a smirk in the periphery. I shake it off quickly, I’m fine, I tell myself. I am upbeat, practical, optimistic. I have things to do. But still, that whisper lingers: what if? I am sixty. I rather like being sixty. My life is finally, finally in order. The edges smoothed, the shape of it something I can live with. And now this – a pea. A damned pea that’s thrown me off balance. I’m thinking about my breasts. And yes, I have thought of them before. They’ve been admired, even called beautiful. I’ve liked them, their shape, their presence, their quiet confidence. […]
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The Wishing Well: From Kick-Off to Curtain Call: The Many Acts of Paul Howard
Paul Howard has always been a storyteller. Whether skewering the pretensions of the Celtic Tiger with Ross O’Carroll-Kelly or exploring the dark brilliance of Tara Browne and Sean Hughes in biography, his work reveals a deep curiosity about the contradictions of life and a determination to get to the truth beneath the noise. Listen to the radio programme here (November 18) A former sports journalist with The Sunday Tribune, Howard left full-time journalism twenty years ago for what was meant to be a two-year sabbatical. He never went back. In the years since, his career has spanned 27 Ross O’Carroll-Kelly novels, award-winning plays, musicals, biographies, and television scripts. He insists none of it was part of a grand plan. “Everything since leaving journalism has been an accident,” he says. “I never set out to write novels, or plays, or TV. I just followed the path where it led.” That path includes a ten-year journey writing I Read the News Today, Oh Boy, the life story of Tara Browne, the Guinness heir immortalised in the Beatles’ A Day in the Life. It also includes his current project, a deeply researched biography of the late comedian Sean Hughes. “He won the Perrier […]
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Making a Difference: Henry Emson and The Great Reserve
“I wanted to plant a tree for each of my two children,” says Henry Emson, CEO and founder of The Great Reserve. “I thought, why not get a head start on offsetting their lifetime carbon footprint?” That simple act grew into a mission to plant 100,000 Giant Sequoias across the UK, creating a sanctuary for one of the world’s most magnificent and endangered species and a living carbon capture legacy for generations to come. Listen to the show here (November 17) The Great Reserve is based mainly in Wales, though Henry and his team are expanding across the UK. “We’re planting Giant Sequoia trees, a lot of people know them as redwoods,” he explains. “They’re the planet’s biggest tree species. They can grow over 250 feet tall and 36 feet wide. Standing beside them, you feel you’re in another world, almost Jurassic.” But these giants, native to California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, are now on the IUCN Endangered Species Red List, losing up to ten per cent of their number each year. “They’ve been devastated by wildfires,” Henry says. “Decades of drought and fire suppression have created superheated fires. Even though they have fireproof bark three and a half feet thick, […]
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Making a Difference: Matt Paneitz – Building Futures from Trash
It is hard not to be awed when speaking to Matt Paneitz, executive director and founder of Long Way Home, a Guatemalan non-profit that turns waste into schools, jobs, and hope. Sitting in what he calls “the most beautiful library in all of Guatemala,” Paneitz describes a dome built from 2,000 glass bottle bricks, resting atop a 50,000-gallon water tank made of tyres and concrete. The light, he says, filters through the bottles like stained glass in a cathedral. It is both functional and symbolic: a sanctuary built from rubbish. Listen to the radio show here (date) Paneitz first came to Guatemala more than two decades ago with the US Peace Corps. What he saw changed him forever. “I’d seen people living in extreme poverty for the first time,” he says. “I’d seen too much to forget.” After returning to Texas, he found he couldn’t settle. “Every second I was back, I felt like I’d left my work undone,” he says. Within a year, he returned to Guatemala and never really left. He began with a simple idea: build a park where residents could pay the entrance fee with trash. The initiative collected mountains of discarded material and inspired the […]
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