The Women's Podcast

Last week the Women’s Podcast book club gathered for a live event in Chapters Bookstore in Dublin to discuss what books they’ll be packing with them on their summer holidays. Celebrated author Claire Keegan was the special guest who joined book clubbers Róisín Ingle, Bernice Harrison, Ann Ingle and Niamh Towey for the event, alongside an audience of podcast listeners. Keegan spoke about the novel and two short stories that she hopes listeners will enjoy and she treated the audience to a reading from The Great Gatsby.

You can find the full list of recommendations here: https://www.irishtimes.com/podcasts/the-womens-podcast/the-womens-podcast-book-club-summer-reading-recommendations-with-claire-keegan/\

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Gold Watch by John McGahern
Last Day of Summer by Ian McEwan, a short story from his collection, First Love, Last Rites.
Famesick by Lena Dunham
Few and Far Between by Jan Carson
Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
The Keeper by Tana French
The Spare Room by Helen Garner
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
John of John by Douglas Stuart
The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
Land by Maggie O’Farrell
The Make Believe by Hannah Murray
Tatty by Christine Dwyer

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Summer is finally upon us and that means festival season is officially here. In today’s episode, we meet a pair of women behind two of Ireland’s most exciting festivals, Beyond the Pale and Kaleidoscope. Jenny Jennings and Fiona McGinn join Roisin Ingle to discuss the challenges facing the festival industry, what it takes to create such large-scale events and which acts are not to be missed in the line up.

Later on Ingle is joined by Irish Times journalist and author Sally Hayden, who has just released her new book ‘This is also a Love Story’. The book is a reflection on how love can endure even in the most difficult of times and contains love stories from people Hayden has met while reporting in war zones and places ravaged by conflict and inequality.

But first, Irish Times opinion editor Jennifer O’Connell is here to discuss some of the biggest stories of the week including a row over private care at the Rotunda hospital in Dublin and what can be learned from the recent controversy surrounding Belle Burden’s memoir, Strangers.
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Academic, activist and friend of the show Ailbhe Smyth is turning 80 this Friday 29th May. To mark the occasion and to celebrate all her achievements, we invited Smyth back on the Women’s Podcast to share her life lessons on reaching this momentous milestone. The almost octogenarian reflects on her early childhood growing up in south Dublin, her struggles with anorexia as a young woman and the life experiences that ultimately led her to become an activist. She talks about the stigma of getting divorced and being an unmarried mother in the 1970s and why she almost left Ireland in the 1980s. We also look back on her extensive work and commitment to the campaigns for marriage equality and repeal. In this wide-ranging discussion, Smyth shares her wisdom and advice on ageing, love, failure and self-acceptance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Almost three years on from their final Aisling book, writers and besties Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen are back with a brand new novel, Our Deadly Summer. It’s a heartfelt and hilarious tale about friendship, young women and bad men. In today’s episode, the pair tell Róisín Ingle about the J1 spent in Long Island which inspired the story and why despite pursuing solo projects after the Aisling series, they ultimately found themselves working together again. In this wide-ranging discussion, they also give their take on enduring female friendships, Botox, and the precarity of renting in Dublin.

But first, Irish Times opinion editor Jennifer O’Connell is here to discuss some of the biggest stories of the week, including the surge in women seeking help for cocaine addiction and why Meghan Markle wants you to buy a $64 candle to celebrate her wedding anniversary.
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In today’s episode, Róisín Ingle is joined by award-winning Northern Irish writer Jan Carson, who has just released her ninth book, Few and Far Between. Set on a fictional archipelago in Lough Neagh, the novel blends history, realism and the surreal, drawing on themes of community, belonging and generational trauma. In this conversation, Carson explains how a historic plan to drain Lough Neagh and create a seventh county in the north, inspired the book. She also reflects on her childhood growing up in a Presbyterian fundamentalist family - where attending church six days a week was the norm - and what her faith means to her now.

But first, freelance journalist Kate Lynch is here to discuss some of the biggest stories of the week, including the racial abuse experienced by newly chosen Dublin Rose, Saud Mooge, plus the rise in popularity of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and what the party’s policies mean for women.

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