Una and Andrea's United Ireland

This month on BYLINE we talk to Elizabeth Paton of the New York Times. Paton covers the fashion industry and luxury sectors in Europe for the NYT, and in this episode offers a fascinating insight into how those parts of the broader fashion industry have been impacted by the pandemic, and how coverage has changed to reflect and investigate shifting forces.

Everything feels like one giant dumpster fire atm. But instead of fanning the proverbial flames and giving out about all the mistakes that were made, we're focusing instead on bringing the calm and just trying to get through this. So as we enter lockdown number 3 and we try to drum up all the endurance required to make it through another lockdown we decided to talk to endurance running coach Rene Borg to see what endurance lessons we can borrow. Plus Bridgerton scraps, the lovely Tolu Makay, owls and why we're considering changing It's Bananas to a weekly feature of 'Co-Living is Bananas'.

A year in review and the inaugural United Ireland Awards for your listening pleasure. All the love for 2021 and thanks for listening during this most challenging year. In the words of Daniel Beddingfield, I Gotta Get Through This. Happy New Year, we got this!

Celebrating Solstice, we're making our weekly Sunday Soothe ep available to everyone. It you enjoy the Sunday Soothe, there's one every week available especially for our supporters on Patreon. To sign up, visit www.patreon.com/unitedireland  Happy Solstice.  We hope you find your light.

After a week of bonuses and Bylines, we're back with a standard ep. But no county - the last few are in the post, we swear! This week we’re talking about an incident in women’s gaelic football that once again shines the floodlights on a not so equal playing field. We go under the hood of what’s going on as the GAA season reaches its peak, with Elaine Bucko Buckley. We also have the details of our Christmas competition to win a hamper of all (neé many) of our fave bits. Oh and a cute lil plan to completely restructure the modus operandi of running the country. As an aside, like.

Our guest this month is Lise Hand, a self-described rowdy journalist-at-large. Lise’s career crosses the Sunday Tribune, the Sunday Independent, the Irish Independent and the Journal. She began her print career in music journalism, evolving into an excellent colour writer focussing on what happens behind the scenes and on the stage of Irish politics. In this episode, as we reflect on the year, we talk about her career, the impact of the Great Recession, and how that carried forward to the 2020 general election.

This week, we've consciously stepped away from the tit-for-tat shenanigans taking place in politics and instead focused on uplifting our souls with music and art. In this episode, we're talking to Irish fashion designer Natalie B Coleman about her new Sister, Mother, Goddess collection, how her feminism and reproductive challenges within the Irish system have informed her work and the potential of creating a Bauhaus-esque movement for Irish fashion.

This bonus episode comes to you from Dingle on what is usually a massively busy weekend for music fans in Ireland. In 2020, Other Voices - an entity that lives and breathes live music - managed to overcome the incredible logistical challenges of an industry shutdown, to create the Courage series, and livestream its annual Dingle event without an audience in St James' Church, yet the online audience ended up responding in huge numbers. In this episode, we speak to the people who made it happen.

That's right! It's December, we're ready to get the joyous vibes flowing and wonder at all the culture we got to enjoy in 2020, even in the midst of a pandemic. Here's our contribution to the Best of 2020.

Yes. It's true. We have now become that annoying friend with too much energy, constantly urging you to be hashtag thankful. This week we're taking a moment to reflect on all the things we're thankful for. Audio food for your soul.

Fintan O’Toole is a columnist with the Irish Times, and widely and correctly viewed as the most essential voice in Irish journalism. He is a visiting lecturer at Princeton University, has written 25 books, and has won many awards, including the European Press Prize for commentary in 2017, the same year he won the Orwell Prize for Journalism. Fintan is not just the conscience of Irish journalism, but a conscience of Irish society, upholding the values of journalism with real meaning, empathy, honesty, truth, and often a tenderness that is increasingly easy to abandon in an era of binary debates and hot takes. In this episode of BYLINE, we talk to Fintan about Brexit, a subject he has emerged as the smartest voice in any room on, rising above the din with his trademark reason, insight and intelligence.

As some ppl try to turn the narrative from councillors this week voting not to trade half the Oscar Traynor site for private development and for the council to become the lead housing developer, to the apparent collapse of a deal to build 853 houses, we're looking back to a utopian community build in the Tenters. The Tenters is about to celebrate its centenary and resident & local historian Maria O'Reilly joins us to discuss this pioneering development that has stood the test of time. If we could do it then etc.... We also have 'the wisest woman on Twitter' ™, architect & UCD professor Orla Hegarty to talk us through how we might navigate our way out of our public land development mess.

*WARNING* Please be aware that this episode contains descriptions of extreme violence, child abuse and cruelty, animal abuse and cruelty, acts of murder, sexual violence, and other descriptions that listeners may find distressing. People working as content reviewers, moderating the dregs of the internet on Facebook, have one of the toughest and most distressing modern jobs. So why do it? In this episode, we speak to a former worker who lays out the reality of what the fundamentals of the job are, despite Facebook’s policies and processes continuing to change. This is a tough listen, but an essential one.

It's not always bad news you know! This week we're talking about the recent wins against fracking in Fermanagh and the end of a long, 12-year legal battle on Monday that quashed planning permission for Shannon LNG terminal. We're joined by the inspirational Tony Lowes from Friends of the Irish Environment to talk about his work on this case and with the phenomenal Climate Case Ireland. We're also overflowing with Fave bits including, but not limited to Kevin McCloud, Roisin Murphy, Ruth Medjber, nature (in general) & christmas cards. Onwards sailor!

We're talking to artist and co-founder of the Icon Factory and Icon Walk, Aga Szot about their new landlord seeking to turn their cultural space in Temple Bar into a restaurant. Has art and culture had its day in Temple Bar and have the ravages of strictly commercial gain made its way into what was designated and developed to be a cultural hotspot for Dublin? If you want to support Icon Factory and the Icon Walk, Sign the petition here

It's not just the results that are coming in from the election that are making us feel a bit more hopeful all of a sudden, even though we're sure that energy is definitely having an impact on this turn - but all of a sudden, it feels like we're collectively coming out the other side. We wanted to take an episode to mark this turning and talk about the things that are making us more hopeful for where we are and where we're going. Enjoy.

Off we pop to the county home of the oldest brewery in Ireland up until recently, and we delve into the resurgence in shebeens around Ireland. (SIRI, what's a tenuous link?) Chief writer of the Irish Times’ An Irishman’s Diary Frank McNally joins us to discuss illicit drinking dens from Cape Town to Inishowen. Also, Andrea is obsessed with Kilkenny’s witchy history (festive), Una’s impression of Stephen Donnelly wins an Oscar, and Fine Gael are obsessed with themselves.

It felt inevitable. And now disappointing decisions from Planning at DCC see purpose built student accommodation (PBSA) being granted permission to 'pivot' to accomodation for tourists or “short-term worker apartments”. Was this always a backdoor way of building much maligned co-living developments? We're talking to Labour Senator Rebecca Moynihan about why, or more so how, this has happened.

“Now more than any other time in history, you really ought to please yourself because in mysterious winds a cave inside your soul might be the only place to go.” - Eileen Myles There's a bang of The Sunday Soothe off this episode because we are doing our very best not to get our knickers in a twist and to try and deal with this situation in a way that best serves us. This isn't our first rodeo anymore when it comes to lockdowns, so we're looking back on coping mechanisms from last time and trying to take learnings on board for this current wild ride. It isn't all optimism and light though as we're still watching radio presenters trying their best to stoke up frustrational fires; the beauty and fitness industries adopting a #WeWontClose approach and Leo wishing his cup doth runneth over.

We’re on a trip to Tipp this week with crime journo extraordinaire Nicola Tallant, who is delving into the world of car dealership raids by CAB in Tipperary. How are criminals laundering their money, what does Tipperary have to do with it, and how has the pandemic impacted organised crime? Plus, Andrea has the hots for Brian Boru, Una is the first Dubliner ever to go sea-swimming, and we pitch a co-living development ban.