Advertise on podcast: Documentary on Newstalk

This documentary was produced by Valerie McHugh, with interviewee Aisling Smith and voiceover artist Jessica Bourke. It highlights Aisling's story with OCD, and her journey to recovery. It also includes a voiceover dramatisation of other people's experiences with OCD who have asked to remain anonymous.

Documentary on Newstalk presents a new documentary by independent producer Bairbre Flood. "Jewish Ireland" is an exploration of Jewish Irish history and culture - from Deli 613, to the Irish Jewish Museum: historians, musicians and Jewish groups and individuals share different aspects of modern Jewish culture in Ireland.  Edwin Alkin talks us through the various artefacts, photographs and exhibitions at the Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin, and explains some of the history of Jewish people in Ireland. Dr. Melanie Brown tells us what she learnt from her involvement with the Jewish Oral History Project and the Inter-Faith Council - and what it means to her to be Irish and Jewish.  Rabbi Zalman Lent and Rifky Lent at Deli 613 - the first kosher deli in Dublin in fifty years - share Jewish food and explain why they set up and how they’ve been received by the community. And then we head to Cork to meet klezmer composer Ruti Lachs, of the Cork Jewish Community and we’ll get her take on being one of the ‘new Irish’ Jews who’ve made Ireland their home.  ‘Jews have been here since the time of the Normans. Jews are not strangers here, but they remain to be othered in a lot of ways. And that, to me, is very interesting. Why, after a thousand years,  why is there still this othering?’ - Dr. Melanie Brown.  Produced by Bairbre Flood and funded by Coimisiun na Mean under the Sound and Vision Scheme. 

Climate change, civil war in the south, a breakaway region in the north, hunger, internal displacement: these are just some of the issues facing Somalia.   Presenter Sean Moncrieff reports from the Horn of Africa in: Somalia: the complicated business of helping people. The Newstalk host spent a week with aid agency workers and UN officials who describe the often frustratingly slow process of trying to help a country off its knees: not just through the provision of aid, but trying to convince parents of the benefits of education, of changing attitudes towards contraception and female genital mutilation and of establishing a democracy in the face of resistance from the all-powerful clans. All this, along with the constant threat of suicide bomb attacks from the Islamist group Al-Shabaab. In Somalia, everything is complicated.

Documentary on Newstalk presents “The Iveagh Trust: How Ireland’s Richest Man Housed Dublin’s Poor”, in which producer Sarah Stacey explores the 133-year history of Ireland’s oldest housing charity. The Iveagh Trust was founded in 1890 by Edward Cecil Guinness, head of his family’s famous brewing empire, who at the time was the richest man in the country. His vision was to provide safe, clean and affordable housing to the working poor of Dublin. In the nineteenth century the city was home to some of the worst slums in Europe, with families crammed into overcrowded and unsanitary tenements. Disturbed by the conditions he saw in The Liberties, where his brewery was based, Guinness invested a considerable amount of his fortune into building housing and communities in the area. Sarah Stacey’s family connection to the Iveagh Trust goes back four generations. With the help of social historians, staff members and residents, including her own relatives, she looks at how one man’s generosity transformed the lives of thousands of Dublin families, and why the Iveagh Trust’s ongoing work is just as important in today’s housing crisis as it was over a century ago. Contributors include Tracey Bardon, engagement co-ordinator at 14 Henrietta Street (the Tenement Museum), historians Cathy Scuffil and Alan Byrne, Rory Guinness, chairman of the Iveagh Trust and great-great-grandson of Edward Cecil Guinness, former Iveagh Trust community officer Kelley Bermingham, and past and present residents Paul Tester, Pat Stacey and Tina Brennan. “The Iveagh Trust: How Ireland’s Richest Man Housed Dublin’s Poor” was produced and presented by Sarah Stacey, with additional production by Daniel Cahill and music composed by Emily Worrall. Special thanks to the Iveagh Trust and Dublin City Library and Archive. Funded by Coimisiún na Meán with the Television Licence Fee.

A new radio documentary, 35 Years of GCN, produced by Shaun & Maurice for Documentary and Drama on Newstalk, explores the story of Ireland’s LGBTQ+ community through the pages of Ireland's longest-running free LGBTQ+ publication and press. The story of GCN (Gay Community News) is also the story of LGBTQ+ rights, history, and culture in Ireland. Since 1988, the magazine has reflected and documented the lives and lived experiences of LGBTQ+ people. The first issue of GCN was published from a small office at the top of the Hirschfield Centre in Dublin’s Temple Bar, and since then it has been at the heart of the LGBTQ+ community. 35 Years of GCN explores some of the LGBTQ+ stories captured by the magazine. The programme features an interview with Tonie Walsh who co-founded GCN with Catherine Glendon during the height of the AIDS epidemic. It features an interview with Senator David Norris about the foundation of GCN in the same year that he won his case against the Irish government at the European Court of Human Rights (which ruled the existence of laws in Ireland criminalising consensual gay sex to be illegal). The documentary also features interviews with former GCN editors Brian Finnegan and Lisa Connell, about the struggles and celebrations that have been documented by the nation’s LGBTQ+ paper of record—including the introduction of civil partnership, the passing of both the marriage and abortion referendums, and the introduction of the gender recognition act. The programme was produced with funding from the Coimisiún na Meán Sound and Vision scheme.

Documentary on Newstalk presents ‘The White Line’, a new documentary that reveals the shocking truth about how Irish Traveller children were treated in Irish schools and the unacknowledged apartheid that existed in the Irish education system for over 5 decades. Through personal testimony we hear how Traveller children were: kept separate from the settled children at all times; put in Traveller-only classrooms where they received little or no teaching; and were physically and mentally punished regularly simply because of who they were. All the voices, including that of the narrator, in this documentary belong to members of the Irish Traveller Community. The interviewees come from many parts of the country, from Tipperary, to Galway to Meath and Dublin and for most, this is the first time they have told their story publicly. ‘The White Line’ was produced by Independent radio Producer Susan Dennehy. The Narrator was Christine Collins. The Final Mix was by Moynihan Russell Studios. The programme was funded by Coimisiún na Meán with the Television License Fee. 

Documentary On Newstalk presents a new documentary by producer Pavel Barter.  Telling the forgotten story of how Irish immigrants built a Wild West mining town two miles high in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado in Cloud City.  This portrait of Irish diaspora, in one of America’s most ruthless settlements, explores the lives of two characters whose names live on in Leadville lore: Mart Duggan from Limerick, one of the most fearsome yet respected lawmakers in the American West; and Michael Mooney, a union leader from Dublin who fought for worker rights.  This month (September, 2023) sees the opening of a memorial to the Leadville Irish, who until now had been forgotten in unmarked graves at the town’s Evergreen Cemetery.  Credits:Pavel Barter: presenter and producer.  Michael Mellamphy (Red Dead Redemption 2) plays Mart Duggan and Michael Mooney.  With thanks to David Wright (research) and Wil Masisak (VO recording).  Funded by Coimisiún na Meán with the Television License Fee. 

In “The First Hundred Years: Albert Dryer and the Irish National Association” producer J.J. O'Shea explores the aims and achievements of an important Irish Cultural organisation founded in 1915 in Sydney, Australia, and the life of the man who was the driving force behind the association. The story of the Irish in Australia remains a relatively unexamined aspect of the Irish emigration story and this programme shines a light on some surprising aspects of that story. "The First Hundred Years" was Produced by J.J. O'Shea. Excerpts from the INA Centenary Oral History Project were used with the kind permission of the National Library of Australia. This programme was supported by a grant from Coimisiún na Meán as part of the Sound and Vision Scheme.

Producer Michael Cullen introduces us to some of Ireland's most successful quizzers. "Know It All" looks at the quizzing scene in Ireland, and talks to some of its most successful participants, including two winners of Mastermind, and a winner of the million on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

Producer Patricia Baker of Curious Broadcast takes a walk past the many famous and infamous statues and monuments in Dublin, in the radio documentary Dead White Men, and considers who and how we commemorate. By talking with academics and arts practitioners she asks questions about the monuments that we have chosen to destroy, those we have kept and those perhaps we should not. This is a walk through the monuments controversy past and present. Dead White Men is a Curious Broadcast Production, Funded by Coimisiún na Meán with the Television Licence Fee.

Unbeatable Together presented by Henry McKean is a documentary which celebrates the Special Olympics in Berlin, with all the success and tears of emotion as Special Olympics Ireland brought home 75 medals.

New radio documentary ‘Tainted Blood’ lays bare the devastating impact of infected blood products on the Irish Haemophilia Community In 1982 the first case of HIV was recorded in Ireland. By 1985 all people with haemophilia were being tested for the disease. More than one third of them were found to be HIV positive having contracted the disease through infected blood products that were made up of pooled plasma from thousands of donors, much of which had been imported. Colm Walsh, who has haemophilia, features on the documentary. As a child Colm and his older brother Brendan were treated with the same blood products and, by some cruel twist of fate, Brendan contracted HIV and eventually died of AIDs. Colm did not, but sadly did contract Hepatitis C, another disease which ravaged the haemophilia community in the late 80s as a result of infected blood products. Colm shares his remarkable story on the documentary, he said, “Despite the fact this happened over 40 years ago some of us are still living with this grief. Not only the grief of losing our loved ones, but for how we were treated and for the lengths we had to go to for the injustice against our community to be acknowledged. This documentary is an important piece of work that shares the heartbreak and distress we went through. We have many reasons for hope today but we can never forget what happened because it can never be allowed to happen again.” Another key voice in the documentary is Brian O’Mahony, Chief Executive of the Irish Haemophilia Society, which became a significant support network, lobbying on behalf of people with haemophilia and their families (which eventually contributed to the collapse of the Irish government in 1989). They set up services to care for the dying, at a time when there was significant stigma associated with the diseases of HIV and AIDs. The documentary shares stories of the torment and shame experienced by those who contracted HIV and AIDs as well as their families, and how, in many cases, they never shared their diagnosis owing to this stigma. Brian said, “It was like going through a war, it was a cumulative trauma to the whole community. It brought our members very close together and despite the huge number of deaths our community is hugely resilient. This story is one that everyone in Ireland should know because we can never let anything like this ever happen again. That message has been a big part of our ethos since we first became aware of the plight of so many of our members. “We were a tiny, volunteer-run organisation before this crisis and now, following years of trauma and campaigning we can proudly say we have one of the best haemophilia treatment systems in the world. Out of the darkness has come some light. I would encourage anyone to take the time to listen to this documentary and understand what happened to our community because all those deaths cannot be in vain.” Kelly Crichton, documentary maker, said “I was incredibly moved when I first encountered these stories and knew there was a whole generation of Irish people out there who would know nothing or very little about this. I wanted to share this story because it’s hard to fathom just how abandoned this community was and yet, in banding together they overcame so much. “The Irish Haemophilia Society went above and beyond in their support - risking prosecution by handing out condoms to members, which were illegal at the time. They set up palliative care and worked with undertaker services because of the stigma and protocols associated with death of those infected with HIV or AIDs. Families could then follow traditional funeral arrangements without the fear of their loved one being outed as a HIV and AIDs victim. It truly beggars belief what they had to go through without government support. “I’d like to thank everyone who I spoke to for the documentary. These are some of the bravest people I have ever met and it was a privilege to recor