Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning

"One day, when it's safe, when there's no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it's too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this." On October 25 2023, novelist Omar El Akkad posted this message on X/TwitterOn Free State today Omar El Akkad joins Joe and Dionto talk about how the world looked away. His magisterial new book One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This details the complicity of the west. Gaza is enduring a famine and Israel maintains a blockade where children’s hunger is a weapon of war and an instrument of monumental cruelty. Omar’s voice is a compelling and necessary counterpoint.This episode originally aired on May 6th 2025

There are those who believe Artificial Intelligence will lead to the extinction of mankind. There are those who believe AI will save the world.On Free State today, journalist and author of the Empire of AI Karen Hao explains why AI is an imperialist project and how the colonising is already taking place. She says why she believes the doomer vs boomer debate is a distraction and how Ireland is on the frontline of this imperialist project. Water and energy resources will be drained as empires are built while humans will be expendable.Karen also tells us why the term Artificial Intelligence was a marketing term in the first place which set the technology on a destructive path.This episode first aired on June 28th 2025

Colm Toibin returns to the Free State studio for what is now the traditional Christmas interview.He reflects on the year when he turned 70, why there is too many men watching rugby on television and why it’s important to take the 99 out of Irish politics forever.He talks too about the death of his father when he was 12 and how the great Irish psychiatrist Ivor Browne tried to open him up to the trauma in the most extraordinary way.

First there was the music. Keith Donald was always looking to escape. Music offered the first exit. Then came drink.Keith Donald was abused as a child by his headmistress. He found that jazz had the power to transform his existence.As a teenager he began to play music wherever he could. He played for a band on the Twelfth and toured the country with showbands.On Free State today Keith Donald talks about the music and the mayhem and how he found peace. He speaks about founding Moving Hearts and why even now music has the power to transform.This show was originally broadcast on August 23rd, 2025

Why do so many of us still cherish Christmas? And why do so many find it a tough time of year?On Free State today, Joe and Dion reflect on the power of Christmas and what it tells us about us as a people.Joe looks forward to a child’s wonder at Christmas while Dion is looking forward to the Ashes over Christmas.

When he was 11, Leon Diop had his first experience of aggressive racism. But his identity was something he wrestled with in many ways.In a remarkable interview on Free State, Leon Diop talks about the Ireland he grew up in and being mixed race in that world.He talks about the confusion and shame he felt about his father, a Muslim from Senegal, and how he internalised that shame for many years.He explains how education changed him as he realised the difference between standing up for yourself and fighting for yourself. At a time when Ireland is experiencing more racism, he says he might be frightened but he refuses to despair.

Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty,’ James Baldwin wrote. What does it do to do somebody when they have crossed the boundary into a world of killing and destruction? How do they enforce their code in a place untethered from the one the rest of us inhabit?On Free State today, Joe and Dion follow on from Tuesday’s episode on Stakeknife by looking at how rules of organisations like the IRA were enforced. Joe talks about what made his father lose faith in the republican movement. He also accuses Dion of deference to the British Empire which leads Dion to launch a verbal attack on Joe.

When the state sanctions it, is it murder? When the state protects its agents from the consequences of their crimes, how long before cynicism corrupts society?On Free State today, Joe and Dion look at the dark and dirty existence of Freddie Scappaticci, MI5 and the British state.They argue about what the report tells us about the IRA and the British government, while Joe tells the extraordinary story of Danny Morrison and Sandy Lynch.

In 1948, Herbert Simms, under increasing pressure from the demands of his job, took his own life.The pressure came from his job as Dublin’s housing architect. Between 1932 and the time of his death, Simms was responsible for building 17,000 homes for the ordinary people of Dublin.On Free State today Sinn Féin’s housing spokesperson Eoin O Broin talks about his beautiful new book on Simms, produced in conjunction with the photographer Mal McCann.He looks at how Simms transformed the city and suburbs with a vision and an ideology that placed communities first. He explains too why the same could happen today and why the question shouldn’t be could it happen but why isn’t it happening?