In The News

On Monday afternoon, in a packed courtroom at Dublin’s Circuit Criminal Court, former Kilkenny hurler DJ Carey was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for fraud. In July, the disgraced sportsman pleaded guilty to ten counts of deception involving thirteen individuals. It’s a stunning fall from grace for the Kilkenny man, who was once the most celebrated hurler in the country. For years, Carey spun a web of lies, convincing friends, acquaintances, and even strangers that he was battling terminal cancer and needed large sums of money for life-saving treatment. At times, his stories were meticulously crafted, rich in detail. Sometimes they were just spur of the moment pleas for cash.   In today's episode journalist and author of The Dodger, Eimear Ní Bhraonáin maps out Carey’s decade long deception and explains how he got away with his crimes for so long.The Dodger: DJ Carey and the Great Betrayal published by Merrion Press is out now.

There are many things An Garda Síochána know about the woman whose skeletal remains were found in 2021 during the construction of a greenway in Co Cork.They believe the woman was 70 years or older when she died, that she was 157cm tall and had a large frame. They think she wore dentures made in the 1960s while she also suffered from arthritis. Carbon dating suggests she died between 1985 and 1987.What they don’t know is her name.They commissioned Prof Michelle Vitali, a director of the Institute of Forensic Sciences at Pennsylvania Western University and a specialist in forensic illustration, to draw an image of the dead woman. She works pro bono for police forces in the US and provided her services free in the Cork case.Vitali explains to In the News the process she used to create an image from the woman’s skull which might help jog memories. It is not, she stresses, a portrait of the dead woman, rather a way to illustrate her features. But could it really identify the dead woman and has it worked in the past?Irish Times southern correspondent Barry Roche gives the background to this sad case.Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Declan Conlon and Andrew McNair. 

Saipan: it’s the one word that can, even 23 years later, cause a row and Irish football fans still divide into two camps.When it comes to events in Saipan where the Irish team were acclimatising before heading to Japan for their first game in the 2002 World Cup, everyone has an opinion. You’re either Team Roy or Team Mick.A new movie that captures the simmering tension and eventual blow up between Republic of Ireland manager Mick McCarthy and team captain Roy Keane will hit our screens on January 1st. But already Saipan has been seen on the international film festival circuit, garnering glowing reviews.Keane is played by Éanna Hardwicke and McCarthy by Steve Coogan – a challenge given how familiar both men are in the public mind. Does it work? And does it capture the tension and the shock waves that Keane’s decision to walk out on the team caused.Irish Times consumer correspondent Conor Pope got a preview and says that going in to the cinema he knew he’d be traumatised by Saipan – and he was.Pope tells In the News why the film will open old wounds for many people and how he left the cinema “feeling shaken and sad and weighed down by what might have been”.Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by John Casey and Andrew McNair.

In the early 1970s Mary ‘May’ and Seamus ‘Shay’ McGee were parents to four young children. On her second and third pregnancies, May had experienced complications so severe that her doctor advised that her life would be in danger if she had any more children.The GP prescribed a diaphragm and spermicidal jelly to help prevent pregnancy. These had to be imported and were seized by customs with the couple told that if they attempted to import contraceptive devices again, they could be prosecuted.The couple went to the High Court in 1972 in an attempt to overturn a 1935 ban on the importation of contraceptives.It was struck out and amid a tide of publicity, the couple appealed to the Supreme Court.In 1973 they won, with the judge overturning the 1935 Act which prohibited the importation of contraceptives, with the ruling paving the way for vastly improved reproductive choice for women.The case has been seen as a turning point in society’s perception of the separation of the roles of church and State.May McGee, was 81 when she died peacefully at Beaumont Hospital in Tuesday surrounded by her family. Shay died in January 2024.Irish Times journalist Ellen Coyne explains the impact of the couple’s brave decision to take on the State in a very different Ireland.Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan. This podcast was edited to amend a reference to Seán MacBride. He was a member of the IRA, not the Provisional IRA.

In early September, worshippers gathering for dawn prayers at several locations across Paris discovered a gruesome and spiteful scene – bloodied pigs’ heads discarded on the doorsteps of their mosques. A deeply offensive act, Muslims are forbidden from eating pork and consider pigs to be unclean.Soon after, a farmer in Normandy in northern France, who had seen news reports of the dead animal heads appearing around the city, contacted police to say two people driving a vehicle with Serbian number plates had purchased ten pigs heads from his farm.Further investigations by French authorities found the pigs heads had been placed outside the mosques by foreign nationals with the “clear intention of causing unrest within the nation”.This provocative stunt was just one of a range of bizarre and potentially lethal incidents over recent months that have been linked to a Russian campaign to inflame divisions and spread fear across Europe. Other incidents tracked back to Russian intelligence include the burning of a Warsaw shopping centre and a warehouse in London; exploding parcels in Leipzig and Birmingham and the recent disruption of airports with drones and smuggler balloons in Norway, Denmark and Lithuania.Who is carrying out this wide array of sabotage-style stunts and do the criminals responsible even know they’re being hired by Russian officials?What is Russia’s long-term goal in fostering instability and discord across Europe?And how is Russia targeting Ireland as part of this strategy?Today, on In The News, how Russia’s hybrid war is sowing chaos across Europe.Irish Times Europe correspondent Naomi O’Leary discusses Moscow’s campaign of sabotage and espionage, which has steadily intensified since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.Presented by Sorcha Pollak. Produced by Andrew McNair. 

Journalist Khadija Haidary left her home in Afghanistan in October 2024 after spending three years trying to survive as a working woman in a Taleban-controlled country.When universities closed to women in late 2022, Haidary joined an underground “resistance” network teaching maths, physics and English to girls. Ms Haidary, who is editor of the Zan Times, now reports from her new home in Pakistan. She talks to Sorcha Pollak about the oppressive reality facing women inside Afghanistan. But while the situation is grim, some are pushing back.Plus: Stefan Smith, spokesperson for the UN’s assistance mission in Afghanistan, on international efforts to engage with Taliban rulers. Presented by Sorcha Pollak. Produced by Andrew McNair. 

A Belfast court delivered a not-guilty verdict on Thursday in the trial of a former British Army paratrooper accused of the murder of two young men in the Bloody Sunday shootings in Derry 53 years ago.It was the first-ever trial of a former British soldier accused of killing unarmed civilians during the massacre.The veteran, referred to as Soldier F for legal reasons, was accused of the murders of James Wray and William McKinney during a civil rights march in the city on January 30th, 1972.By the end of that dreadful day, 13 unarmed civilians had been shot dead by the Parachute Regiment while 17 were left with injuries.So how was the verdict received in the packed courtroom, particularly by the Bloody Sunday families whose fight for justice has endured for more than a century. A UK public inquiry had already found that the army unlawfully killed 13 people in Derry on that day, so why did the prosecution against this former paratrooper fail?Irish Times Northern editor Freya McClements was in court for the verdict.Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Andrew McNair and John Casey.

Crimes carried out by a loose syndicate of about 60 teenagers spread across north and South Dublin, who are more interested in capturing their joyriding escapades on social media than making money, are on the rise.Known as the Lucky Dip Gang, these groups of young, low-level criminals focus on burglaries and vehicle theft. These often failed and haphazard attempts to steal bikes and cars contrast starkly with the other side of the burglary trade, which is dominated by tight-knit, dangerous organised gangs known for their forensic and meticulous planning.But if the Lucky Dip Gang is running riot across the Greater Dublin Area, and organised burglary gangs are so active across the country, why have burglaries fallen by almost 65 per cent in a decade?Today, on In The News, Irish Times crime and security editor Conor Lally discusses the TikTok inspired crime trend among young offenders in Dublin, the reasons some teenagers are pushed into joining more serious gangs and the significant drop in burglaries nationwide over the past ten years.And what measures should homeowners take to protect their home to deter burglars and avoid from break-in?Presented by Sorcha Pollak. Produced by Declan Conlon and Andrew McNair

In chaotic and violent scenes reminiscent of the street riots in Dublin city centre two years ago, around 1,000 protesters outside the Citywest IPAS centre in Saggart threw missiles, set fires, used fireworks as weapons and roared racist chants on Tuesday evening.They had gathered in response to news that a man had been arrested in connection with the alleged sexual assault of a 10-year old Irish girl outside the centre, which is home to mostly Ukrainians but also international protection applicants.The man, a failed asylum seeker in his 20s, has been in the State for six years and is the subject of a deportation order since March 2025.There had already been protests by locals throughout the summer following news that the Government intended buying the hotel – Ireland’s largest with more than 750 bedrooms – and turning it into a State-run, permanent asylum centre. The sale, for €148 million, has now been finalised. But Tuesday’s protest was very different, not least because many of those present were not local.So who were they and what did they want?And how did the Garda manage and then diffuse such an incendiary situation? Has the force learned from the Dublin riots two years ago?Irish Times crime and security editor Conor Lally was at Citywest and he reports on how events unfolded.Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Andrew McNair.