The Deirdre O'Shaughnessy Podcast

🎧 Episode 6: May McGee, the woman who fought to make contraception legal in IrelandMay McGee was a young, hearing-impaired mother to four children under the age of two living in a caravan when she took the Irish State to the Supreme Court challenging its position on contraception, and won.Complicated pregnancies including a stroke she suffered in one meant that she was advised to take contraception by her doctor – but the spermicidal jelly she ordered in the post was intercepted by Customs and she and her husband were threatened with prison. She was furious at the Government interfering in her private life.May, who died late in 2025, made it possible for Irish women to plan their families and to take control of their own fertility.📲 To listen, find us wherever you get your podcasts.‘It was one up for the women’: Mary ‘May’ McGee's family to celebrate her life at funeral

Anna Wintour is only following in the footsteps of Carmel Snow, who edited Harper’s Bazaar for 25 years, with a vision of catering to “well dressed women with well dressed minds”. She brought Dior and Givenchy to a US audience, hung out with Coco Chanel and Salvador Dali, and edited writers like Truman Capote, Maeve Brennan and Frank O’Connor, never losing her interest in championing Irish writing.📲 To listen, find us wherever you get your podcasts.Clodagh Finn: Carmel Snow, the Irish Anna Wintour who reshaped US fashion

🎧 Episode 4: Irish sisters at the heart of European culture – Sarah and Amelia CurranSarah Curran was best known to generations as the tragic fiancée of United Irishman Robert Emmet, but in her own right she was a writer, poet and talented musician who made connections across Europe. Her sister Amelia was a notable artist who painted the famous portrait of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley and that of her husband, the Romantic poet, and came to the attention of US Vice President Aaron Burr, currently enjoying a resurgence in notoriety thanks to the musical Hamilton. How two sisters from Newmarket in Cork came to associate in such exalted circles is a fascinating story. 📲 To listen, find us wherever you get your podcasts.Clodagh Finn: Amelia Curran, the Irish painter who immortalised poet Shelley 

🎧 Episode 3: Oonah Keogh,first female member of the Dublin Stock ExchangeThe first female stockbroker in the world made her debut on the trading floor of the Dublin Stock Exchange in 1927, at a time of unprecedented equality and opportunity for Irish women. Her groundbreaking role was entirely forgotten by all but her family until documents in relation to her were uncovered by stock exchange staff during Covid – and now there’s a room named after her in the grand old building.📲 To listen, find us wherever you get your podcasts.Clodagh Finn: How Oonah Keogh made history on the Dublin Stock Exchange in 1925

“A tough type of woman, at the moment growing quite a successful moustache... Not particularly intelligent, and does not seem [to] take her work very seriously”Despite this blistering account of her capabilities written by a training officer, Maureen O’Sullivan was one of the most successful Allied agents in the French Resistance, lasting seven months in the field compared to an average life expectancy of six weeks.Her fascinating life story has been uncovered in recent years and she’s been honoured in France.📲 To listen, find us wherever you get your podcasts. Clodagh Finn: In the footsteps of Irish secret agent Maureen O’Sullivan

Calling women pigs has been a trope to bring down women throughout history.The famous ‘pig-faced woman’ of Dublin was a trailblazer – in the 1700s she set up Ireland’s first public hospital using an inheritance from her twin brother.Working with artisans, builders, doctors and notable figures in Dublin society, her work provided the first freely available medical treatment to the city’s poor.The hospital she founded is home to the HSE today.🎧 To listen, find us wherever you get your podcasts.Clodagh Finn: If only we had hospital builder Madam Steevens in today's world

A single act of kindness by a Red Cross nurse to eight year old Manizha Khan would change the course of her life forever – that one action would save her from Taliban death threats twenty years later and lead her on her journey to Ireland.Growing up in Pakistan as a refugee, studying dentistry in China and returning to Afghanistan as a highly educated woman during the country’s brief years of liberation, Manizha was bound to be a target for the Taliban when the Americans pulled out.Working as Dean of a University Dental School, as the Taliban rolled into Herat and shots fired outside, she frantically printed student records – so they could prove they had studied, if the chance ever came again to resume education."I was in the university because the students were very scared that if university archive burns, then all their records will be destroyed.“We were printing records for the students and signing and stamping them.“My husband called, and he said the Taliban have entered the city, stop what you are doing, I'm coming to pick you up, just leave...“Some people started laughing and they're like, well done now, all you women, you will be going back home. You enjoyed freedom for 20 years. Now again, back home, sit in your home, raise children...These things were coming from the people who are working with us, people we called brothers, people we called colleagues."Read Manizha Khan’s article in this week’s Irish ExaminerIreland welcomed me, but new rules mean my path is impossible to follow

After months of living under suffocating Taliban rule, losing her much-loved job, encountering death threats and oppression, Manizha and her family escaped from Afghanistan thanks with help from an old friend. Arriving in Ireland at Christmas, Manizha and her family were welcomed warmly by their new neighbours in Rosscarbery."When we came, it was Christmas. And I remember when we reached Irish soil, my daughter said, where is Santa Claus? Because Dublin Airport was so beautiful with decorations.“We were in Reenascreena at the time and that house was so isolated and all the neighbours came to us. They brought us Christmas gifts. They brought us Christmas cards. They brought us cookies. They didn't let us feel lonely. It wasn't like a show, you know, they didn't come to see ‘that poor refugee family’. It wasn't like that.”“It was like, look at this refugee family alone here during Christmas.”Ireland is home now.“I think I am Irish. If God forbid tomorrow Ireland goes in war, I will be fighting for Ireland. I would die for Ireland. I won't let Ireland go to the same pain that Afghanistan went through.” Read Manizha Khan’s article in this week’s Irish ExaminerIreland welcomed me, but new rules mean my path is impossible to follow

Massive delays in parcel delivery, one operator gone out of business just weeks before Christmas and a growing sense that some stockings may be filled with IOUs this festive season has consumers all up in a heap.Irish Examiner columnist Caitriona Redmond has been keeping abreast of delivery problems this Christmas and she is the guest on today’s episode of The Deirdre O’Shaughnessy Podcast. Caitríona Redmond: Who is responsible when deliveries go missing from your doorstep?An Post Christmas backlogs grow as customers wait a week or more for parcel deliveries