The Deirdre O'Shaughnessy Podcast

16 year old Grace Lynch was killed by a scrambler bike in January, while out walking near her home in Dublin.Her heartbroken parents Siobhán and Martin immediately embarked on a campaign to ensure nobody would suffer as they had, seeking legal changes to take scrambler bikes and e-scooters out of the hands of children.Their campaign has already forced the introduction of Grace’s Law, banning the use of scramblers on public roads, but a combination of legal loopholes, lack of enforcement and a non-existent tracing system means, they say, there is much more work to do.They’ve received death threats and online abuse as a result of speaking out – with little legal recourse.When they approached social media giant TikTok about abusive AI videos of their deceased daughter, they were asked to provide a death certificate.Today the couple will speak before an Oireachtas Justice committee.Listen to their story on today’s episode of The Deirdre O’Shaughnessy Podcast. Gardaí call for 'dedicated pursuit training' to deal with dangers of e-scooters and scramblers'I felt like I had to protect her': Grace Lynch's mum recalls harrowing moments after her deathGrace Lynch's mother gets death threats for seeking scrambler bike ban on public roads

American mother of one Jamey Carney is the eighth woman to die violently in Ireland this year.Her body was discovered in her Killarney home just one day after that of Adina Constantin in Portlaoise, whose husband has been charged in connection with her death. Gardaí have launched an international manhunt in their investigation into Ms Carney’s killing.Since the murder of Ashling Murphy in 2022 prompted widespread outrage, 40 women have died violently in Ireland.Women’s Aid, the National Women’s Council of Ireland and politicians across the spectrum have highlighted their concern at what Taoiseach Micheál Martin referred to this week as the femicide figures “going in the wrong direction”.Irish Examiner Southern Correspondent Liz Dunphy has been covering this story and joins Deirdre on today’s episode. Killarney murder: Jamey Carney's cousin says 'no indication' she had safety concerns'Societal response' required to fight epidemic of violence against women, says TaoiseachNumber of women violently killed ‘not going in the right direction’, says TaoiseachHusband charged with murder of his wife in Portlaoise

With Bessborough in the news due to controversial building plans, those who survived the notorious institution are telling their stories in unprecedented numbers. Cork County Councillor Dominic Finn is one of three ‘Bessborough babies’ who sits on the local authority – a remarkable statistic, but one that he believes just shows how common adoption was in Ireland in the 1970s.In today’s episode, he tells Deirdre O’Shaughnessy about his happy childhood as one of four adopted children in Cobh, his search for his birth family, and how grateful he feels to have escaped the fate of so many less fortunate Bessborough babies.Read Dominic’s interview with Irish Examiner reporter Sean O’Riordan here: Cork councillor adopted from mother and baby home reunited with birth parents and six siblingsThe Deirdre O'Shaughnessy Podcast: Paving over Bessborough's missing babies

This is series 2 of An Irishwoman’s Diary from The Deirdre O’Shaughnessy Podcast, search in your podcast app for An Irishwoman’s Diary to find the six-episode Series 1.  Bridget Coll’s story reads like fiction — a thriller even — just as the many words used to describe her don’t seem to fit together: nun, lesbian, teacher, militant, law-changer, even “home-wrecker”.This “tiny woman with a fierce heart” from Fanad Co Donegal protested in Chile and made legal history in Canada. But at home in Ireland, her story isn’t so well known.Clodagh Finn: Bridget Coll — nun, lesbian, law-changer, and militant

This is series 2 of An Irishwoman’s Diary from The Deirdre O’Shaughnessy Podcast, search in your podcast app for An Irishwoman’s Diary to find the six-episode Series 1.  A precursor of Cabaret, the show about ‘a bad girl with a heart of gold’, became the go-to show in Dublin for a brief period in the 1950s, against all the prevailing morals of the time.Asked later why it hadn’t been banned, as JP Donleavy’s The Gingerman was, Archbishop John Charles McQuaid pointed out that the character of Sally Bowles wasn’t Irish, and therefore didn’t present a threat to the morality of Irish women.The star of both shows was Genevieve Lyons, an actor, theatre maker and writer who lived a very unconventional life. Her performance as Sally Bowles caused a brief craze for berets in fashion starved Dublin, and she wrote many books – one, about the famine, owed its name to Princess Margaret.In this episode Clodagh Finn recounts the story of a self-described “lunatic traveller” who though often penniless followed her creative dreams.Clodagh Finn: The Irish woman who made ‘Cabaret’ a hit in Ireland long before the Broadway musicalAn Irishwoman's Diary series 1: Meet the Irish women who left their mark on history 

This is series 2 of An Irishwoman’s Diary from The Deirdre O’Shaughnessy Podcast, search in your podcast app for An Irishwoman’s Diary to find the six-episode Series 1.  Once described as “Ireland’s ablest female journalist”, the exploits of war correspondent Gertrude Gaffney have been largely lost to history.Her travels throughout Europe – on the front in the Spanish Civil War, in Gdansk as the Germans approached, and at the Maginot line in 1940 – were chronicled in the Irish Independent.Clodagh Finn shares the story of this incredible journalist whose work brought the sights and sounds of World War Two right onto kitchen tables throughout Ireland.Clodagh Finn: Gertrude Gaffney — intrepid war correspondent and Ireland’s ‘ablest woman journalist’An Irishwoman's Diary series 1: Meet the Irish women who left their mark on history

This is series 2 of An Irishwoman’s Diary from The Deirdre O’Shaughnessy Podcast, search in your podcast app for An Irishwoman’s Diary to find the six-episode Series 1.  Countess Joan Fitzgerald was a pivotal figure in medieval Ireland, immensely wealthy and powerful, but as a woman it was her marriages that defined her power.From the immensely wealthy Fitzgerald family – the Desmonds of Munster, who owned ten castles, her first marriage at age 16 was to James Butler, an Ormond of Kilkenny, aimed at linking the two great Houses.His death by poisoning caused some concerns in London – she was too powerful to be left to her own devices – and she was married off to an Englishman, Sir Francis Bryan, who was referred to by Henry VIII as his ‘Vicar of Hell’.She chose her own third husband from among her own allegiances, and made peace between the warring Ormonds and Desmonds, later being described by Queen Elizabeth as ‘the angel of peace’. The peace she negotiated fell apart just a month after her death.Read Clodagh’s column here: Clodagh Finn: Formidable medieval women deserve much more recognitionAn Irishwoman's Diary series 1: Meet the Irish women who left their mark on history

 This is series 2 of An Irishwoman’s Diary from The Deirdre O’Shaughnessy Podcast, search in your podcast app for An Irishwoman’s Diary to find the six-episode Series 1.She competed in three separate Olympic games; competed for Ireland in hockey, tennis, sailing and cricket, and even won the support of Eamon deValera who sought her out to compliment her “fine race” at Trinity College in the early 1950s.But Maeve Kyle fought against all the odds, including her own in-laws, when she decided to compete in the Olympics despite having recently become a mother for the first time.A letter writer to the Irish Time described her as a “disgrace to motherhood” , but she blew off the criticism to become a popular sporting figure and the backbone of athletics in Ireland for many years.Irish Examiner columnist Clodagh Finn joins Deirdre to discuss the woman who became known, rather inaptly, as ‘The Kilkenny Kitten’.Read Clodagh’s column here: Clodagh Finn: They called Maeve Kyle a disgrace to motherhood — then she became an Irish Olympic iconAn Irishwoman's Diary series 1: Meet the Irish women who left their mark on history

This is series 2 of An Irishwoman’s Diary from The Deirdre O’Shaughnessy Podcast, search in your podcast app for An Irishwoman’s Diary to find the six-episode Series 1.She campaigned for healthcare for infants, set up an almshouse for the poor, introduced carpet weaving to Ireland, bred silkworms at her home and, rather incongruously, took shooting lessons to stop her brother-in-law bullying her (it worked!).Lady Arabella Denny (yes, like the sausages – a distant branch of the same family) was a woman before her time.Irish Examiner columnist Clodagh Finn joins Deirdre to discuss the woman who left very explicit – and unusual – instructions for what was to be done when she died.Read Clodagh’s column: Clodagh Finn: The life and extraordinary death of Arabella DennyAn Irishwoman's Diary series 1: Meet the Irish women who left their mark on history