The Mick Clifford Podcast

Martin McGuinness assured Rose Hegarty repeatedly that her son Frank would be unharmed if he returned to Derry. Rose believed him and Frank came back. It was a fateful decision and that fate is explored in a new book about spies in the North during the Troubles. Four Shots in the Night examines the Hegarty case and puts it in the context of the intelligence war that played a vital role in bringing the violence to an end. Author Henry Hemming is this week’s guest on the podcast.

A tumultuous week in US politics saw an assassination attempt on Donald Trump and his subsequent victory march through the Republican party’s convention in which the party threw itself at his feet. Meanwhile, Joe Biden candidacy continues to raise doubts. Professor Scott Lucas of the Clinton Institute in UCD looks back at the week and forward towards a hugely significant election for the next president of the USA.

Arthur Matthews is a well-known comedy writer whose work includes Father Ted and the musical I Keano. Now he has taken a very different turn and written about a polarizing figure in Irish history, Kevin O’Higgins, the man many associate with the policy of executions during the Civil War. Arthur talks to the podcast about his book, Walled In By Hate, Kevin O’Higgins, His Friends and Enemies

The UK elections has delivered a hammer blow to the Tories after fourteen years in power. Kier Starmer is the new British Prime Minister but what needs to change and what will change. Also, what will the result mean for Northern Ireland after the DUP suffer further losses and Sinn Fein marches on? Author and columnist Seamas O’Reilly is this week’s guest to take over the embers of the elections.   

Bertie Ahern, Roy Keane, the Saipan controversy and the great Tommie Gorman.

The recent successes of Irish athletes in the European championships have nicely teed up the forthcoming Olympics for most sports fans. Rashida Adeleke and Ciara Mageean among others have done the country proud. But is the success that they and others are enjoying a result of a the kind of well funded, structured system that exists in comparable countries, or is it in spite of the approach of the government that these athletes are showing their world class ability. Former athlete and sports journalist Cathal Dennehy has assembled strong evidence that it is the latter. He is this week’s guest on the podcast.

Some had billed the Euro and local election the most important in a generation. Others said they all say that. One way of the other there were shocks, surprises and a few very interesting takeaways. Irish Examiner Political Editor Elaine Loughlin gives the run down on all that went on all it tells us about what to expect in the coming months.

One of the most fascinating personal stories to emerge from the decades of violence in the North is that of Kevin Barry Artt. He was wrongly convicted of murder, on the word of a supergrass. He was part of a huge breakout from the Maze prison even though he wasn’t a member of the IRA. And he eventually became the focus of a concerted effort by the British government to extradite him from the USA to where he had fled. His story is now told by his onetime lawyer, Dan Lawton, who also moonlights as a writer. Dan is this week’s guest to talk about Hunted, The Kevin Barry Artt Story.

With European elections coming over the horizon next week we got political scientist Dr Theresa Reidy to tell us just what exactly we will be voting for. She outlines the job of an MEP, who is the best kind of person to send and what we should know about and expect from what is our parliament. Theresa also runs the rule over the novel mayoral election in Limerick which could herald the beginning of a new way of doing governance in this state.