The Mick Clifford Podcast

With just a week left before polling day, we take a look at where everybody and everything stands in the general election campaign. Has any issue really emerged to shape the narrative? Who is having a good election? Who is not? And which entities are most likely to form the next government. Irish Examiner Political Editor Elaine Loughlin joins the podcast to give the rundown on where exactly we are at.

As polling day gets closer, the Irish Examiner and University College Cork have teamed up to present the Election Watch podcast. Have young people lost faith in Ireland’s politics? Is housing the number one issue this election? Will climate conversations really come up on the doorstep?Hosted by Irish Examiner columnist Mick Clifford, this podcast brings UCC experts and students together to examine these questions. This special podcast series comes direct from the UCC campus as we hear from a generation who could shape the result of this General Election.This week Mick Clifford talks to Irish Examiner's deputy political editor Paul Hosford, Dr Brendan O'Sullivan, Chartered Planner and Head of the UCC Centre for Planning Education & Research. Hayley O'Connell Vaughan, Communications & Events Officer, UCC Student Union & Reuben Murray, Gov & Pol student in UCC 

Showtime was what political guru PJ Mara once described as the start of a general election campaign but how is this one going? We have had skirmishes, Michael O’Leary, housing and cost of living. Where do we go from here and what impact could AI have on this election. UCC political scientist Theresa Reidy joins the podcast to discuss.

As polling day gets closer, the Irish Examiner and University College Cork have teamed up to present the Election Watch podcast. Have young people lost faith in Ireland’s politics? Is housing the number one issue this election? Will climate conversations really come up on the doorstep?Hosted by Irish Examiner columnist Mick Clifford, this podcast brings UCC experts and students together to examine these questions. This special podcast series comes direct from the UCC campus as we hear from a generation who could shape the result of this General Election.This week Mick talks to Dr Philip Murphy, Lecturer in Politics in UCC and 3rd Year BSc Government and Political Science students, Alice Bogue & Caitlin Holland and Mia Poland.

The posters have been printed, the canvassing routes worked out. The Taoiseach has made the call, the Dail has risen. Here comes general election 20204 with a handful of questions. How is everybody fixed? Who is going to win, who is going to lose and who will surprise us all. Irish Examiner political editor Elaine Loughlin joins the podcast to take a look at how the runners and riders at looking at the starting gun.  

Donald Trump won the US presidential election in what many are describing as the greatest comeback in US political history. But how did he, a convicted felon, a man deemed by a civil court as sex abuser, a politician who induced multitudes to falsely believe that the electoral system in the USA was rigged. And what will a Trump presidency bring to the country and the wider world. Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics at the Clinton Institute in UCD joins the podcast.

This week’s podcast comes from Pennsylvania, where Mick has gone to take the temperature and see what makes MAGA tick. We have contributions from some of those who attended a major Trump rally last Saturday in the crucial state and we also have an interview with Ray Wrabley, Professor and Vice President of Academic Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown, that gives a fascinating insight into what has changed in US politics in recent decades to an extent that a huge opening has been created for Donald Trump.

Catherine Cleary had spent her working life in journalism when in 2020 she gave it all up to grow trees. With a friend she set up a company called pocket forests, a social enterprise which caters for planting native trees and shrubs in small urban areas. She and her family also began looking for land in the west of Ireland where it might be possible to grow a forest. Her journey over the last four years has now been documented in a film, The Forest Midwife. Catherine is this week’s guest on the podcast.