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Sean nós singer and songwriter Iarla Ó’Lionáird is Helen Shaw’s guest in this edition of The Family of Things. Iarla is the voice of the acclaimed Irish ensemble The Gloaming whose album by the same name has received multiple award nominations. Iarla grew up in Cúil Aodha in Co Cork in an Irish speaking community in what he calls ‘ a hive of song’ and along with his ten brothers sang, as a child, in Seán Ó Riada’s choir.

He talks about his relationship with his voice, his language and his creative journey from singing the cows back home to releasing his work through Peter Gabriel’s label Real World Records. Today he performs across the world not just with The Gloaming but also with operatic work by Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy.
 

Life and how we live it. 'The Family of Things': a new podcast featuring @iarlavox, well worth a download & listen. https://t.co/1nLjP9q5Yd

— Peter Gabriel (@itspetergabriel) February 24, 2015

 

Helen Shaw’s guest is Hans Zomer, Director of Dóchas, a development network, and lead organisation on the European Year of Development in Ireland.

Hans talks about being shaped by his Dutch presbyterian roots, his family’s experience of World War 2 and his childhood growing up in Cameroon. He speaks five languages but says he now feels Irish and dreams in English. 2015 is an action year for world development with two landmark UN events aiming to secure a new set of development goals and a global agreement on the environment and climate change. For Hans it is a challenge to all of us to ask and answer how can we make a positive difference in 2015?
for more details on European Year of Development Ireland and Dóchas visit www.dochas.ie

In Episode 3 of our podcast series The Family of Things presenter Helen Shaw talks to Trinity based physicist Dr. Shane Bergin. Shane says people often think science is ugly but necessary, while he thinks it is beautiful and essential. Shane talks of his passion to communicate science to the world and to inspire the next generation of scientists through his teaching work at TCD.

Shane is behind the award winning project ‘Dart of Physics’ and in this interview he describes nano-science and its future. As a scientist, researcher and teacher Shane is often in the public ear and eye through his work but he shares his love of music, his delight in cooking and baking (every weekend!) and talks about the people he admires including Irish President Michael D. Higgins and Nobel poet Seamas Heaney.

While Shane unpacks the world of science and education he also brought his favourite instrument along – the ukulele!

In the second episode of the series, Helen Shaw speaks to Irish writer Denise Deegan, author of the hugely popular Butterfly Novels for teenagers. More recently Denise has also adopted the pen name ‘Aimee Alexander’ under which she has started to self publish her adult fiction novels through Amazon.

Helen talks to Denise about her self publishing and where the idea for Aimee Alexander came from as well as taking it right back to the beginning to ask Denise when she started writing.
Denise, who has previously worked as a nurse, a checkout girl and a china restorer among other things, shares readings from her books, her approach to writing her novels and how her life experiences have been reflected in her stories and visa versa.
The full podcast is available now to download via the link below, and for now, here’s a preview of the episode where Denise tells a funny story of when someone from her neighbourhood has mistaken her for a famous figure (and not for the first time!)

In this first episode of ‘The Family of Things’ series presenter Helen Shaw talks to Irish poet Nessa O’Mahony about her life, poetry, what inspires her.

Having spent 15 years in journalism and public relations, Nessa O’Mahony was one of the first writers in Ireland to complete a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing in 2007. She is a published writer having released poetry collections and verse novels such as ‘Bar Talk’ (1999), Trapping a Ghost (2005), In Sight of Home (2009) and more recently ‘Her Father’s Daughter’ (2014)
In this episode, Nessa tells us how she first began writing and the inspiration and stories behind her poems as well as giving us an insight into her personal life by sharing tales from her childhood memories with her father to what her family really think of her writing.