Róisín Meets...

Ahead of the annual Music Month on Róisín Meets next month, we bring you one from the archive. In 2016, Lisa Hannigan spoke to Róisín Ingle about the breakdown of her working relationship with Damien Rice, her third album At Swim and how working with The National's Aaron Dessner was the help she needed to get out of the rut she'd been stuck in. She also played three songs live in studio from that record. In a few weeks time we'll kick off the 2018 Music Month with music from Saint Sister, who have toured with Hannigan and count her as a mentor.

Liza Donnelly is an American cartoonist with The New Yorker and resident cartoonist of CBS News. She is also the creator of digital live drawing, a new form of journalism using a tablet to literally live-draw news and events, including the Oscars and the 2017 Presidential Inauguration. Liza was in Dublin recently and spoke to Róisín Ingle about live-drawing, how she got into cartooning, the Charlie Hebdo attacks and sexism in the industry.

Last year Caroline Foran's book, Owning It: Your Bullshit Free Guide to Living With Anxiety, was a runaway hit, becoming a best seller, surprising even her. Caroline was doing well – she’d overcome crippling anxiety, written a book about it and people had liked it. But the stress of promoting the book got to her and she realised she still had a long way to go in terms of confidence. She talks to Róisín Ingle about once again facing her fear and turning it into something positive with her new book, The Confidence Kit: Your Bullshit Free Guide to Owning Your Fear.

Arnold Thomas Fanning has written a searing personal account of mental illness in his book Mind on Fire. Recently he spoke to Roisin Ingle at the International Literature Festival Dublin about his illness, the depths he sunk too, shame and living to tell the tale.

American singer and performance artist Amanda Palmer was in Dublin the week Ireland voted to remove the 8th Amendment from the Constitution. As someone who has had three abortions and who has spoken publicly about those experiences, Palmer was overjoyed at the result and could be seen around Dublin in her REPEAL sweater in the lead up to the vote. She spoke to Róisín Ingle about the referendum, abortion and women's rights. They also spoke about life in Trump's America and Palmer sang Róisín's favourite song of hers, In My Mind.

In 2006, 12 years after they had fled the Rwandan genocide, 18-year-old Clemantine Wamariya and her older sister were reunited with the rest of their family live on US TV on the Oprah Winfrey show. On today's podcast, Clemantine speaks to Róisín Ingle about her memoir, The Girl Who Smiled Beads, which describes a childhood brutally disrupted by the genocide in 1994.

The Happy Pear twins, Stephen and David Flynn, are famous for their hand-standing, health-living ways, but on today's episode they reveal to Róisín Ingle that they were once Ross O'CK-style, beer swilling, rugby playing, jocks. They speak to Róisín about what it's like to be mirror-twins, there's also talk of time spent living behind a waterfall in Costa Rica and first encounters with a lentil. They also speak about their family-friendly event Playstival, aimed at getting kids off their screens and into the outdoors. It's in association with Laya City Spectacular and takes place at Airfield farm in Dublin on Aug 11th and 12th. Find out more here: https://www.playstival.ie/

Julia Kelly is the author of two novels, 2011’s With my Lazy Eye and 2014’s The Playground. Her third book, Matchstick Man, is a memoir about her former partner the artist Charlie Whisker and his Alzheimer's. She talks to Roisin Ingle about the book, which is a heart breaking and, at times, an uncomfortably honest account of the mental disintegration of a brilliant man and its effect on his family.

Former All Black rugby player and pundit Brent Pope and psychotherapist Jason Brennan join Roisin Ingle to talk about their new book - Win: Proven Strategies for Success in Sport, Life and Mental Health.

Louise O'Neill has re-imagined the Little Mermaid through a feminist lens for her latest book, moving the action to the Atlantic Ocean off the Irish coast. The Surface Breaks is her second new book in as many months, following on from her third novel, Almost Love, and comes just a few weeks before the stage adaptation of her award-winning second book, Asking for It, debuts at the Everyman Theatre in Cork. She talks to Roisin Ingle about the joy of seeing her book come to life on stage, the trouble with people confusing her writing for works of non-fiction and why she will never be tempted to publish two books in two months again.

The woman at the centre of the CervicalCheck cancer screening scandal, terminally ill Limerick woman Vicky Phelan, speaks to Róisín Ingle about the situation, calling it “disgraceful, saying it’s an absolute national scandal”. Vicky tells Róisín that the buck stops with HSE director general Tony O'Brien and that she doesn't understand how he could “have the balls to stay in the job at this stage”. Vicky explains why signing a non-disclosure agreement in her High Court case over her false negative smear test result was never an option and why despite being told she has between six and 12 months to live, she doesn't think she is going to die.

On the latest Róisín Meets 'Queen of Teen' Juno Dawson chats to Roisin Ingle about her new book Clean, feminism and why undergoing gender transition to live as a woman was like taking off a disguise she had been wearing her whole life.

After the discovery of an unsent teenage love letter, David Nadelberg began asking people online whether they knew anyone who wanted to share their hideously embarrassing childhood writings on stage. It went viral and Mortified was born. 15 years later, it's been a podcast, a stage show, a 2013 movie and now a Netflix show. There’s a Dublin Chapter of the movement and recently David was in town for a show. He spoke to Róisín Ingle about the teenage crush that spawned the movement, and lots more.

Vicki Ashman was a senior partner in an international law firm before selling off her part in the business and taking an early retirement in her forties. She tells Róisín Ingle why she swapped legal briefs for luxury knickers, Scrumpies of Mayfair. She also talks about the pros and cons of running a business with her husband Ian, how a chance encounter with a taxi driver saw her up sticks for a job in the Cayman islands, and what it's like to live in a house once occupied by one of Ireland's most powerful Catholic leaders, Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid.

Lying in Wait author Liz Nugent talks to Róisín Ingle about her new crime novel set in the Cote d'Azur, Skin Deep. She also talks about her life, the fall she had aged 6 and a half that nearly killed her, her husband Richard, why she's glad they chose not to have children, and lots more. Skin Deep, by Liz Nugent, published by Penguin Ireland, is out now.

Camille O’Sullivan has been treading the boards around Ireland and beyond for many years. As she returns to the Gate Theatre with Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece this week, she speaks to Róisín Ingle about the production. She also talks about the life-changing car accident that saw her ditch architecture for a career as a singer, her boyfriend the actor Aidan Gillen, how her four and a half year old daughter Lila has changed her, and lots more.

So far this year there have been more than 30 mass shootings in the United States, including the school shooting in Florida last month which killed 17 people and injured nearly 20 others. Last year, the U.S. saw a total of 346 mass shootings. This weekend protests will take place in every state calling for better gun control as part of the March For Our Lives. In this podcast, Róisín Ingle speaks to Mary Farley, an Irish-based American activist with Moms Demand Action, who are holding a sister rally at the U.S. embassy in Dublin this Saturday afternoon.

U.S. defence lawyer Dean Strang shot to fame when he provided legal representation for Steven Avery, twice convicted of murder in Wisconsin, who featured in the Netflix documentary Making a Murderer. In the past few weeks he has been in Ireland for a guest lecture series at the law department of the University of Limerick and has given a number of public talks on the role of the defence lawyer, including one entitled ‘How Can You Defend Those People?’ He speaks to Róisín Ingle about the latest developments in the Steven Avery case, how he came to be a defence lawyer in the first place and just what is wrong with the US justice system.

Tara Westover grew up in on Buck Peak, a beautiful mountain in rural Idaho, in a household that was in a perpetual state of preparation for the End of Days. Her family didn't talk about the summer, it was ‘canning season’ to them, a time spent furiously preserving peaches and other foodstuffs to stockpile for the inevitable End of Man. Westover’s father, a Mormon Survivalist, lived in fear of the ‘feds’ throughout her childhood, but with a divine belief that everything that happens in this world – good or bad – is God’s will. She wasn’t registered for a birth certificate until she was old enough to ask for one and because her father didn’t believe in doctors or the public school system, she had no medical or educational records by the time she left home at 17. On the first Róisín Meets podcast recorded in front of a live audience at The Gutter Bookshop in Dublin, Tara Westover talks to Róisín Ingle about her memoir, Educated. It tells the story of her childhood and explains how she went from bare minimu

Nora Twomey will find out this weekend whether she and the Irish animation company Cartoon Saloon have won their first Oscar for their film (which counts Angelina Jolie as an executive producer) The Breadwinner. The film is based on Deborah Eilis's novel of the same name and tells the story of 11-year-old Afghan girl Parvana. Nora talks to Róisín Ingle about the film, her entry into animation, working with Jolie, and much more.