Róisín Meets...

Tony Blair’s former director of communications Alastair Campbell talks to Róisín Ingle about Brexit, Northern Ireland, #MeToo, his new book Saturday, Bloody Saturday, and lots more.

Canadian singer Johnny Orlando is a pretty big deal. When he was 8 years old, his big sister asked their parents if she could put a video of Johnny singing a song on YouTube. Fast forward a couple of years, and Johnny, who turned 15 last month, has amassed a following of over 10 million fans across his social media accounts, and there are tens of millions of listens on all of his songs on YouTube. He is frequently joined on his songs by Mackenzie Ziegler and in December the pair of them played a sold-out show at the Academy in Dublin. Róisín Ingle went along to see what all the fuss was about - she spoke Johnny and Mackenzie, as well as Johnny's dad Dale Orlando about his son's extraordinary fame.

Susie Q has played at the Electric Picnic and Body&Soul festivals, and she once opened for the Dalai Lama. This year she will release her debut album Into The Sea, which was written in northern California, in Spanish Point in Clare and at her home near Bull Island in Dublin. The first song to be released off of the impending LP, Home, has garnered a lot of attention online with its emotive video evoking images of the refugee crisis and immigration. Susie talks to Róisín Ingle about the song, keeping your head in a chaotic world and the well-being organisation she co-founded with Niall "Bressie" Breslin, A Lust For Life.

“Organising, for me, is another skill that can be learned,” says Sarah Reynolds, who has made a career out of helping other people become more organised in their own lives with her company Organised Chaos. On the latest Róisín Meets podcast, she tackles Róisín Ingle’s disorderly desk and gives her a pep talk on how to become more organised without getting stressed about it. Sarah also talks about her debut book, Organised, her Oprah Winfrey “A-HA!” moment and how after being trained by her hero Julie Morgenstern, she became Ireland’s first professional organiser and has been helping clients all over Ireland find their hidden organisation skills ever since.

Twenty-one years ago, Vince Cullen poured his last can of beer and promised himself that he would never drink alcohol again. Soon after, he began working with the Wat Thamkrabok monastery in Thailand and Buddhist-oriented drug and alcohol recovery centre, helping other addicts and alcoholics. On the latest Róisín Meets podcast, Cullen speaks to Róisín Ingle about his life as an Irish boy growing up in England, finding Buddhism and teaching meditation. Also on the podcast, Cullen speaks about buying 'The Hilltop’ pub in Carrigahorig, Tipperary and his plans to turn it into a residential mindfulness meditation centre, renamed ‘Nalagiri House‘; a pub with no beer serving mindfulness to those with a thirst for true happiness. On February 10th, Cullen will hold a one-day retreat at Ennismore (St. Dominic's) Retreat centre in Cork. You can find out about it here: http://hungryghostretreats.org/

It’s the middle of January and Jo Spain has just overseen the publication of the first of three books she has coming out this year. The crime writer says she has always been a nerd, but growing up on Dublin’s north side, she was “smart enough not to let people know how smart I was.” Spain talks to Róisín Ingle about happily leaving behind her decade-long career working with Sinn Féin at Leinster House to take up writing fulltime, after finding success with her Detective Tom Reynolds series of novels. She also talks about growing up poor in Belcamp, a part of Dublin that the Celtic Tiger missed, being one of the only people with a north side accent at Trinity College and her writing technique, which enables her to “bang out” the first draft of a novel in four weeks.

After his mother died when he was 12, Charlie Landsborough went off the rails and embraced a life of petty crime, spending two months behind bars when he was 18. He learned his lesson and turned his life around, embracing music, though he didn't find fame until much later. An appearance on RTÉ's Kenny Live in 1995 launched his career in Ireland and hi song What Colour is the Wind became a hit here. In this podcast, Landsborough speaks to Róisín Ingle about his almost famous moments with The Beatles and Roy Orbison. He also talks about spirituality, booze and why he is glad he didn't find fame until his 50s. Landsborough tours Ireland every year and is hitting the road here again next week, beginning in Derry on January 15 and ending in Drogheda on the 28th.

It's January, so that means it's time for Róisín Ingle to sit down with Padraig O'Morain to talk about mindfulness, kindness & self-compassion.

Hotelier, author, RTÉ presenter and National Treasure, Francis Brennan chats to Róisín Ingle about life, his new book Francis Brennan's Guide to Household Management and why you won't see him on Dancing with the Stars. He also reveals that the secret to being an organised person is... you're born that way.

Co Clare musician Sean O’Malley’s song Snow is the perfect Christmassy, winter tune to get you in the festive mood. He came into studio to perform it for Róisín Ingle, accompanied by his father Martin on guitar.

Irish author Deirdre Purcell tells Róisín Ingle why she will never say no to an opportunity if there's a 50-50 chance that she might succeed. Purcell, who has worked for Aer Lingus, been a professional actor, a travel agent and a journalist, before she came to writing books, speaks about taking risks and why she never looks back with regret. Her 15th novel, A Christmas Voyage, is out now.

She once had a date with Prince, she made (or destroyed) people's nights at The Ministry of Sound nightclub in London and she gave The Killers their big break. Now, Síona Ryan makes beautiful handmade chocolates with her company Coco Fan. She talks about her delicious treats with Róisín Ingle and lifts the lid on her bizarre date with The Purple One in Dublin in 1995.

Illustrator and comedian Aoife Dooley’s work centres on her affectionate parodies of fiery working-class Dublin women, which are informed by her own experiences growing up on the northside of the city and started out as a web series before her first book How to be Massive was published. The central character is the irrepressible Nikita who is never seen without her ‘hun bun’, dressed head to toe in Penny’s gear and loves a good spice-bag. She is back in Dooley’s latest book, How to Deal with Poxes and she came into studio to explain her world to Róisín Ingle.

Neil Delamere has been a comedian for more than 15 years now, having first caught the bug as a computer applications student at DCU after seeing Dara O’Briain, Deirdre O’Kane and Eddie Bannon perform at the student bar. Since then, he’s made a name for himself as a stand-up at home and internationally at the likes of the Edinburgh and Melbourne comedy festivals, he’s frequently on the telly on comedy panel shows lie BBC’s The Blame Game and he also has his own radio show, Neil’s Sunday Best on Today FM. He is just about to head off on tour with his latest show, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Pensioner which is inspired by a day spent delivering meals on wheels with his father, and came into studio to chat to Roisin Ingle before he hits the road.

Writer and broadcaster Maia Dunphy speaks to Róisín Ingle about her new book, The M Word: For Women who Happen to be Parents, her unconventional living arrangements with her husband Johnny Vegas, working with Podge and Rodge, scooping up orangutan poo and peeling bananas in Borneo in her 20s, and lots more.

In 1989 Miss Saigon debuted on Broadway. The musical, based on Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly, tells the tragic tale of a doomed romance involving an Asian woman abandoned by her American lover, set in 1970s Saigon during the Vietnam War. The show is currently at the Bord Gais Energy theatre in Dublin and two of its stars, Ashley Gilmour and Red Concepcion, joined me in studio to talk about why it is that Miss Saigon resonates with audiences, how it depicts the reality of the horrors of war and why it is as important now as it was in 1989. Miss Saigon continues at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in Dublin until November 18th http://bordgaisenergytheatre.ie/index.php/artist/miss-saigon

When Joanne McNally developed anorexia and bulimia, she didn’t just lose weight - she lost jobs, friends and fellas - but she didn’t care because she could wear bangles as belts and that’s all that mattered. Then one day, over her morning carrot, Joanne realised she’d lost her mind. Trying to entice it back became the hardest, funniest, greatest and weirdest time of her life, during which she began to write comedy. Her show, BITE ME is the result of that creative period and Joanne is currently touring the country with it. She took a break from her nationwide jaunt to come into studio and tell Róisín Ingle all about it.

What do you do when both of your daughters have been diagnosed with autism, your wife is depressed and your job has been made redundant? If you’re Aidan Comerford, then you become a comedian. After years of feeling like he was losing at life, he crowned the winner of So You Think You re Funny? at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2014, joining previous winners such as Peter Kay, Dylan Moran and Tommy Tiernan. This was his big break. But back in Ireland, on the same day, at a remote country cottage near a lake, Aidan’s wife Martha was searching for their young daughter who had gone missing. He’s written a book about what it’s like to make big plans, only for life to get in the way. It’s called Cornflakes for Dinner.

On Thursday April 20th 2017, Mark Earley’s life changed completely. His wife, Liane Deasy, died suddenly in her sleep at their home in Glasthule Co. Dublin, from nocturnal epilepsy. He was away in Australia at the time. Soon after Liane’s death, Mark began a blog called There Are Words, which he says is an attempt for him to understand her passing, to share his grieving process and to find something in such a tragedy. Liane loved sea swimming and Mark has found solace in it since her death. He speaks to Róisín Ingle about that in this podcast. He also talks about Liane and the kind of person she was, how the loss of her is still so raw for him and what he does to try and get through it. https://therearewords.com/

"Really, quite nightmarish," is how Emily Hourican recalls overcoming "second novel syndrome" for her latest book White Villa. In this podcast she talks to Róisín Ingle about the darkness of her time recovering from cancer and how she found the light again in her writing. She also talks about her upbringing as the daughter of an EU Commission employee in Brussels and how that has informed her writing, her fascination with friendship and how writing her cancer diaries in the Sunday Independent opened her up to the kindness of strangers.