The ClearOut

In this episode, Dara takes the time to pay respects to the recently departed Glen Hansard, whose untimely death shocked and rocked so many, both here in Ireland and further afield. Hansard's band The Frames really were part of the soundscape of 90s Ireland as it emerged out of the dark years of the 80s into a newly discovered energy and confidence that ushered in what felt like limitless frontiers.Although Dara didn't have a big relationship with The Frames, they were close enough in age and through mutual connections that they felt very familiar at all times. There was also a period when Dara was occasionally mistaken for Hansard because of a superficial similarity in appearance, a happenstance that one time led to free food being delivered by a starstruck waitress!Dara tries to articulate what Hansard meant to so many and he reckons it had something to do with the special alchemy that can occur between a live performer and their audience. Do the frontmen of bands have a particular monopoly on this very particular energy? Is it in their gift, or is it bestowed on them by adoring fans? And where does that energy go when the performer is no longer with us?Mojo is a quality that is not reserved for singers, actors, and other public figures. Dara argues that it is a quality of something magical that on some level exists in all of us. He recognises it in his father, who is much diminished by dementia and about to turn 84. How do you quantify that!Website: https://theclearout.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theclearoutpodcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theclearoutpodcast/YouTube: The ClearOut PodcastEmail: [email protected] Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theclearout Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Dara is going full Greek as he embraces the epic telling and retelling of Homer's The Odyssey, now Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. Notably, the film is being promoted not with a tagline, but with a declaration of the mode of its making - shot entirely on 70mm IMAX cameras! But is that the film's only selling point? Surely not.In an epic, spoiler-filled episode, Dara tries to reconcile the film version with the more faithful Homeric renderings of the adventures of Odysseus, with due reference to critiques not just of Nolan's version of the ancient tale, but also of his entire body of work. Eventually other tellings of the story are also considered, including Uberto Pasolini's 2024 film, The Return.Finally, Dara tries to sum up what the lasting significance is of a story as old as The Odyssey. He digs out something he wrote 13 years ago in his attempt to nail it.Website: https://theclearout.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theclearoutpodcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theclearoutpodcast/YouTube: The ClearOut PodcastEmail: [email protected] Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theclearout Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Dara is apologising for going missing last week, but he has a good excuse - he was in hospital! Struck down with a level of pain he had never previously experienced, he had to abandon his journey to get help and have an ambulance come to the rescue. It turned out it was just a little old kidney stone! The disruption to his normally rude good health gives reason for pause. What is it to be well? And what does care look like?Dara shares some principles from his martial arts practice that inform ideas of connectedness and care provision, including self-care. He talks about being grounded, embracing gravity, and holding space, something that he argues is most effective when the ego is set to one side. Ultimately though, the argument is one for connection, which is the antidote to the social fracture and isolation that seem to be the keynotes of our current moment.Two recent splashy sci-fi films speak to this form of loneliness - Project Hail Mary, an entertaining Spielberg facsimile, and Disclosure Day, an actual Spielberg film but one that pointedly lacks his magic touch. Dara reviews the films on their own terms but also in relation to the idea of connection and how that is a cornerstone of the Spielberg ideology - contact can be made, and we will be all the better for it!Website: https://theclearout.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theclearoutpodcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theclearoutpodcast/YouTube: The ClearOut PodcastEmail: [email protected] Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theclearout Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Dara is scratching his head at yet another mammoth failure of the England football team. He has genuine sympathy for the players who have once again come unstuck at a crucial moment in a top tournament. And to add insult to injury, the destroyer of English dreams came in the form of their old nemesis Argentina, who turned in a schizophrenic performance of pure cynicism and fearless, fluid attack. But this defeat lies on the shores of Albion and has been years in the making...Annie Lord has got Dara examining the gender wars again as she releases her first novel, which is predicated on the seemingly evergreen premise that men are utterly useless and can only become optimal catches with female intervention. That idea is not so disturbing in and of itself, but the way it is presented in such matter of fact terms is just as problematic as the equivalent Manosphere rhetoric.The Bessborough House controversy continues to rage while the Irish government struggles to locate its moral compass. Dara once again argues for the importance of public reparation and atonement as essential for healing wounds that are deeply embedded in the national psyche.Annie Lord profile: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jul/12/people-treat-each-other-as-disposable-dating-columnist-turned-novelist-annie-lord-on-love-and-sex-in-the-age-of-appsWebsite: https://theclearout.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theclearoutpodcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theclearoutpodcast/YouTube: The ClearOut PodcastEmail: [email protected] Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theclearout Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Dara is feeling as angry as many others about the controversy around Bessborough House, the former mother and baby home that has one of the darkest legacies of any of the institutions that had Catholic Ireland in a stranglehold for much of the twentieth century. He tries to understand the indescribable moral failure of the Irish government to do the right thing and the importance of public acts of reparation to heal psychic wounds of such generational magnitude.A recent viewing experience touched on themes of faith, penance, guilt and redemption. Dara praises the many strengths of the HBO series Task, and singles out the performances of Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey as two characters on a collision course who are spiritually closer than they may have thought. But it is their emotionality and sensitivity that really set them apart - why is that so appealing?The World Cup is in full swing and Dara points out how the ongoing brilliance of the former Spurs striker Harry Kane continues to be somewhat unsung. An absolutely singular talent whose consistently prolific goalscoring has reached new heights since joining Bayern Munich a couple of years ago, there is a possible explanation for why Harry is not hailed as he should be - his very ordinary face!Finally, and harkening back to the backdrop of repression that coloured so much of the religious hypocrisy that allowed places like Bessborough to thrive with impunity, Dara recalls Ken Russell's 1971 masterpiece The Devils, a psychosexual exploration of religious fanaticism and barely contained sexual compulsion that featured indelible turns from Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave as church figures caught in the crosshairs of puritanical zeal. Once seen, impossible to unsee!Website: https://theclearout.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theclearoutpodcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theclearoutpodcast/YouTube: The ClearOut PodcastEmail: [email protected] Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theclearout Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Dara is reckoning with his Instagram addiction. Why does the algorithm keep sending him such juicy morsels? Why is it so enjoyable, yet so insubstantial? And who are these women who convince so many men that a great parasocial relationship is about to begin? And what was that one comment that prompted the substance of this episode?Dara considers the nature of 'real' men and women. What are they? Who qualifies and who doesn't? Is it purely aesthetic, or is there another way to differentiate the real from the unreal? Perhaps it's just another absurd reflection of online discourse. What is and isn't real can be a very subjective experience.Dara has been telling himself a story for over thirty years that has felt very real. It is a destructive and harmful story that his brain keeps convincing him to return to, no matter that there is substantial evidence that should lead in an entirely different direction. He considers the power of the stories that create our neural pathways. They are as habitual as any addiction. What makes them so alluring? Why are they so comfortable? And can they be changed?Website: https://theclearout.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theclearoutpodcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theclearoutpodcast/YouTube: The ClearOut PodcastEmail: [email protected] Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theclearout Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Dara is considering the concept of scaffolding and how it might be applied as a wellness metaphor. Utilised in the world of developmental psychology to describe evolving stages of cognitive growth and early learning, the basic idea relates to baby steps and layered instruction to help someone become more independent. Borrowing also from the world of construction, why can't scaffolding be applied to self-care?The question is about what we put in place to help ourselves stay up. And is it an act of delusion to tell ourselves we can impose either meaning or order on the chaos of existence? Dara argues for the value of repeated actions and patterns that help set our personal metronomes of daily living. He also wonders if we can imbue these habits of survival with more ritualistic significance.And what does the consumerism-capitalism axis have to do with any of this? It has something to do with notions of happiness, completion, and arrival. And maybe even sex!Website: https://theclearout.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theclearoutpodcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theclearoutpodcast/YouTube: The ClearOut PodcastEmail: [email protected] Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theclearout Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's end-to-end movies this week as Dara recalls his most vivid memories of the film scenes that shocked, scandalised and horrified him from as young as six up to his mid-twenties. It started on TV with the 1980 adaptation of James Clavell's Shogun. In that memorable mini-series, the beautiful Richard Chamberlain was subjected to an unimaginable indignity that made young Dara blush to his socks. Surely there weren't worse things still to come...From Jaws (1975) through Happiness (1998) to Irreversible (2002), featuring directors such as Tarkovsky, Aronofsky, Clarke, Coppola and Cimino, as well as provocateurs like Verhoeven and Stone, there's something grim and gross for everyone. This isn't lascivious wallowing, it's a reckoning with innocence and shockability - two very finite experiences.Dara concludes that the scariest stuff was the least horror-coded, and the things that are more likely to disturb and upset him now are connected to love, grief and family.Website: https://theclearout.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theclearoutpodcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theclearoutpodcast/YouTube: The ClearOut PodcastEmail: [email protected] Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theclearout Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Dara is trying to make sense of his relationship to repetition. What compels him to adhere so faithfully to his exercise routines? What is he trying to achieve? Or prove? And do those habits cross over to other areas of his life? He argues it is connected to his liking for order and rightness. He also acknowledges it has something to do with small 'c' conservatism and his own flavour of idealism.Idealism can be routinely dismissed by a sneering world as immature and unrealistic, but Dara makes the case for it being the most important thing we might have. He believes it is something sacred that can be at the very heart of our integrity. It can be the one thing that enables us to hold our centre and keep our heads when the whole world feels like it is going to blow.He concedes there may be something masochistic and self-punishing about continually subjecting oneself to further physical and psychological testing, but that happens to be the type of idealism he favours and he sees no reason to change it anytime soon. If it ain't broke...Website: https://theclearout.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theclearoutpodcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theclearoutpodcast/YouTube: The ClearOut PodcastEmail: [email protected] Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theclearout Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Dara is considering the merits of low bars. How can you talk about heatwaves when it's only 18 degrees? Very easily actually, when you live in Ireland! How can you celebrate being the fourth worst team in the league? With the greatest of ease when your team has underachieved so badly for two straight years. But it's a fine line between understanding the usefulness of lowered expectations and giving in to total complacency and the complete absence of any standards at all.Dara tries to shoehorn the low bar measure into two romantic films he recently watched - The Remains of the Day (1993) and Crossing Delancey (1988). The former is a period drama of almost unbearable emotional repression and suppressed longing, the latter a de facto period piece by virtue of being set in 80s New York. Neither film is flawless - in one there is no climax, only loss and regret; in the other a consummation that is barely worth the wait - but they are well written and acted, and don't call unnecessary attention to themselves.What does call attention to itself is the soundtrack of Crossing Delancey, which consists of some appalling 80s compositions by The Roches, a vocal group from New Jersey whose members were three sisters that came up in the 70s folk scene. Could that be the same band that recorded the beautiful Hammond Song less than a decade earlier? And what did Paul Simon do to inspire that superior work?Oh, and happy 5th birthday to the pod! Toot-toot!Hot Press 2019 article on The Roches: https://www.hotpress.com/music/secret-story-roches-happened-critically-acclaimed-folk-group-22792416Website: https://theclearout.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theclearoutpodcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theclearoutpodcast/YouTube: The ClearOut PodcastEmail: [email protected] Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theclearout Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Dara is weighing up winning and losing. His football team is driving him to the brink of all-consuming rage, so much so that he sought out escapism in a TV show dedicated to gory bloodletting, heartrending betrayals, and gratuitous equal opportunity nudity. One climactic moment was so compelling that the vicarious exultation caused Dara to leap from his chair, fists thrust emphatically skywards in celebration. One standout performance is given special mention.A much-needed release? Or simply happy for a favourite character doing well? Deeper probing reveals thoughts on how extreme emotions can be very telling, especially when they are a break from the norm. Dara acknowledges a need for something to cheer, even though generally he finds life gives him plenty of reasons to be grateful. Nonetheless, he does ask if you think you have a life worth sharing. What would that look like? And what is the role of gratitude and perspective when it comes to evaluating what one has?Things accumulate, things bite, things corrode...Website: https://theclearout.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theclearoutpodcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theclearoutpodcast/YouTube: The ClearOut PodcastEmail: [email protected] Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theclearout Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Dara is wondering why he feels so exhausted. Is it because he has switched from standby mode to being fully turned off? Do we struggle to fully relax because we so seldom do it? And does this connect to more than just the usual life concerns that trouble most of us? Is it possible it may be connected to the remorseless self-branding, self-commodification, and self-selling of the tech age?Dara advocates for resolution over optimisation. Strip it all back until there's nothing left but the elemental self. Return to one true thing and proceed from there. He knows there is a connection between that position and the idealism that drew him to acting and martial arts as a young man. In those two pursuits he was trying to find things he could not find elsewhere in his life. But that same idealism dulled his senses at times and led to missing things that were right in front of him.Also in this episode, a Robert Duvall connection, uncertain orientation, the wisdom of bendy trees, and the importance of sharing our burdens with others.Website: https://theclearout.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theclearoutpodcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theclearoutpodcast/YouTube: The ClearOut PodcastEmail: [email protected] Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theclearout Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Dara is wondering how 250 episodes have come along so quickly. It hasn't been an effortless process by any means, but somehow the show (or 'the tell') has kept trundling along, quietly going about its business. And what business is that, exactly?Amongst other things, it has been an offer of quiet and reflective positivity in the wake of the Covid pandemic and an alternative to much of the shrieking discourse of an increasingly distressed world. It has also been the attempt to cultivate a genuinely authentic and honest voice via personal storytelling and unapologetic vulnerability. It has largely been monologues with occasional and welcome guests, but the conversation has been primarily between Dara and whoever has been listening. Finally, it has continued to try to be...'Wellness, with attitude'.For this special milestone episode, Dara decides to share an extended extract from a piece of writing that he started a couple of years ago. Part memoir, part autofiction, part identity excavation, 'Monkey-Boots' is something that will hopefully become a book at some point in the future, but for now, like Dara, it's a work in progress.If you have been, thanks for listening!Website: https://theclearout.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theclearoutpodcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theclearoutpodcast/YouTube: The ClearOut PodcastEmail: [email protected] Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theclearout Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Dara is reckoning with the elusive nature of grace. According to the major religions, and Judaism specifically, it is 'a free gift of love' from the Almighty. But if not given by God, from where else might it come? Is it something that we can bestow on ourselves? What conditions need to be in place for that to happen? Is it possible it might come from the award-winning TV show The Pitt? Part of the pathway to grace may involve the total leaving behind of the self. Difficult to achieve most of the time when it involves others, almost impossible when it involves oneself. But there's something about entering a flow state than seems to bring it more into reach. And speaking of flow, what is flowing in the deepest, defining part of ourselves?Time and space are part of the conversation too. If we allow ourselves to be slaves to the tyranny of time, it is unlikely we will access anything resembling inner calm or presence of mind. So much potential resides in the directions we point ourselves and the pathways we are interested in uncovering. Also, if we can't see ourselves, how can we find ourselves?Dandelion heads, karate kicks and Irish gangsters are also in the mix.Website: https://theclearout.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theclearoutpodcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theclearoutpodcast/YouTube: The ClearOut PodcastEmail: [email protected] Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theclearout Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.