Wigs On The Green

This week we sit down with Clare Daly, former TD and MEP for Dublin, and one of the most recognisable independent voices in Irish and European politics. Expelled from the Labour Party as a teenager, she went on to spend over 25 years in public life, from her years as a shop steward at Dublin Airport to 12 years on Fingal County Council, eight as a TD and five as an MEP. We trace her politics back to the 1980s: the divorce referendum, the anti-apartheid movement, college activism and beyond. We talk about the mass campaign against water charges she organised in north Dublin in the 1990s, which led her into electoral politics almost by accident, and what she found when she got to the European Parliament, including her account of EU militarisation, Irish neutrality and the war in Ukraine.We also put her trip to Iraq to her directly, along with the photographs that were used against her, and ask how she squares her own politics with the treatment of women in Iran. Find ClareI4C Trouble with Daly and Wallace (podcast, with Mick Wallace)Referenced in this episodeVijay Prashad, historian and director of the Tricontinental Institute · Abby Martin and The Empire Files · Medea Benjamin and Code Pink · Lowkey, the British-Iraqi rapper and activistIf you've enjoyed this episode, why not support the show?Find us over at patreon.com/wigsonthegreenpodOr follow us on Instagram & TikTok

This week we sit down with Laura Broxson, founder of the National Animal Rights Association and one of the most persistent voices for animals in Ireland. Laura went vegetarian at twelve and vegan at thirteen, and by fourteen she was an activist. She grew up in North County Dublin surrounded by rescued animals, and it was there, somewhere between caring for them all day and eating them at dinner, that the whole thing started.We talk about speciesism and what it means to be consistently anti-oppression, why Laura brings animal rights to the Irish left rather than treating it as a cause apart. She takes us through NARA's campaigns, from the fur farming ban she helped win to the undercover pig and turkey farm investigations she runs now, chosen at random and released to a public that keeps telling her it doesn't happen here. Somewhere in the middle she asks a question neither of us could answer: when did you last see a pig in a field?It could be a bleak hour and it isn't. Laura is unapologetic about wanting to end animal agriculture, but just as clear that no farmer should be left behind in the doing of it, and she points to research showing a plant-based Ireland could pay for itself. We close on blood sports, what is coming down the tracks in the Dáil and the small things any of us can do. If you eat animal products this might be an uncomfortable listen, but it is worth staying with.Find Laura NARA: naracampaigns.org Instagram: @naracampaigns · @veganicity Want leaflets or to get active in your area? Email [email protected] in this episode Ruth Coppinger TD, who worked with NARA on the fur farming ban bill Paul Murphy TD, who raised the pig farm footage in the Dáil Irish Farmers Association Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer Transition to an Irish Vegan Agricultural System by James O'Donovan, The Vegan SocietyIf you've enjoyed this episode, why not support the show?Find us over at patreon.com/wigsonthegreenpodOr follow us on Instagram & TikTok

Diarmuid Mac Dubhghlais AKA "Dougie" has spent his life showing up for his community. You'll find him on the GPO steps each evening with Muslim Sisters of Éire, distributing food and supplies. In Finglas, you might find him collecting winter coats and communion outfits for families who need them. As chair of the Finglas Suicide Prevention Network, working to break the silence around men's mental health. And in September 2025, as a mechanic aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla, sailing toward Gaza in international waters until Israeli forces came aboard.We talk about what brought him from Finglas to Cuba, Lebanon, Haiti, and Palestine. About running for local election twice and what it means to watch a community you've given your life to turn toward the far right. About making your will before you board a boat. And about why none of it has put him off.Dougie is raising funds for Sight Savers Ireland ahead of a polar expedition in January. If this conversation moved you, that's a good place to support.Find Dougie @dubhghlaisReferenced in this episode Global Sumud Flotilla Muslim Sisters of ÉireSight Savers Ireland fundraiser TG4 Cúramóirí seriesIf you've enjoyed this episode, why not support the show?Find us over at patreon.com/wigsonthegreenpodOr follow us on Instagram & TikTok

Jacqueline Kelly is a psychotherapist, matrescence practitioner, and founder of Our Brave Hearts, a community she built after becoming a mother herself and finding that the conversations she needed simply weren't happening.In this episode we talk about what it costs women to become mothers, why that cost goes unspoken, and who benefits from keeping it that way. We get into matrescence; the profound identity shift of becoming a mother that has no mainstream name, the mask of motherhood, mum guilt as a social construct, and what happens when you dare to climb down from the pedestal. We also talk about Jacqueline's decision to speak publicly about Palestine in October 2023, what it cost her in followers, speaking opportunities and professional relationships, and why she did it anyway.Mentioned in this episodeOur Brave Hearts: Wise Words for Mothers by Jacqueline Kelly, illustrated by Rosie LovelockMatrescence by Lucy JonesDr. Alexandra Sacks -- A New Way to Think About the Transition to Motherhood (TED Talk, 2018)Dr. Aurelie Athan, Teachers College, Columbia University -- researcher who expanded the concept of matrescenceDana Raphael -- anthropologist who coined the term matrescenceFrancesca Albanese -- UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territoriesSwords for Palestine -- weekly vigils at Swords Castle, North DublinIreland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC)Cunt by Inga MuscioFind Jacqueline ourbravehearts.ie | @our_braveheartsIf you've enjoyed this episode, why not support the show?Find us over at patreon.com/wigsonthegreenpodOr follow us on Instagram & TikTok

Andrea Horan is the founder of Dublin nail mecca Tropical Popical and previously has founded projects like The Hunreal Issues and No More Hotels. She has an interest in throwing glitter on issues without minimising them, which led her to co-present podcasts Don't Stop Repealin' and United Ireland with Una Mullally. She worked in strategic communications for 15 years in Thinkhouse and Edelman and gave a TEDx talk on 'Escaping the Economy of More' that informs her own mindset daily. The project she's most proud of is the exhibition ReNAILssance she produced with and in the National Gallery of Ireland. She was awarded the Irish Tatler Woman of the Year 2019 in the Influence category. She is obsessed with Dublin and campaigns on its many issues regularly.This conversation is a love letter to Dublin and a challenge to everyone who's given up on it. Andrea takes us from the Repeal mural that Dublin City Council tried to silence, through the dance floors we've lost to hotels, to why she turned down every offer to scale Tropical Popical into a chain. She makes the case that joy is radical, that friction creates sparks, and that the best thing you can do for this city is go into town.Find Andrea:instagram.com/andreadhoran instagram.com/tropicalpopical tropicalpopical.comMentioned in this episode:No More Hotels Give Us the Night Ardee House occupation / Revolutionary Housing League Jenny Maguire Hasan PikerIf you've enjoyed this episode, why not support the show?Find us over at patreon.com/wigsonthegreenpodOr follow us on Instagram & TikTok

Hamada is a biomedical engineering graduate from Gaza. For the past year and a half he has been building a financial bridge between the outside world and families inside Gaza; coordinating transfers, navigating the occupation's grip on the banking system, staying available at all hours to people who needed him. He never fundraised for himself.In this conversation we hear about his grandfather's displacement in 1948, what it felt like to be seven years old in the first war, and what Gaza actually was before the world started watching. We also hear what Hamada needs now, which is not a luxury life. Please share this episode and considering sharing even a small contribution to the below link.How to helpHamada is looking for a university place and scholarship to continue his master's in biomedical or any engineering discipline. If you know of anything, get in touch.Donate to Hamada's collectionIf you've enjoyed this episode, why not support the show?Find us over at patreon.com/wigsonthegreenpodOr follow us on Instagram & TikTok

Frankie Fenton is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and co-director at Kennedy Films. His work spans disability, gender equality and climate, screening in over 50 countries on Channel 4, Al Jazeera, PBS and RTÉ.In this episode, Frankie talks about the films that shaped him, nine years cutting his teeth in London post-production, and what drove him back to Ireland to make work that actually meant something. We go deep on Atomic Hope, his 2022 documentary following pro-nuclear activists, and why the nuclear conversation in Ireland is more urgent now than ever.It's Not Yet Dark on Apple TVAtomic Hope on Apple TVKennedy FilmsIf you've enjoyed this episode, why not support the show?Find us over at patreon.com/wigsonthegreenpodOr follow us on Instagram & TikTok

This episode was not planned for now. Pierre Yimbog had been booked well in advance, but when Yves Sakila, a 35-year-old Congolese man who had lived in Ireland for over two decades, died on Henry Street on 16 May 2026 after being restrained by security personnel, we moved the release date forward. Pierre Yimbog is Cameroonian-Irish, a law graduate of DIT, former Vice President for Education and President of DIT Students' Union, and the first ever President of Technological University Dublin Students' Union in 2019. He is Co-founder and COO of Black & Irish, Company Secretary of the Irish Development Education Association (IDEA), Co-Founder and CEO of SoloBook, and National President of Junior Chamber International Ireland.He is also one of the calmest, most measured people we have spoken to. Given the week that was in it, that calm felt like its own form of resistance.In this episode we talk about:Growing up Cameroonian-Irish in Rathfarnham and Dundrum, and what it took to find his voiceHow Black & Irish began as a conversation during COVID lockdown and became one of Ireland's most important advocacy organisationsThe stories that started it all, and how those stories have changed since 2020The death of Yves Sakila, what the Black and African community in Ireland are feeling right now, and what Pierre wants the wider public to understandThe pattern: George Floyd, George Nkencho, the November 2023 riots, and now Yves SakilaWhere the white Irish solidarity of June 2020 went six months later, when George Nkencho was shot dead on his doorstepWhether Pierre still has faith in Irish institutions, and the exhausting, necessary work of maintaining hopeWhat he wants from government right now, including the Private Security Authority, the National Action Plan Against Racism, and hate speech legislation that was quietly droppedWhat is next for Black & Irish, including their inaugural conference on 29 MayWe also talk, in the debrief, about bystander syndrome, the weaponisation of the Irish flag, and how radicalisation happens in small moves and can be undone the same way.Black & Irish Conference, 29 May 2026. Find details at blackandirish.com.LinksBlack & Irish: blackandirish.comBlack & Irish on Instagram: @black_andirishPierre Yimbog on Instagram: @pierreyimbogAmanda Ade on Instagram @amandaadeIrish Network Against Racism: inar.ieIf you've enjoyed this episode, why not support the show?Find us over at patreon.com/wigsonthegreenpodOr follow us on Instagram & TikTok