{"podcast":{"title":"Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning","slug":"free-state-with-joe-brolly-and-dion-fanning-6213217","podcast_index_feed_id":6213217,"rss_url":"https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/641338125bde790011089c5b","website_url":"https://shows.acast.com/free-state-with-joe-brolly-and-dion-fanning","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/cover/1678981116872-078471f28dd3685d12e6a3cc8147fbb4.jpeg","author":"Joe Brolly","episode_count":390,"summary":"Free State is a podcast for the curious that stimulates, provokes, challenges and entertains, while never taking itself too seriously. Free State covers topics from sport to politics, love to loss, the human condition and how to fix the world, with guests from across the planet including Nigerian princes, former Prime Ministers, ex convicts, footballers, boxers and extraordinary people from every walk of life. Free State is presented by Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning. Brolly is a barrister, an original thinker with a fascinating backstory, who donated a kidney to a stranger and then led a crusade to transform organ donation on the island of Ireland, and Fanning is an award-winning interviewer and author. They are not motivational gurus or life coaches. They are two people from very different worlds, with one core belief uniting them - this is not a high performance podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/free-state-with-joe-brolly-and-dion-fanning-6213217"},"episode":{"title":"How the fuel protests exposed the myth of Irish prosperity","slug":"how-the-fuel-protests-exposed-the-myth-of-irish-prosperity","published_at":"2026-04-14T00:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/free-state-with-joe-brolly-and-dion-fanning-6213217/how-the-fuel-protests-exposed-the-myth-of-irish-prosperity","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/free-state-with-joe-brolly-and-dion-fanning-6213217","url":"https://freestatepodcast.com","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/641338125bde790011089c5b/e/69dd6e5cdaa5b95957ef8737/media.mp3","summary":"‘Nobody has a right to blockade our country,’ Micheal Martin stated when announcing what the government would be doing in response to the protests that brought the country to a halt. But what does it tell us about the fraying of the social contract that people felt they had to take to the barricades in their country to demonstrate how desperate things have become? On Free State today Joe and Dion look at a week that might have changed Ireland and why the establishment doesn’t know how to respond. We ask who were the bad actors who tried to attach themselves to the protest and explain why they are being used as a distraction to avoid dealing with the fundamental problems in the country. Joe and Dion also discuss the piece by Sinead O’Sullivan which you can read here https://www.butthistime.com/p/mind-the-gap. Feel free to email info@freestate.podcast.com with your own thoughts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.","meta_description":"‘Nobody has a right to blockade our country,’ Micheal Martin stated when announcing what the government would be doing in response to the protests that br…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2632,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/free-state-with-joe-brolly-and-dion-fanning-6213217/episodes/how-the-fuel-protests-exposed-the-myth-of-irish-prosperity/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/free-state-with-joe-brolly-and-dion-fanning-6213217/how-the-fuel-protests-exposed-the-myth-of-irish-prosperity.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}