Archives: Episode

One of the best experiences we’ve had with Banter this year was at Bloom in the Phoenix Park where we took over a tent in the Food Village for three days of talking and interviews. We started off our residency with this discussion featuring Damien O’Reilly from RTÉ Radio One’s CountryWide, Mairead Lavery from the Farmers Journal and Irish Country Living and Pat Lalor from Ballad Organic Farm and Kilbeggan Organic Foods talking about some of the issues which rural Ireland faces at the moment.

Recorded at our very last Banter event at the Twisted Pepper in Middle Abbey Street before the venue closed, a huge crowd turned out to hear us talk about the future of food shopping and supermarkets. Our panelists were Henry Dummer (director of marketing Tesco), Rachel Firth (general manager Fallon & Byrne), Joe Doyle (founder Donnybrook Fair) and Norman Rides (general manager Dublin Food Co-Op) and they talked at great length about what they see coming down the line about how we buy our food.

During The Big Grill BBQ festival in Dublin’s Herbert Park, we hosted a number of Banter sessions and one of them saw us talking music and food. We were joined by the legendary Levi Roots, the equally imfamous DJ Yoda and the notorious Billy Scurry to talk about the Venn diagram between food and music and why so many musicians have a blast when it comes to grub.

It’s very rare that we get to feature a MTV Video Music Award nominee at Banter but Brendan Canty ticks all those boxes. The Cork video director and film-maker was nominated for his work on Hozier’s “Take Me To Church”. During Eventbrite’s Do Business Better series in Cork over the summer, Brendan spoke to us about how he got started, the various stages in his career so far, the Hozier effect, the other projects he’s involved in and his motivation to keep on keeping on.

This week, we say hello to Kevin Barry, the author of one of our favourite novels of recent years, City Of Bohane. We caught up with the Limerickman at the Shannon Rowing Club in the heart of his native city during the Make A Move festival for a conversation which covered all the bases from freelance journalism, promoting raves and goths to Jim Kemmy, the people of Bohane, the art of writing and his new book Beatlebone about John Lennon and an island in Co Mayo.

We returned to the Cúirt Literary festival in Galway a few weeks ago for a chat about food trends with David Sax. David is the Canadian author of The Tastemakers: Why We’re Crazy for Cupcakes, But Fed up with Fondue and we talked at length about the business of food trends, what’s behind them and who decides what we eat and how we eat it. Many thanks to Dani and her team at Cúirt for all their help with this.

Meet the reluctant Banter guest. Nuala O’Connor is the Dingle-based writer and producer behind some of the most compelling Irish documentary films in recent years. She worked as a producer and writer on such shows as Bringing It All Back Home, River of Sound, The Raw Bar, The Limits of Liberty, Moment to Moment, the documentary about The Gloaming, and Céiliúradh, the celebration of Irish music and culture at London’s Royal Albert Hall during the visit of President Michael D Higgins to the UK last year. She joined us at Banter at the Kinsale Arts Festival in September 2014 to talk about her life and work.

We were chuffed to bits to welcome Matthew E White to Banter earlier this month. It was the last engagement in his current European tour and he joined us in Dublin’s Twisted Pepper for an evening of music and words. He talks about his two albums to date, his work with the Spacebomb collective in Richmond, Virginia and goes deep about the motivation behind his songs. Thanks a million to Liza Geddes at Friction PR and Colleen Moloney and Harry Martin at Domino Records for all their help in setting this up.

Welcome to the 50th Banter podcast! Thanks a million to everyone who has tuned in to date and for spreading the word about this series.

This one comes from the recent Shore Shots surfing film festival in the Lighthouse Cinema in Dublin. We invited surfing scene stalwarts Peter Conroy from the Irish Tow Surf Rescue Club, Ed Temperley from Magic Seaweed magazine, the legendary Brian Britton and Irish Surfing Assocation chairman Henry Moore to join us to talk about how Irish surfing went from its crazy, early days in the 1960s to its current state as a fast growing and developing sport and lifestyle.

This week, we meet Generation Z, the young men and women who were born since the mid-1990s and who are going to be running the world before very long. We brought four of them together recently at Dublin’s Twisted Pepper to get their views on technology, work, politics, privacy, entertainment, social enterprise, Ireland, climate change, culture, the future and a whole lot more besides. The four panelists were singer and musician Jessy Rose, poet and university student Melissa Kavanagh, secondary school student and games developer Jordan Casey and SpunOut contributor and Leaving Cert student Lia Grogan.

Bill Malone is Mister RTÉ2, the man tasked with ensuring that the TV channel kicks ass, broadcasts shows with bite and appeal and continues to keep Irish 15-24 year olds tuning in. The channel controller joined us at Other Voices in Dingle to talk about his life in TV, his role at the top of the RTÉ2 tree and what’s next from the station which has provided a home for Damo & Ivor, Connected, Drunk, Republic of Telly and, yes, Other Voices.

Say hello to Gavin Dunne, the Cork musician behind online music project Miracle Of Sound. Gavin joined us at the Vision Centre on Cork’s North Main Street a few weeks ago during the Quarter Block Party to talk to us about how something which began as an accidental enterprise writing and recording fan-songs for movies and videogames has become a micro-industry. These days, Gavin’s songs and compositions, all produced in his home studio and covering a vast range of genres, have pulled in over 50 million views across the internet as well as the interest of a rake of industry giants. The tale of the accidental internet star, no less.

Paul Galvin joined us by the fire in the back of Foxy John’s in Dingle last December for an in-depth interview during the annual Other Voices’ festival. A Kerry footballing legend, the Lixnaw man was at Banter to talk about his recently published book In My Own Words, his life on the pitch, fashion, hurling and much more besides. Indeed, as we find out, the previous time he was in Foxy John’s, high jinks ensued.

Una Mullally is no stranger to Banter audiences, as both a regular panelist and occasional host. In December, Una’s oral history of the campaign for marriage equality in Ireland, In The Name Of Love, was published by The History Press. To mark the publication, we were joined by Una, John Lyons TD and activists Tonie Walsh and Ailbhe Smith to talk about the story so far, what’s to be learned from the various victories and setbacks in the path to marriage equality and what lies ahead in the referendum campaign.

Last December, for the third December in a row, we set up shop by the fire in Foxy John’s in downtown Dingle during the annual Other Voices’ festival for two days of talking. Our first out-take from Other Voices 2014 is a conversation with artist Joe Caslin, the man whose large-scale murals of young men appeared on the walls of various towns and cities around the country last year as part of the Our Nation’s Sons series. Here’s Joe talking about his life, work and the inspiration behind those amazing murals.

Sali Hughes recently visited Banter to talk about her new book Pretty Honest. Sali is one of the leading beauty writers in the business, a woman who started out as a makeup artist to George Michael, Pet Shop Boys and Belinda Carlisle before turning to writing, commentating and broadcasting about the beauty world. On this occasion, we were delighted to welcome novelist and beauty fan Marian Keyes to Banter to host what turned out to be a very funny and insightful conversation with Sali.

A few weeks ago, we marked 100 Banter events with a very special night at Dublin’s Twisted Pepper. One of the panels on the night was the editors panel, featuring Kevin O’Sullivan, editor of the Irish Times; Des Gibson, editor of the Irish Daily Star; Ian Kehoe, editor of the Sunday Business Post and Kevin Blakhurst, Managing Director of News and Current Affairs and Deputy Director General at RTÉ. The four editors spoke candidly and at length about what they do, why they do it, the present of media and their views on what does and what doesn’t make the news agenda.

This week, we’re in St Multose’s Church in Kinsale for a conversation with Iarla O Lionaird. Recorded during last year’s Kinsale Arts Festival, this freewheeling chat with the Cork sean-nós maestro covers a multitude from his beginnings as a singer in Cuil Aodha, his early releases, various collaborations and his current role in trad supergroup The Gloaming.

From Banter’s most recent visit to Derry for the CultureTECH festival, here’s an indepth conversation with Canongate publisher Jamie Byng. Recorded at the historic St Augustine’s in the heart of the walled city, it’s our final podcast of this year, starring a fascinating character with some great yarns about his adventures in the publishing business so pull up a pew and hear what he has to say about everything from The Life of Pi to Julian Assange.

This is our penultimate podcast for the year and it’s a good one because it’s our now traditional Review of the Year podcast. Recorded the other week at the Twisted Pepper in Dublin, it features Rory O’Neill AKA Panti, Mick Wallace TD, Louise McSharry from 2fm and journalist Ann Marie Hourihane reviewing and rewinding the stories that caught their eye and the nation’s attention over the last 12 months. From Irish Water and the gardai to Pantigate and Garth Brooks and much more besides, it’s all here.