In The News

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Glen Hansard died in the early hours of Wednesday morning in a motorcycle crash in the Strawberry Beds area of Dublin. He was 56. He was one of Ireland’s most well-known musicians who leaves behind an incredible musical legacy from a career that took him from being a teenage busker on Grafton Street to winning an Oscar for the song Falling Slowly. A lifelong activist, he was also a husband to Finnish poet Maire Saaritsa and a father to three-year-old Christy.

Irish Times writer Patrick Freyne once played in a band and they supported Hansard’s first band The Frames in the early 1990s.
Freyne traces Hansard’s career; talks about his ability to bring musicians together, his deep well of charisma and why he thinks the Dublin man had become the unofficial national bard.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Aideen Finnegan.
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Lorcan Tadgh Murphy, who was earlier this month jailed for murdering US nurse Mackenzie Michalski in 2024 in Hungary, had obsessively tried to pick up women across various European cities. Police in Budapest discovered that he had used a “spy pen” to covertly record his attempts, just as he had done previously in Dublin, where 16 women were recorded without their knowledge.

The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre has been concerned for some time at the increasing use of hidden cameras, smart glasses, pen cameras and other covert recording devices to secretly film women and girls without their knowledge or consent.

And as smart glasses are becoming more mainstream – Meta has already sold an estimated 10 million pairs of their its stylish Ray-Ban camera-enabled glasses – concerns are growing.

So if Murphy had been caught in Dublin in 2020 secretly filming women, would he have broken any law? Why do advocacy groups say these type of secret recordings are “often minimised as harmless”, but could in fact be “part of a path to future crime”? And what role do the makers of these devices, that could easily be used to secretly record, have in ensuring the public is protected?

News reporter Ellen O’Riordan explores this fast-evolving debate.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan.
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In 2019, Maura Higgins first arrived on our screens as a contestant on the reality show Love Island. She was a fan favourite from the get-go, with her longford accent, quick wit and love of bad language. Not everyone who leaves the Love Island villa can turn their five minutes of fame into a successful career, let alone, break America - but that’s exactly what Higgins has done in the years since her Love Island debut. Through high profile appearances on American TV, the 35-year-old is almost a bigger star there than she is here at home and she’s just been added to Time Magazine’s top 100 creators list.

So how has she done it? What is it about the Longford woman that continues to win over audiences? And could a recent move into acting signal where her career might go next?

In today's episode, journalist Kate Demolder takes a look back through Higgins' career and how she has reinvented herself along the way.

Presented by Bernice Harrison, produced by Suzanne Brennan and Andrew McNair.
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In the days leading up to Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s visit to Ukraine, tensions were running high on the streets of Kyiv. Protesters marched over president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s decision to sack his defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov. Young and forward-thinking, he was seen as the main mover behind the country’s drone strategy.

The marchers called for the sacking of the country’s army commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi. Zelenskiy eventually capitulated to the demands and the Russian-trained career soldier was ousted.

So how damaged is Zelenskiy after this political misstep?

Meanwhile, the war continues, with Russia launching its most sustained attack on the capital, and Ukraine responding with an attack on a vast goods depot inside the Russian border.

And what was on the agenda when Taoiseach Micheál Martin met Zelenskiy in Kyiv last Thursday?

Irish Times Europe correspondent Jack Power was in Kyiv and he reports for us on a turbulent week for Ukraine’s president.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan with research by John O’Connor.
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