The Clear Lens Podcast

The Clear Lens Episode 16: Neart Núr: Tending to the Forgotten Injuries on the Inside

In this episode we're joined by Claire Liddy and Eoin Keary from Neart Núr - a charity providing culturally sensitive, trauma-informed play therapy and psychosocial support to Palestinian medical evacuees in Jordan.
For over a decade, Claire's volunteer work has taken her from the refugee camps of Palestine and Lebanon to the underserved communities of Kenya. Her first trip to Palestine was in 2019 and in 2024 she completed her first psychosocial play therapy project in the A’mari camp in the West Bank.
Eoin met Claire through past charity work together and the two have joined forces to create Neart Núr. Join us for a conversation about their important work and the obstacles they have had to overcome from Israeli opposition and arbitrary entry bans to Palestine.

The Clear Lens Episode 15: The Decisions That Shaped The Irish Economy

In this episode Audrey Kissane and Daragh Cogley speak with author and historian Conor McCabe about his book Sins of The Father: The Decisions That Shaped The Irish Economy. We cover the place of the grazier in Irish society, from their post-famine rise to their special treatment under the new Irish Free State – to the detriment of the general Irish population.
The graziers were a class that financially benefited from the replacement of 2 million Irish people during An Gorta Mor (who either starved or emigrated) with 2.5 million cattle on freshly cleared lands.
We go through the decades after the establishment of the Free State, looking at how the government’s stubborn insistence on maintaining parity with the British sterling prevented the development of indigenous industry and saw instead the rise of foreign direct investment as the primary means to industrialise Ireland. We spoke also about the emergence of a specific kind of Irish capitalist entrepreneur – one that built a fortune around servicing the needs of multinationals – whether through building their companies, providing legal services, etc.
This is a really valuable episode. You’ll walk away with a deeper understanding of the nature of the Irish economy and an awareness of who it is designed - and not designed - to serve.

The Clear Lens Episode 14: We Only Want The Earth

Our people have always known the importance of right relationship with the land. That's why we revere the Goddess Éiriu, who represents the vital union between Sovereignty and Fertility and the embodiment of prosperity and abundance. It's why we respect the fairies - na daoine maithe - and their place in the unseen ecosystem.
Our fortunes, good and bad, were once well understood to be tied to our treatment of - and relationship with - nature. To this day you'll be hard-pressed to find an Irish person who would mess with a fairy fort!🧚‍♀️🌳 ☠️
We can view the way our people celebrated the coming and going of seasons as an intelligent way of ensuring the collective was living according to the natural metabolism of the season. These intelligent practices were forms of social technologies, ensuring harmony between people and the ecosystem that supported them.
Under waves of colonisation, Ireland gradually lost sovereignty and, with it, a lot of the memory of these practices. The separation caused by land clearances (to make way for cattle) led to a decline in fertility as the stewards of the land were evicted. Soil exhaustion caused multiple famines and was a direct result of unnatural, brutal and extractive colonial economics.
The partition treaty of 1921 didn't restore land sovereignty to the people. The colour of the flag flying in Dublin changed, but exploitative economic systems didn't. 
We need to pick up the abandoned demands of some of our greatest revolutionary figures, such as James Connolly - who inspired the title of this podcast. "For our demands most moderate are, We only want the earth." 
It's time for real sovereignty, which  belongs to the people and not "enterprise." 
With the urgency of the times we find ourselves in, where we could argue that WW3 has already begun, it has never been as important to be able to sustain ourselves. Ireland currently does not have food sovereignty. We are almost totally reliant on imports to feed us. This is manufactured precarity. One disaster and we could face crisis. Does this sound familiar?
The true wealth of the people begins and ends with sovereign, fertile soil  - not absentee landlords and investors. It's difficult to believe we could still be duped to believe the latter.
Resistance, like colonialism itself, has come in waves. The truest forms of working class led resistance have always been tied to the land - whether through demands like the end of landlordism or the reclamation of the earth itself, as Connolly so elequently put it.
Attempts to reclaim true Irish sovereignty can therefore be understood through what Marx called Eco-Fenianism. Have you ever heard of a more badass term than that? 🔥
Credit to Dr Eamonn Slater and his paper Irish Metabolic Rifts - Marx and Engels on Ireland for the analysis that inspired this conversation. You can view the paper here: https://irishmetabolicrifts.com/

The Clear Lens Episode 13: Epstein Deep Dive: Part 3 - Taking on the Epstein Class

In the 3rd and final part of our Epstein series, we look deeper into how this parasite class works. We talk about how even though they are a Godless class - and mostly believe in the power of science to transcend the laws of nature via transhumanism -  they understand well the power of using religion to galvanise, divide and distract the masses.
We talk about Ireland's place on the periphery of the core and what it means for the structure of our economy. We expose Ireland's comprador class and explain how it emerged with the free state and has been in power since. 
Most importantly, we talk about how this class can be taken on. The state is being used an an instrument to serve the interests of this class. How can we turn that around so the state serves the working class instead? And how can the working class unite and organise and show stronger levels of class solidarity than the Epstein class? Because that's what needed. And urgently so.

The Clear Lens Episode 12: Epstein Deep Dive: Part 2

How does the Epstein network connect to Ireland? How did a billionaire Saudi businessman buy Irish passports from Charlie Haughey? Who profited from the sale of the passports? Why did the archbishop of the Catholic church run a surveillance network that was so substantial it was praised by J Edgar Hoover - Director of the FBI? What was the scale of child trafficking from mother and baby homes to the United States, and who profited? What are the links to Direct Provision in Ireland? These are just some of the topics we cover in this episode.

The Clear Lens Episode 11: Epstein Deep Dive: Coherence Over Manufactured Chaos

This episode is extraordinary thanks to the research and groundwork Professor Cogley put in ahead of the recording. Instead of looking at the Epstein Files as a series of isolated events, it's vital that we look at it as a system. The goal with the drip release of incomplete files is to cause mass confusion. That's not the response the people should give.
By understanding the origins of this depraved ring and how people who have seats at the most powerful tables in the world connect to Epstein, we can understand the response that's actually needed.
This network didn't begin with Epstein and likely didn't end with him. We can connect much of the content of the files to world events today. This isn't over. It's very much still in motion.
We also need to bring what we learn from the files back home to Ireland. How do mother and baby homes and a little-known boys home named Kincora link to this human trafficking Web?
Don't miss this one.

The Clear Lens Episode 10: Anti-Imperialism and Class Unity

In this episode I talk with Roisín McAleer, founder of Social Rights Ireland, a grassroots group focused on education, activism and social rights in Ireland.
We talk about what led each of us to where we are now, some of the reasons why the working class is divided in Ireland now and who that serves and lots more.

The Clear Lens Episode 9: What’s Going on with Venezuela?

Has the US just liberated the Venezuelan population from an evil dictator?
Why did this US coup work when previous coup attempts by the US, such as the kidnapping of Hugo Chavez in 2002, failed?
And what do crippling economic sanctions have to do with the destruction and immiseration of the Venezuelan economy and people?
Sustainability and Economics Professor Daragh Cogley joins me to talk about these things and more.

The Clear Lens Episode 8: Reconnecting to the land through colour and Textiles

Malú Colorín's work connects people to the land through colour.
As a natural dyer, she uses plants and nature to transfer colour.
In doing so, she uses colour as a catalyst to remember her connection to the land.
She helps others to do the same through her workshops. She's building networks across Ireland to revive and rejuvenate a textile system based on local fibre, local dyes and local labour.
If you listened to my chat with Dr Rupa Marya and her food-as-medicine pilot project in Ireland, you'll recognise a recurring theme of remembering the value of local production and how they are built on the principle of care and not exploitation.
It's profoundly beautiful that Malú, a Mexican woman, and Rupa, an America woman of Indian lineage, are helping Irish people to shake off the scars of colonialism and remember our connection to - and trust in - the land.
I see both women as healers, helping Ireland to heal from the wounds of colonialism by building new and better systems built on care.

The Clear Lens Episode 7: In Defence of Irish Neutrality

This is the first live recording of The Clear Lens podcast with Head of The Transnational Institute Peace and Pacification Programme, Niamh Ni Bhriain. 
We talk about the myths surrounding the removal of the triple lock and the dominance of opinion in Irish media in favour of a more militarised Ireland - despite the fact that 75% of Irish people cherish neutrality. 
We have some good laughs along the way as we confront the scaremongering and outright lies from the government and the academic commentariat. 
Thanks so much to Hurst café in Clarecastle for the beautiful venue. If you haven't tried their ginger kombucha warmed up with dehydrated orange toppings, you've not yet lived!