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Hosted by Unknown Host · 🇺🇸 US · EN
Established thought leaders with verified media credentials.
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.
Unknown Host hosts Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning.
James McClean’s return to Derry hasn’t worked out as anticipated. But beyond the headlines, what was at stake when he was on the receiving end of abuse on social media, in the English media and from the football grounds
On August 14, Jason Arday was found unresponsive at his home in Battersea in London. In a statement, his family said they were "in shock to have lost this amazing father, partner, brother, uncle and son". They added that
"Can you tell us how he died, where and why?" On August 9, 2025, Mo Salah tweeted this above a Uefa post which said "Farewell to Suleiman al-Obeid, the Palestinian Pele". Salah's tweet has been viewed 140 million times.
Darragh McGee understands sport. As a Donegal man he understands the hold and the importance sport has across this land. So as an academic when he went to investigate the betting industry, he didn’t expect to discover al
David Hearn was once an Olympic canoeist. He was facing ten years in a federal prison for allegedly vandalising the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington DC before all the charges were dropped. ‘It’s a relief, b
Michael Thomas found the kind of success most writers dream of with his first novel, Man Gone Down, but his life and career took a different direction. Now he has returned with an astonishing memoir, The Broken King. On
July was the driest July on record in Ireland and the second hottest since 1900. Most of us have enjoyed this summer but should we just now accept our Mediterranean climate and whistle past the climate graveyard. O
In the 1980s, there were 21 days when the temperature in London reached 30 degrees. In 2026 there have been 24. In Greece, two died in a midair collision between helicopters fighting wildfires. France has seen the greate
Running agents during the Troubles has become one of the darkest element of the history of the north. John Ware has covered this story since the 1970s and produced a ground breaking Panorama on the topic. Ware talks to D
Can you put a price on what we watched at Croke Park on Sunday? What would you sell a Mayo victory in the All Ireland for? We know that what we watched affects us in ways that money can’t buy but Gianni Infantino thinks
Everybody wants to know how Mayo did it, but when something like this happens what is more important is why Mayo did it. Why did these players play without fear? Why did the world weep along with Mayo people on Sunday wh
Will the world have changed thanks to the World Cup? Or did the world change while the World Cup was taking place and people were too busy watching the World Cup to notice. On Free State today, the great novelist Joseph
Mayo have been denied in All Irelands in every way possible - balls bouncing over the bar, the referee blowing up early, own goals... they've also taken a few pastings along the way, but what will they do with the freedo
Did the World Cup final hit different from the million dollar seats or was the best thing about them the helicopter that flew you back to New York City? On Free State, today we ask who mourns the end of Gianni Infantino’
On the weekend of the World Cup final, Eamon Dunphy is our weekend guest. Dunphy reflects on his astonishing career in journalism, the price he paid for being an outsider and why he didn't care when he left the RTE panel
England lost at the semi final stage again but what does how players are shaped for professional football tell us about how they perform? England lose when they play a team more cunning than them but they have a sy
And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make. It made sense for Paul McCartney and it makes sense when we consider why we engage with whatever gives us pleasure in life. On Free State today we loo
Jeffrey Donaldson sits in a prison cell, waiting to be sentenced for the most horrific crimes. On Free State today we look at the rise and fall of Jeffrey Donaldson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more
Donald Trump destroys everyone in his orbit. His transactional nature means that eventually whoever is close to him is ruined Gianni Infantino might soon know how that feels. ‘I regularly discuss matters related to the F
You might not have heard of Helenio Herrera but without him, you might not have the modern football manager. Herrera was a lowdown and a dirty football manager who wasn't so much a pragmatist as an absolutist. He was ful
John Kampfner
author of Braver New World
1 appearance on this show
Aziz Abu Sarah
Palestinian peace activist and author · InterAct International
1 appearance on this show
Maoz Inon
award winning Israeli peace activist and social entrepreneur
1 appearance on this show
Sally Hayden
award-winning journalist and author
1 appearance on this show
Jamie Bartlett
author of How to Talk to AI (And How Not To) · Kenton boys
1 appearance on this show
Gianni Infantino
FIFA
1 appearance on this show
Sinead Gibney
Social Democrats
1 appearance on this show
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Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning is hosted by Unknown Host. The show is categorised under News (politics) and has published 0 episodes.
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