Tomás Connolly refereed at the highest levels of Irish football for 18 years — League of Ireland Cup Finals, Champions League duty — before hanging up his whistle. We talk about his journey from Inchicore goalkeeper to elite official, the infamous game he called off before a ball was kicked, and why refereeing and his career in trades education turned out to have more in common than you'd think. A wide-ranging, honest conversation with a man who's seen it all from the middle of the pitch.
Donagh interviews Tony Corrigan, a former banker who qualified as a solicitor in his forties, driven by a personal mission to seek truth and justice after state institutions failed his elderly mother, an Alzheimer’s sufferer and victim of abuse. The conversation covers systemic Irish failures — nursing home COVID deaths, the cervical cancer scandal, andthe children's hospital overruns — and Tony's view that Ireland's reliance on US corporation tax masks deep structural weakness.He also touches on his admiration for Roy Keane and the weekly parkrun as a source of personal focus.
Lauren Gaffney is the first guest on the Who Knew? Podcast — and a fitting one. We talk about the voice she never knew she had, the podcast she's quietly planning around life's messier, unscripted moments, and why she's more comfortable saying "I don't know" than a lot of people around her. She opens up about navigating illness, a winding road through universities and half-finished degrees, and what it looks like to lean into your interests when life doesn’t quite go to plan.