Episoder

  • Nine months ago, Pat Sheedy walked out of prison after spending more than two and a half years locked up for trying to fund his decades-long gambling addiction through various scams. 


    After winning his first bet as a teenager, he quickly fell into a cycle of working, borrowing and stealing to make sure he could place his next bet. Long periods of abstinence - at one point he went 12 years without gambling - followed, but it wasn't until finally being given a custodial sentence in 2020 that he began to really reflect on the damage he was doing to other people. 


    Pat speaks to Richie just a few hundred metres down the road from where he placed his first bet in Limerick city today and explains why prison was the best thing that ever happened to him, describes the life of a compulsive gambler and how he's tried to make amends with the victims of his scams since being released last August.


    Episode is a Second Captains podcast. 


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • This week on Episode we're taking a mid-series break but fear not, Richie and Killian will be back on the road next week when we'll be bringing you another brilliant conversation. 


    Until then, a massive thank you for all the support for the show so far this series!


    Episode is a Second Captains production.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  • This week Richie and Killian travelled to Phibsboro to meet James Kavanagh at the home he's just about to leave after eight years for a new life in the countryside.


    Richie and James look back at James' teenage years, the earliest of which he spent locked up alone in his bedroom, his sanctuary from the homophobic bullying that dominated his time at school. He speaks about the reality of having no friends whatsoever until he was sixteen, darting from class to class to avoid other students and how he managed to start afresh and leave those days behind him.


    After the chat, Killian describes an experience both he and James have had in common with last week's guest, Donie O'Sullivan: recurring panic attacks and trying to manage them before they derail your day-to-day life.


    Episode is a Second Captains production.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • As Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC on January 6th 2021, a relatively little-known Irish journalist walked CNN viewers through exactly what was going on as it unfolded. 


    Donie O'Sullivan quickly became a household name, and within a few weeks he had decided to use his newfound platform to speak about the sometimes acute mental health issues which had been a part of his life over the previous decade. 


    In the three years since, Donie has continued to report on misinformation and conspiracy theories on the American right for CNN, all the while managing his evolving relationship with his own psyche.  


    He joins Richie today to chat about the way in which his personal experiences with irrational thinking guide his reporting on fringe groups like QAnon, how a diagnosis of OCD has brought more clarity to his life and how alcohol can muddy those same waters. 


    Episode is a Second Captains production. 


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • A few short weeks ago, a joint Oireachtas committee recommended that the Government legislate for assisted dying in controlled circumstances where a terminally ill person is approaching the end of their life. 


    The fight for legal access to assisted dying began back in 2012 when Marie Fleming, who had advanced multiple sclerosis, and her partner and full-time carer, Tom Curran took a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. They believed that there was a right to die and to be assisted in doing so under Irish law; the Supreme Court disagreed. 


    Despite the ruling and the threat of potential murder charges, Tom Curran publicly pledged to stand by a long-standing promise he had made to Marie. When the day came that she decided her condition meant her life was no longer worth living, he would help her to die peacefully and with dignity. 


    Today Richie sits down with Tom just over ten years after Marie passed away to speak about their life together, her determination to end it on her own terms, and his work to provide information on assisted dying to people in similar positions to Marie. 


    Episode is a Second Captains podcast. 


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • It's been a few months since we closed out series one of Episode sitting at Damien Dempsey's kitchen table, and to mark the first show of the new series, we're bringing you an exclusive interview. 


    Last week, Richie and Killian travelled to France to sit down with Vera Pauw at her home in the Dordogne, as she speaks publicly for the first time since the week the FAI declined to renew her contract seven months ago. 


    Vera describes the impact she felt the allegations published just before the World Cup in The Athletic about her time as manager of the Houston Dash - allegations which she denies - had on Ireland's World Cup campaign, and how she thinks she is now unemployable in the western world. 


    She also responds to Diane Caldwell's suggestion that everything Ireland achieved, including their first World Cup qualification, was in spite of Vera being their manager, and outlines the disconnect she feels with the team she spent four years with. 


    Episode is a Second Captains podcast. 


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • Today's season finale with Damien Dempsey is a beautiful journey through music mixed with some hilarious stories about Shane MacGowan, Ronnie Drew, and a live performance from his kitchen table that blew Richie and Killian away.


    In ten days time, Damien will take to the stage at Vicar Street for the first of six of his now iconic Christmas gigs at the venue, concerts which have taken on a huge emotional significance for his fans.


    Ahead of those shows and in the midst of recording his new album, Richie sat down with Damo in his home in Donaghmede to chat about that Vicar Street magic and how little pressure there is when you and the audience want the exact same thing: the best gig of their lives.


    Episode is brought to you by NOW and is a Second Captains podcast.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • Three years ago this month, Terence Power and Calvin O'Brien, two young Dubliners from the inner city, sat down at a kitchen table and recorded a podcast with one of their phones. That initial conversation spawned Talking Bollox, a podcast which quickly gathered huge momentum and has become one of the most popular shows in Ireland.


    One of the reasons for the show's success has been Terence and Calvin's frankness about some of the issues affecting their inner city communities, and today Richie sits down with Terence to speak about one of those issues which has been a feature of his life since childhood, addiction. 


    Terence describes growing up in a home where his mother found herself unable to cope and spent years in active addiction, how their relationship has been completely transformed since she began her recovery and had Terence's younger siblings, and his own recovery after years of cocaine and alcohol abuse. 


    He also speaks really candidly for the first time about his recent relapse, how it made him realise alcohol and drugs really hold nothing for him anymore, and the joy Talking Bollox brings him. 


    Episode is brought to you by NOW and is a Second Captains production. 


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • In March 1992, Zlata Filipović was an 11-year-old girl growing up in Sarajevo, Bosnia in a normal, middle-class family who kept a diary about all the everyday things a child of her age does: going to school, doing music lessons, visiting her grandparents. 


    Just one month later, Zlata's diary had begun to transform into an incredibly vivid description of a city under siege as the Balkans War reached her hometown. Towards the end of 1993, that diary became she and her family's way out of the city: picked up by a French publisher, it became an international bestseller in the midst of the war and Zlata, just 13 years old, became a media phenomenon. 


    She joined Richie in the Second Captains studios earlier this week and described the daily reality of life in a war-torn city, how overwhelming at times the coverage of the ongoing atrocities in Ukraine and Gaza have been, and how she and her family eventually came to resettle in Dublin in the nineties. 


    Zlata's story is truly incredible and feels particularly timely - we'd like to thank her for being so open and willing to share it.


    Episode is brought to you by NOW and is a Second Captains production.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • Today’s Episode is an extraordinary conversation with John Clarke, the husband and partner of forty years of the late Marian Finucane. It’s an intimate, raw and quite beautiful look at love and loss.


    In late 2019, Marian and John agreed that the time was right for her to call an end to her iconic decades-long broadcasting career with RTE. They set to planning their 'sunset walk' together: the trips around the world they hadn't yet got around to making. Then, in January 2020, Marian died suddenly. 


    This week, Richie and Killian travelled to John Clarke's home in Kilteel Co. Kildare to speak about he and Marian's relationship together - one that was described by a friend as being like 'two fifteen year olds who were addicted to each other and forgot to grow up' - and what life has been like without her. 


    At 87 years old, John describes the emptiness he felt without Marian's constant presence as lockdowns set in, his decades-long sobriety and the turning inwards that becoming a member of AA sparks, and how he and Marian dealt with the death of their daughter Sinead from cancer.


    Episode is brought to you by NOW and is a Second Captains production.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • Just a few short days ago, Shamrock Rovers manager Stephen Bradley celebrated an historic achievement for the club as he led his team to a fourth League of Ireland title in a row. But although he's our first guest on Episode from the world of sport, today's show is very much not about football. 


    Instead, it's a love letter from a father to his son. Last year, Stephen and his wife Emma experienced something no parent wants to: they were told their then-eight-year-old son Josh has leukemia, which he continues to be treated for. 


    Stephen sat down with Richie in his office earlier this week to describe Josh's incredible resilience and bravery in the face of debilitating treatment, the beautiful moment last season when Josh got to lift the League of Ireland trophy alongside the players just hours after leaving hospital, and how the public outpouring of support for his family has far outweighed the hurt caused when a group of Cork City fans openly jeered and mocked the Bradley's situation earlier this season. 


    It's at times a heart wrenching conversation but it's also filled with really beautiful moments, and we want to thank Stephen for being so open about such a difficult subject. 


    Episode is brought to you by NOW and is a Second Captains production.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • In 2018, Holly Cairns was 28 years old and had voted once in her life. In the five years since, she's been elected to Cork County Council, then to Dáil Eireann and in the last twelve months has become leader of the Social Democrats. 


    Earlier this year, having previously been vocal about the targeted, sexualised abuse she and other female TDs are regularly subjected to, Holly spoke for the first time about that abuse - normally faceless and online - escalating into a real-world situation where a man began showing up at her home in West Cork. 


    She speaks to Richie from her family farm about how that experience changed the way she lives day to day, why she decided that talking about abuse to journalists anonymously stopped making sense, and the dilemma she faces as the leader of a political party about when to be open and when to keep quiet. 


    Episode is brought to you by NOW and is a Second Captains production. 


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • Richie first met Dr Katriona O'Sullivan - an academic in Maynooth University's Department of Psychology - about seven years ago but at the time, he had no idea about her backstory: a childhood spent in extreme poverty in England as part of an Irish family in which both her parents suffered from long-term addiction issues.


    Despite being surrounded by adults and structures which continuously failed her, Katriona enrolled in Trinity College aged 23 and forged an academic career while raising her young family. She chats to Richie from her home in Dublin about the empathy she brings to speaking about her parents, how confiding in the people you're supposed to trust as a child brings no guarantee of safety, and how no one can lift themselves out of poverty without a system that's designed to help them do it.


    Earlier this year, Katriona published a bestselling memoir, ‘Poor’, laying out her incredible story in unflinching detail, a memoir which has now received two Irish Book Award nominations. 


    Episode is brought to you by NOW and is a Second Captains production.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • For the very first show of the series, Richie travels to Galway to speak to Tommy Tiernan, eight months after meeting each other for the first time on Tommy's chat show. 


    Chatting in his garden studio - The Hen House - Tommy describes how emotions feel like dangerous territory for him, how his complex relationship with his mother continues to evolve years after she took her own life, why psychotherapy has been fruitless for him, and the repercussions of misjudged jokes. 


    Episode is brought to you by NOW and is a Second Captains production. 


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • Richie Sadlier has followed an unconventional career path. He spent his early life as a professional footballer, and is now a psychotherapist and author. Like its presenter, Episode approaches people and subjects in a way that upends expectation.


    Having initially struggled to adapt after his football career ended prematurely, Richie started down the path of psychotherapy and today works as a therapist specialising in issues such as relationships, adolescent development and sexuality.


    In this podcast, he speaks to major guests about significant episodes in their lives that they’ve found intense, emotional or life-changing.


    Welcome to Episode with Richie Sadlier, starting Wednesday, October 18th.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.