The Corrymeela Podcast

In this, the final episode of the first season of the Corrymeela podcast, Pádraig Ó Tuama speaks to Martin Hayes, the renowned and multi-award winning fiddle player. Martin talks about how music carries culture, memory, place and possibility. As always, Martin has his fiddle with him, so he plays music that demonstrates his insight. We have a full transcript and some reflection questions here. Martin Hayes' website is martinhayes.com His albums can be found online or in music shops or directly from the store on his website. As we evaluate the first season of the podcast, we have a short feedback form (it should only take you a few minutes to fill in). We'd be delighted to hear from you.

A trailer for the final Episode of Season 1 Corrymeela Podcast, featuring the renowned fiddle player Martin Hayes, from East Clare. This special episode features a conversation with Martin about how music carries culture, memory, place and possibility and features him playing the fiddle as well as talking. Full episode will be released on Thursday.

Dr Lia Shimada is a a conflict mediator, a theologian and a geographer. She's used these wide-ranging trainings to work at the interface of migration, ethnicity, change, religion and conflict. In this wide ranging conversation we discuss her experiences working in conflict mediation in Belfast, her experiences of migration, and how living with the death of her newborn son Rowan has influenced her sense of place. As always you can find some reflection questions and a full transcript here. This is the second-last episode of season 1 of the Corrymeela Podcast. We would love a few minutes of your time to get some feedback via this link.. You can find out more about Lia Shimada's work on her website here. If you purchase ‘Mapping Faith; Theologies of Migration and Community' from the publishers you can get a 25% discount (valid till the end of 2021) by using this code: ‘B25D9F4' for the ebook and ‘MAPPING' for the paperback.

This episode of the Corrymeela features host Pádraig Ó Tuama speaking with Michael Davies. Michael is the founder and director of Parallel Histories, a UK educational company that offers new ways to study the history of conflict. In this conversation we consider the ways history is taught in Britain, how the crisis of narration can be possibility, and how religion education would benefit by being taught through historical approaches, not only doctrinal ones. As always you can find reflection questions and the full transcript here. And you can find out more about Parallel Histories here. As mentioned in the podcast, we would love to get your feedback on the Corrymeela podcast via this short form here.

This episode of the Corrymeela Podcast features Peter Sheridan. For many years he was known as one of the senior-most Catholics in the police in Northern Ireland, and his policing career spanned the reform of the RUC into the PSNI. At the age of 48 he made a career change and became chief exec of the peacebuilding charity Cooperation Ireland. As always you can find reflection questions and the full transcript here. And you can find out more about Cooperation Ireland here. As mentioned in the podcast, we would love to get your feedback on our Corrymeela Podcast via this short form here.

For this episode of the Corrymeela Podcast, host Pádraig Ó Tuama speaks with Dr Ebun Joseph — sociologist, author, speaker, and originator of Ireland's first course in Black Studies, based at University College Dublin. This wide ranging conversation approaches questions of Irishness and Britishness through narratives of race, discrimination and financial policies in places of employment. You can find reflection questions and a full transcript here. You can find out more about Dr Ebun Joseph's work at University College Dublin here, or follow her on Twitter at @EbunJoseph Her academic text book Critical race theory and inequality in the labour market; Racial stratification in Ireland, can be bought here.

Professor of Constitutional Law, Christine Bell, speaks to the Corrymeela Podcast about Peace Treaties, Brexit, the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement and Human Rights. Christine Bell is a co-director of the Global Justice Academy, and a founder member of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (established under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement). As always you can find a full transcript of the episode, as well as reflection questions, here. You can find out more about Christine Bell's work at the Edinburgh Law School here, or follow her on Twitter at @christinebelled

We were thrilled to speak to Irish rock legend The Edge, one part of U2. Born of Welsh parents and raised in Ireland, Edge has had longstanding interests in questions of politics, identity, belonging and religion. In this episode he speaks about all of these, and speaks, too, about how music has been the deepest call and passion of his life. Always interesting, always interested in learning, he shares what he's reading, and how he sees the work of reconciliation being important in a changing Ireland, as well as in a changing world. You can find some reflection questions and the full transcript by clicking here. U2's website is u2.com

A brief trailer from the Corrymeela Podcast's interview with The Edge, the legendary guitarist of the equally legendary Irish band U2. The full episode will be online — and in your podcast feeds — on the morning of Thursday 25th March, 2021.

We talk to the brilliant Claire Mitchell, a sociologist and writer from Belfast about Irishness, Britishness, border crossing, the unexpected advantages of a charismatic evangelical background, observations on religion from outside of religion, her grandmothers, and being a Lundy. As always you can read the full transcript and find some reflection questions for personal or group discussion. Claire Mitchell's website has links to her books and articles.

Our fourth episode is an interview with Professor Anthony Reddie who considers Britishness, Belonging and Brexit through a Black Liberationist Theological point of view. Incorporating stories of his working class upbringing in Bradford, his parents' part of the Windrush generation, and his interest in both theology and history, this interview is wide ranging and informative. As always we have provided a full transcript and some reflection questions for your personal or group use. Copies of Prof Anthony Reddie's book Theologising Brexit will be available in paperback from March 31st 2021 from Routledge. A link to his academic pages at Oxford is here.

Host Pádraig Ó Tuama interviews Rev. Dr. Johnston McMaster, who has spent decades - both as an ordained minister and as a writer and lecturer - considering the overlap between politics, history and religion in the divided loyalties on both sides of the border in Ireland. Full copies of the transcript — together with four reflection questions for groups or individuals — can be found through this link.Copies of Johnson McMaster's new book on the Churches and Partition can be found by contacting the publisher, The Junction, through this link.

For episode 2 of the Corrymeela Podcast, host Pádraig Ó Tuama talks with the poet Gail McConnell, whose forthcoming collection The Sun Is Open considers an archive-box of her father's writings, clippings, poems and pamphlets. He was murdered by the IRA in 1984. Gail also speaks about creaturely poetry, parenthood, living with loss, and identity. Full transcript of the conversation, and group discussion questions are all available here. Gail McConnell teaches at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen's University in Belfast. The collection of poetry discussed — The Sun Is Open — will be released by Penned in the Margins in the Autumn of 2021.

On this episode of the Corrymeela Podcast, host Pádraig Ó Tuama talks homeplace, religion, British-Irish politics, and leadership with former President of Ireland, Dr. Mary McAleese. This episode is filled with story, insight and the complicated art of compromise and negotiation. You can download the discussion question and episode transcript here. President McAleese's memoir Here's the Story is published by Penguin.

Host Pádraig Ó Tuama gives a preview of season 1 of the Corrymeela Podcast, a season considering Irishness and Britishness in 2021: a year with Covid; a year marking the centenary of the partition of Ireland; and the first year of Brexit. For all our interviews, we asked our guests some 'Very Short Story Questions' - questions you might want to ask yourself, or people you know. You can find these questions here. (We don't broadcast all the answers the guest gives to these, just one or two.)