The Family of Things: Episode 14 – Tony Bates

In this episode of The Family of Things Helen Shaw’s guest is the psychologist and author Dr Tony Bates. Tony founded Jigsaw the National Agency for Youth Mental Health, after a long career in clinical psychology.  His new book ‘Breaking the Heart Open‘ has just been published and the podcast was recorded as he began writing it. 

In this episode of The Family of Things Helen Shaw’s guest is the psychologist and author Dr Tony Bates. Tony founded Headstrong, (now Jigsaw),  the National Agency for Youth Mental Health, after a long career in clinical psychology.

He was the co-editor of Vision for Change, the mental health strategic review in 2006 and that work motivated him to create an NGO with a mission to provide mental health resources for young people. Jigsaw now has 13 centres across Ireland and has become a critical part of support services for young people in Ireland.

Tony is also credited as one of the people who brought the practice of mindfulness to Ireland following his own experience at the buddhist retreat centre in Plum Village, France with the spiritual leader Thich Nhat Hanh. He is the author of Coming Through Depression, a Mindful Approach to Recovery’

Listen back  via soundcloud or  iTunes and  Anchor.

The Family of Things – Episode 11: Rory O’Neill

Helen Shaw’s latest guest in The Family of Things is performer and accidental activist Rory O’Neill AKA the Queen of Ireland Panti Bliss.

Rory O Neill

Rory talks about his memoir ‘Woman in the Making’ (Hachette 2014) and his personal journey from growing up in rural Ireland to become a ‘national treasure’ as the drag queen Panti who he says has become a sort of ‘avatar for change’. Rory shares the highs and lows of the last two years since his celebrated speech on the stage of the Abbey Theatre which mobilised support for the Marriage Equality Referendum that was passed by the Irish public in May 2015.

The Family of Things – Episode 10: Eleanor Fitzsimons

Author and researcher Eleanor Fitzsimons is our latest guest in The Family of Things.


 
Eleanor Fitzsimons
 
Eleanor’s acclaimed biography of Oscar Wilde from the perspective of the women in his life ‘Wilde’s Women‘ opens new windows on both Wilde and his work.
 
Eleanor’s beautifully written and carefully researched study was published in Ireland in Autumn 2015 and is being released in the US this year. In this conversation with presenter Helen Shaw she introduces us to Wilde’s intriguing mother, Jane Wilde, a celebrated writer in her own time, and his much suffering wife Constance LLoyd as well as the women writers who influenced and inspired Wilde.
 
Eleanor describes her work as ‘recovering’ lost stories of women in history and sees her journey as akin to excavating the past; bringing forth what has been forgotten or obscured.
Wilde’s Women is published by Duckworth Overlook and you can follow Eleanor’s work and story via twitter.
 

The Family of Things 9 – Noirin Hegarty

In Episode 9 of The Family of Things, Helen Shaw meets Nóirín Hegarty, former Editor of the Sunday Tribune and now Operations Director with Lonely Planet, to discuss her passion for journalism, how it lead her on an unconventional career path but to her dream job, and how she balances these demanding roles with family life.

Nóirín Hegarty found her calling as a news reporter but moved into news management at just 25 years of age.

She was editor of the national sunday newspaper The Sunday Tribune at a time when there were very few women editors in Ireland and lead that newspaper from 2005 until it closed in 2011. Since then she’s been at the heart of digital change in the print industry but says she’s finally found her dream job with iconic travel brand Lonely Planet. She moved family and home to London to take up an editorial post with Lonely Planet but she then had the chance to open a Lonely Planet office in Dublin – bringing it all back home again.

In this podcast interview for The Family of Things with Helen Shaw, Nóirín talks openly about how tough and macho the editorial newspaper world was and how being a mother of three and a national newspaper editor was a challenging balancing act.

The Family of Things Episode 7 – Linda Buckley

Helen Shaw’s guest in this episode is Cork born composer Linda Buckley who writes contemporary music drawing inspiration from the world around her, from the soundscape of her childhood growing up on a diary farm overlooking the Old Head of Kinsale to other places close to her heart including Iceland. Buckley’s work has been performed by Crash Ensemble, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the University of York Javanese Gamelan to name a few, and its mix of vocal, acoustic and electronic sounds is often termed spacial music. Buckley draws references from medieval music and sees her works not just as compositions but as live engagements defined by space and audiences. The podcasts draws from Buckley’s work including Torann, Eriu, Chiyo, Telephones and Gongs, Revelavit, Numarimur, Do you remember the planets, Fall Approaches Jump and O Iochtar Mara, and you can find out more on her website www.lindabuckley.org.

thefamilyofthings.com/episode-7-linda-buckley/