Show overview
Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning has been publishing since 2023, and across the 3 years since has built a catalogue of 383 episodes, alongside 1 trailer or bonus episode. That works out to roughly 290 hours of audio in total. Releases follow a several-times-a-week cadence.
Episodes typically run thirty-five to sixty minutes — most land between 39 min and 52 min — and the run-time is fairly consistent across the catalogue. The publisher flags most episodes as explicit, so expect adult themes or strong language throughout. It is catalogued as a EN-language News show.
The show is actively publishing — the most recent episode landed 2 days ago, with 57 episodes already out so far this year. The busiest year was 2025, with 153 episodes published. Published by Joe Brolly.
From the publisher
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 will never try to sell you a penis scented candle. 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.
Latest Episodes
View all 383 episodesWhat’s Another Year? Israel and the Eurovision
Sleeping with the Stars
Heads I win, tails I also win: How private equity took over the world
Why Everyone Needs Free Money
The Story of Us, the Story of Gaza
Living with an AI psychopath
Handing the conscience of the world over to a king who has his shoelaces ironed
Urban-rural toxicity, a Guard's fears for Ireland and the even more toxic Roscommon-Mayo divide
Roger Casement - Rebel and Traitor? With Rory Carroll
Power and Control: How a manager falls to earth
The Premature Birth of a Nation with Sinead O'Sullivan
Why some people fail and some succeed. The story of Roy Keane and Ireland
Fuel me once: When Leo Varadkar ran out of diesel
How the fuel protests exposed the myth of Irish prosperity
The Killing Fields of Oil and Gas
Trump’s Derangement Syndrome
Open the F*****’ Strait, you crazy bastards: Who will stand up to Donald Trump?
Ep 366The country that defied an empire
Olivier Norek says he has never met a killer who wasn’t eaten inside by what they’d done. Before he became a writer, Norek was a policeman in the most dangerous parts of Paris and a humanitarian worker in the former Yugoslavia.On Free State today, Norek tells the story of Simo Hayha, the sniper known as the White Death, who fought for Finland during the Winter War when the Soviet Union invaded the country.He tells the story of how Finland, abandoned by the world to fight alone, stood against the Red Army, fighting for their communities.Norek researches his books the way he would investigate a crime and in preparation for the Winter Warriors, he spent a winter in Finland, experiencing the subzero temperatures in which Finns fought to defend their country.He tells us what the Winter War meant to Finland and how it shaped the world we live in today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Ep 365Victims in the Age of Perfection: The Social Media Pandemic
EWhen a California court ruled that Meta and YouTube had deliberately designed addictive products, many declared that this might be the Big Tobacco moment for the tech companies.The plaintiff was awarded $6 million damages. Meta’s revenue in three months last year was 60 billion dollars. Their share price was unaffected.On Free State today we ask what will it take to make a difference? If the social media companies are relaxed about the finding, is it because they know that there is no appetite to make real change?We look at the power of the addiction and the power Big Tech utilises to enforce its position.These powers rule the world now and one ruling may not make much difference. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Ep 364Why Ireland Lost - Living in the Age of Anxiety
ETrust the process has become one of world’s worst cliches. But what if the alternative was worse? What if ‘trusting the emotions all around’ was the other option?On Free State today Joe and Dion wonder why Ireland lose. The country will not be at the World Cup this summer. How much was this down to the Irish players’ inability to keep their heads and be led by the emotion that was all around them?Are teams more susceptible to this in an age when information and anxiety are all around them? What is the cure for the headlong rush to emotion and will Ireland ever experience it? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.