The Today Show spotlighted Irish tourism last week in the U.S., but now it’s Irish Stew’s turnto tell the tale to its global audience through the eyes of Stephen Cotter, managing director of CIE Tours International, a company with over 90 years of history bringing people to experience Ireland and beyond.

With cohost John Lee flying solo this time, the episode explores CIE Tours’ unlikely origins in the International Eucharistic Congress of 1932, the dynamics of its Irish Government ownership, its impressive international scale and reach, why it’s expanded beyond Ireland’s shores, the “secret sauce” that keeps visitors coming back, the off-the-beaten-track experiences it’s offering, Stephen’s photo op with the Taoiseach that made national news, and why the tourism industry has such a hold on him.

"The business just grabs you. There's never a dull moment," he says, reflecting on such non-dull moments like economic downturns and the COVID pandemic. “Every few years, you have something that's going to knock you back. There's always a challenge that keeps it exciting."

In a high-tech world, Stephen cherishes CIE’s high-touch moments. “What I like most about it is when I meet our customers. We’re just so privileged and so honored to work in a business that’s putting a smile on our customers’ faces.”

He knows he has an excellent product to sell in Ireland and all the CIE Tours destinations with a strong slate of tours on offer for each, but to him it’s the guides, not the itineraries, which keeps people coming back to CIE Tours.

“The biggest value on our trips is what the driver and the tour guide add to the experience. That is our ‘secret sauce,’ the crew working in all our destinations--Italy, Iceland Scotland, Spain and in Ireland,” he says. “You would not believe the testimonials that we get back. People just fall in love with the crew.”

The episode explores Stephen’s Dundalk boyhood, his early business experience bidding atBelfast furniture auctions, a marriage proposal involving a lamb in Sligo, and a framed photograph of the Taoiseach's father that turned a three-minute protocol stop into a major media opportunity.

And in a tourism-centric episode, it’s not surprising that the conversation might begin with the Burren, but it’s the bovine slant to the opening that’s unexpected.

"If you'd said to me 10 years ago, I'm going to be talking about cattle, no-fence collars and GPS, I would have said you were mad," he says of a CIE Tours sustainability initiative. The program facilitates cattle-grazing on the Burren’s winter uplands, which suppresses unwanted plant species from taking over and encourages the region's rare flowers to return each spring, which also encourages the return of tourists. Additionally, the relative ease of managing cattle remotely through GPS collars is helping keep young farmers in business bymaking grazing on this marginal land viable.

And what business conversation today doesn’t touch on AI? While embracing AI’s efficiencies, Stephen says, "People like people. Hopefully in my lifetime, that's never replaced by any AI computer or AI bot."

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• Media Partner: IrishCentral

Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 28; Total Episode Count: 169

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It don't mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

Fortunately, the latest Irish Stew guest has that swing. He’s transatlantic Irish jazz singer Austin O’Brien, out of Malahide, County Dublin, where Irish Stew cohost Martin Nutty calls home,

Co-host John Lee saw that this Irish jazz artist was playing at a New York outpost of the Malahide bar Gibney’s. he contacted Austin who invited him out to New Jersey for his recording session at the legendary Van Gelder Studio, where some of the greatest jazz albums were recorded.

In this episode the globetrotting crooner looks back to his Irish roots, saying, “I grew up in a very Irish family. There were like eight boys and two girls. And my granny had a shop, and they lived on Francis Street, which is like the belly button of the Liberties,"

In this episode he recalls his challenges pursuing music. "I was very shy, timid, and dyslexic, so I felt insecure, I can't write music. I actually hear music like a picture. I can hear and see a finished song just from an idea,” he says.

Like many artists Austin felt the pull of Paris where he now lives. “At clubs in Paris people come to dance, here in New York people come to sit and listen. It's like they say, if you can sing in Paris, you can sing anywhere,” he joked.

He recounts an almost mystical experience he had performing there in one of those clubs.

"I was singing in a very famous club in Paris called the Caveau de la Huchette and I could feel a mistake coming, Then it was like my dad was behind me, and he went, ‘you're going to be okay’ and I was able to get through it.” It’s a bittersweet memory for Austin as his father never heard him sing professionally. “He was meant to come to a concert but he died a couple of weeks before,” he says.

Following the footsteps of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Sonny Rollins, Wes Montgomery, McCoy Tyner, and more jazz legends to record at the Van Gelder Studio was career highlight.

"My drummer, Jonathan, says,’ hallowed ground, we're in Disneyland for a jazzman.’ The studio has stayed the same since 1959. They bow to nobody," he says.

Austin shares another heartfelt personal goal, to bring jazz and other kinds of live music into public school systems where there is need. Four times he’s brought his programs of live jazz and Irish music with Dave Brown mixed with motivational messages to the Cordero Community School in Hamilton, NJ and is now building a team to develop the funding sources and organization needed to make the program grow, with schools in Englewood, NJ showing strong interest in this outreach.

Jazz may not mean a thing if it ain’t got a thing, but what does it mean to Austin?

"I found out jazz is not a music, it's a culture, and that it's not how you play it, but how you interpret it"

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AUSTIN O'BRIEN

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VAN GELDER STUDIO

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Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 27; Total Episode Count: 168

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In 1975, three Catholic and three Protestant children from Northern Ireland stepped off a plane at JFK for a summer away from The Troubles. Fifty years later, their stories and the stories of the some thousands of children who followed are the focus of a new book: Project Children: The Legacy by Derry author Jane Buckley.

Launching Tuesday, October 13 at the Monaghan Peace Campus, the book is the centerpiece conversation Irish Stew co-hosts John and Martin had with Catherine Flood and Linda Croston, the volunteer forces-of-nature behind Project Children's 50th anniversary celebration in County Monaghan last October and the upcoming book launch.

Catherine, from County Monaghan and Linda from West Cork were already a seasoned team, running Croston Flood, a highly-regarded recruiting, consulting, and event management firm working across the New York tri-state area.

The Project Children 50th Anniversary celebration last October brought 350+ guests to Monaghan for 11 events over five days, which included a parade featuring the NYPD Pipes and Drums and a 750-person gala. It also marked the transatlantic move of the Project Children archive to the Monaghan Peace Campus, where the Project Children Stories exhibition now has a permanent home.

The heartwarming saga began with Denis Mulcahy, a Cork native and decorated NYPD bomb squad detective. He and his brother Pat believed that Catholic and Protestant kids who spent a summer together would grow up less likely to fight. More than 23,000 children went on to stay with 16,000 host families in 22 states.

"You're driven by passion. And sometimes it's a bit crazy and there's not enough hours in the day, but somehow it gets done." Catherine says.

Project Children; The Legacy tells the program's story in the voices of the children, host families, donors and volunteers who lived it. Ironically, Buckley applied to Project Children as a child and was never picked, so this book is her way of finally taking part in the grassroots peace project.

"This book really is a voice for everyone that has been part of the program," Linda says.

The official launch of Project Children: The Legacy will be Tuesday, October 13, from 7 to 9 PM at the Monaghan Peace Campus, featuring author Jane Buckley and Project Children guiding light Denis Mulcahy, special guests from the NYPD where Denis once served, and live music, all streamed throughout the Peace Campus. Launch day will be preceded by a Community Day on Saturday, October 10 and launch festivities continue in Belfast on October 14 and Derry on October 15.

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Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 26; Total Episode Count: 167

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