Welcome to Episode 4 of the Merry Dance Podcast. I talk to the poet and novellist John Hurley about loneliness. John is approaching his 90th birthday and over lunch he told me that loneliness got the better of him this past Christmas and I invited to talk and meditate on how to counter loneliness in our live. Enjoy and share. Sé Merry Doyle

Sé Merry Doyle interviews Philip Stephens, former Political Editor of The FT, about his new book “These Divided Isles - Britain and Ireland, Past and Future”. Philip is a writer and historian, the author most recently of a widely praised account of Britain's post-imperial struggle to find its place in the world: Britain Alone - the Path from Suez to Brexit. He is a Contributing Editor for the Financial Times, where for 25 years he wrote a regular column about political and international affairs. ‍ In this quote Philips gives us a glimpse of what the future might look like 'I see the world as on the cusp of the most profound geopolitical upheaval since the end of the Cold War. If history was ever suspended after the fall of the Berlin Wall it has now resumed. I enjoy trying to make sense of this new, fractured and precarious world. I am a frequent speaker and moderator at international conferences, an Honorary Governor of the Ditchley Foundation, a Richard Von Weizsacker fellow at the Bosch Academy, and a member of the Board of the Franco-British Colloque. I grew up in London but have roots in Co Mayo in the west of Ireland'. style="float: left; margin: 0 15px 15px 0;"

The acclaimed author, Roland Philipps, came into the studio to be a special guest on the monthly Irish radio show “Bright Side Of The Road”, which broadcasts on Portobello Radio. Here Roland talks to the show’s presenter Piers Thompson, and also to the Producer Sé Merry Doyle and Rosalind Scanlon, about his fascinating new biography “Broken Archangel', The Tempestuous Lives of Roger Casement”. This powerful interview shines a light on Roger Casement, who was an Irish patriot, one of the greatest pioneering human rights campaigners of the 20th Century and one of most wronged LGBTQ+ Martyrs of the last century.