The ClearOut

In this episode, Dara is thinking about what comes next. Prompted by an article about Irish people signing up for their bodies to be preserved at death in the hope of waking up in the distant future,…

In this episode, Dara admits to being a bit exhausted after moving house for the fifth time since the pandemic. It is not the most fun he has ever had and the ongoing grief ripples over Pepper the do…

In this episode Dara is reflecting on masculinity for a couple of reasons. One is the continuing aftershock of the death of Pepper the dog, the other is because of the continuing presentation of a na…

In this episode Dara is stepping carefully as he negotiates a painfully recent family tragedy - the sudden death of Pepper, the beloved family dog. Still too soon to fully unpack the depth of his gri…

In this episode, Dara is looking at women's bits and how they continue to exert such a hold on so many onlookers, many with cash in hand, some holding other things. If the names Sydney Sweeney and Bo…

This episode is as on the nose as a John Lee Hancock film! No ambiguity, no grey areas, it's a celebration of the career of Emma Thompson. After recently rewatching 1995's Sense and Sensibility, Dara…

This week's episode is all about men and their flawed humanity. Reflecting on his childhood and adolescence, Dara is struck by the fact that he cannot identify a single serious, or substantial man. H…

In this episode, Dara has historical wrongs on his mind. He went to see In Plain Sight at the weekend, a striking and confronting piece of site-specific documentary theatre that addressed the history…

In this episode, Dara picks up a point from last week and wonders if we can simultaneously be and not be our thoughts and emotions. He asks of what use our emotions are to others. Are we just being s…

In this episode Dara is trying to disembed some of his thinking in an attempt to do better. The well-worn pathways in his brain contribute to narratives that he can't stop regurgitating and which are…

In this episode, Dara is concerned about egos getting out of control, and he has two specific case studies in mind - one playing out presently in the Middle East, and one that played out a long time …

Dara kicks off this episode celebrating the extraordinary story of Tina Turner and how she overcame the worst adversity to reinvent herself as an iconic figure of 80s and 90s popular music. Having re…

In this week's show, Dara talks about his experience of fatherhood and his ever-evolving relationship with his daughter. He continues to fall at the same hurdle on a regular basis - will he, or can h…

This episode has something for everyone. Dara kicks off with an acknowledgement of the show's 4th birthday before breaking down his fandom of Tottenham Hotspur in the wake of their recent Europa Leag…

In this week's episode, Dara reviews Ryan Coogler's rip roaring 'Sinners', a movie that defies easy categorisation but is infused with the director's characteristic heart, immersive world-building, a…

In this episode Dara is thinking about challenging moments and situations and the places we put them to help us cope better. After a very unpleasant accident that sent him to hospital, Dara laughs at…

In this episode Dara tries to thread the needle between domestic and personal crises and those of a much larger, humanitarian nature. Taking in current events in Gaza as well as historic instances of…

A hiatus imposed on Dara by life's steamroller has reminded him how non-performative the podcast continues to be. He reflects on the circumstances that rendered him incapable of recording over the la…

In this episode, Dara goes hard at Shakespeare! Following an urge to wrap his mouth around some Elizabethan verse, he stumbled across a perfect collection of Shakespearean monologues to quench his ap…

In this episode, Dara quietly reflects on 200 episodes of this thing that he does and tries, for the umpteenth time, to define what the podcast is all about. After all this time on the microphone, it…