The ClearOut

Dara presents the second of two parts of an in-depth interview with author, artist, and abuse survivor, Aisling Creegan.

Aisling grew up in the 1970s as the youngest child of a large Dublin family, bu…

Dara presents the first of two parts of an in-depth interview with author, artist, and abuse survivor, Aisling Creegan.

Aisling grew up in the 1970s as the youngest child of a large Dublin family, but…

Dara begins this week's episode by looking at the Irish discomfort with self-approval and putting it in the context of small-island, village mentality. He argues that it is a product of a damaged nat…

In this week's episode Dara reflects on a week in recovery from Covid and realises he enjoyed dropping down to his slowest gear. It prompts him to think about the benefits of living with one's defenc…

Compromised by a cold-induced fogginess of brain which precludes his normal freestyling approach, Dara decides to recite some American poetry from the Confessional School, and cautiously takes on All…

Dara kicks off this episode with a revelation from his daughter, follows it with a plant the size of three Manhattan islands, and then discusses a black actress getting hate online after appearing in…

In this episode Dara is very pleased to be celebrating a year of The ClearOut. He revisits the last twelve months and talks about some of the other ways he was spending his time.

After last week's ser…

In this episode Dara thought he was going to keep it light and stay firmly in the positive psychology territory of inspirational quotes and personal motivation, but he ended up being led by the recen…

In this episode Dara is thrust back to his childhood by a concert of John Williams music, and specifically the music of the Star Wars films. That event, and his recent watching of Matt Reeves's The B…

Episode 50 is here and we're going long! It is an absolute whopper of big ideas and small confessions. Dara informs on himself and his lifelong relationship to sugar and how a recent flashpoint with …

In this mental health-focused episode, Dara reflects on a recent spell of bad form and speaks openly about some of the personal trickiness he has faced over the last couple of years. He talks about h…

In this episode Dara is prompted by a recent homophobic hate crime in Ireland to examine tolerance in a social context. He wonders whether the moral good of tolerance is as effective as the moral goo…

In this episode Dara has a good look at the bestselling 1997 New Age text, The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, the Mexican spiritualist and New Age thinker. The four agreements in question relate…

In this episode Dara reflects on a recent conversation he had about where and in what way the self should feature in the pursuit of happiness. One argument emphasises total immersion in self as a mod…

In this episode, Dara lets the topic be led by the Will Smith slapping incident at last Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony. He unpacks some of the possible lines of analysis in the current climate of i…

In this week's episode, Dara is set off by a tweet from a female account that first explicitly requests pictures of beautiful men - 'rides' is the term of desire used - and then disclaims accusations…

In this episode Dara presents his thesis that all sports fans are embroiled in a philosophical engagement with the team or sportsperson that they love. Namely, the relationship of our desire and emot…

It's the dawn of a new era for The Clearout as Dara hosts his first interview on the podcast.

Musician and actor Gavin McCaffrey first made money in the arts as a child performer as one of Ireland's l…

In this topical episode, once he's dealt with a Hollywood actor's less than enthusiastic response to Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog, Dara gets straight into the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He d…

In this deceptively positive episode, Dara is emerging from a fortnight of disruptions and disturbances that have laid him low. Over the course of the show, he examines not only the necessary comprom…