Joe Duffy's last Liveline: A rare acerbic shot at the Taoiseach, then the fabled phone-in show goes full end-of-pier
With its controversial subjects, unpredictable callers and – not least – outspoken host,
Liveline
(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) has occasionally resembled an on-air circus during
Joe Duffy
's stewardship. But as the broadcaster presents his final edition of the fabled phone-in programme on Friday afternoon, the atmosphere evokes light entertainment of a different kind: a variety show.
Though broadcasting in front of a studio audience at Montrose's radio centre, Duffy sounds as if he should be MCing a cabaret night in the Braemor Rooms, circa 1978, as a succession of stand-ups, impressionists and musicians take to the stage to perform skits, impressions and classic songs. 'I recognise a lot of faces from Crimecall,' Duffy jokes, surveying the crowd. The only thing missing is the crash of a cymbal.
The proceedings are opened by Camembert Quartet, the comic lounge act – 'back together at very little expense' – who have been a familiar fixture on Liveline's regular Funny Friday specials. It sets the tone for the show.
Duffy, who remarks that he wasn't allowed into the studio until a couple of minutes before airtime, is then joined by his
RTÉ
colleague Brenda Donohue, who ebulliently introduces callers who have highlighted issues on the show in the past, from cuts to grants for breast-cancer survivors to menopause awareness.
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Liveline: Joe Duffy presenting his farewell show in studio 1 at RTÉ Radio Centre. Photograph: Andres Poveda
Taoiseach
Micheál Martin
phones in to thank Duffy for passing on tips when he was a student activist. 'You forgot them quick enough,' the broadcaster shoots back, introducing a rare acerbic note to the occasion. It's only a fleeting bump, however, with Duffy displaying his emotional awareness by remembering his encounters with the Taoiseach's late daughter, Léana.
At this point the celebrations go full end-of-pier. The comedian June Rodgers delivers a string of corny one-liners in her guise as Oliver Bond, greeted by chuckles from Duffy and deafening silence from everyone else. This is followed by comic impersonations from Al Foran, Pakie O'Callaghan and – in recorded form – Duffy's fellow Radio 1 presenter
Oliver Callan
. The latter's gentle mockery of Duffy's on-air delivery is as witty as it is brief, a lesson not learned by all his comic peers.
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'Dublin city centre is turning into an unadulterated kip': Joe Duffy's Liveline highlights
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The musical contributions are similarly eclectic. The Eurovision winner Paul Harrington performs a song by Leonard Cohen, one of Duffy's favourite musicians (which may help explain the presenter's often lugubrious demeanour). The participation of Dublin Fire Brigade Pipe Band speaks to Duffy's tireless championing of the emergency services – 'When we're having our worst day, you have to have your best day,' he comments – even if the band's massed drones probably sound more stirring at a street parade than on the radio.
By the time Harrington delivers a spirited rendition of Wichita Lineman it's time to go, in every sense. While it was unlikely that Duffy would spend his last day fielding calls from the public, an afternoon of broad comedy and crowd-pleasing songs seems like an oddly prosaic and even bathetic way to bid farewell to a broadcaster famed for revealing the hidden secrets of Irish life.
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'Love you all, it's been a privilege': Joe Duffy presents last Liveline as he retires from RTÉ
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But then finales are more about marking the occasion than breaking new ground – and Duffy has always been in tune with popular opinion rather than critical approval, whether tackling injustice or laughing his way through Funny Friday. In that sense it's an apposite way to bid goodbye.
Talk will now inevitably turn to who will succeed him. Duffy reminds the audience that 'the Liveline will remain open', with Philip Boucher-Hayes assuming presenting duties next week. But in terms of pedigree, Duffy's regular stand-in
Katie Hannon
would seem to be the obvious candidate as permanent replacement. (Callan jokes to this effect in his skit.)
That Hannon is departing her current-affairs TV show, Upfront, will surely cause her odds to shorten further. Equally, however, RTÉ recently advertised an 'expressions of interest' process for presenting jobs on Radio 1, suggests that the station might try to cast its net beyond the Montrose talent pool.
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Micheál Martin: 'You will always say you have the kids you lost'
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As for the man himself, Duffy is vague about his post-Liveline plans. But with a vacancy soon arising in Áras an Uachtaráin, his name has been mentioned as a potential presidential candidate. Speaking to Áine Lawlor on Morning Ireland earlier, Duffy brushes away the suggestion without quite categorically denying it: 'I will not lose the run of myself.'
Even so, it seems fitting that his final show should end with his station colleague Shay Byrne reading out a letter from
President Michael D Higgins
, who commends Duffy for his empathy and commitment to giving voice to ordinary people.
With the show running over time, Duffy himself doesn't get the opportunity for a long goodbye. But for the first time all afternoon, his succinct farewell greeting carries an authentically emotional charge. 'Love you all. It's been a privilege.' And with that the great ringmaster of Irish radio is gone.
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Extra.ie
2 hours ago
- Extra.ie
How Joe Duffy changed Ireland: From head shops to Magdalene laundries
On Friday, the Liveline finally closed – on Joe Duffy's tenure, at least – as the 69-year-old Ballyfermot-born broadcaster bade a fond farewell to his listeners. But in his final week, Joe continued to do what he has been doing best for over 27 years. On Wednesday's show his comforting and sympathetic voice guided a number of callers through one of the most harrowing experiences of their lives. It began in response to a fire in Granby Row, which reminded them of the Noyeks fire in the city centre that claimed the lives of eight people. Joe Duffy leaving RTÉ Radio Centre after presenting his final Liveline show. Pic: Andres Poveda As Joe listened, Geoff Peat recalled the horrific details of the 1972 fire on the corner of Kings Inn Street in Dublin city centre. He wept as he remembered how the fire claimed the lives of people working in the offices above the shop where the fire took place and how he and his brother Harry pulled people from the flames. Joe had been instrumental in getting a plaque erected at the site of the fire and this time he listened as Madge rang in to say Geoff was the man who had put a ladder up to her and another work colleague, allowing them to escape the flames. 'I really do thank Geoff for my life,' she told the nation. It was powerful and impactful radio which allowed the extraordinary stories of ordinary people to be heard, something that, under Joe, Liveline has become synonymous with. Joe Duffy presenting his final farewell show in Studio 1 at the RTÉ Radio Centre. Pic: Andres Poveda Throughout his tenure at the Liveline desk, Joe listened to those who had been left broken by a system that should have protected them, offering a sympathetic ear to many who were telling their stories for the first time. From social justice and tragedy to stories that had people chuckling into their afternoon cuppa, for 27 years Joe has been the instrument for extraordinary radio moments, some that have even been a catalyst for societal change. Here, we take a look at some of the Liveline chats that helped bring about change in Ireland, when talking to Joe got the nation talking in turn. Joe Duffy presenting his final farewell show in Studio 1 at the RTÉ Radio Centre. Pic: Andres Poveda It was Christmas 2009 when Joe went shopping for presents and saw a huge queue at a place he hadn't noticed before. 'I saw this queue at a shop with a window like you'd see in a petrol station and it was a head shop,' he told Morning Ireland. 'I hadn't a clue what a head shop was. It was basically drugs they were selling, let's be blunt.' Within two days of his post-Christmas return, Joe addressed the topic of so-called 'legal highs' on Liveline and discovered there were over 100 head shops in Ireland that were thriving. 'People started ringing in about the effects of this – we didn't know what they were selling,' he said of the unregulated products. It became a hot Liveline topic as people started talking about the effects the products from these stores were having and how anyone could buy them, no matter what age. Then in May 2010, the Government launched a crackdown, raiding every shop in the country and shutting them down. 'That was the power of people on Liveline, bringing this to people's attention,' Joe said. He believes this campaign was one of his best achievements behind the Liveline microphone. But he admitted that due to his role in getting these shops closed, it was the only time he was ever targeted and threatened with violence. 'A young man approached me in a multi-storey car park in Dublin city centre and made a lunge at me,' he said in a past interview. 'I thought he wanted to say hello, but he tried to punch me. He said that he owned a few head shops and that I closed down his business. Another guy did the same thing to me on Talbot Street and spat in my face saying, 'You did me out of a job.'' In January 2007, a woman using the name Rosie rang the Liveline to speak of how, as a public patient, she had been kept on a waiting list for so long that her bowel cancer had spread and was too far advanced for her treatment to be successful, while a patient who had been diagnosed at the same time was going to survive as he had private healthcare and had received scans earlier. 'I am happy he is going to live, he deserves to live, but so do I,' she told listeners. It was an emotional moment and the woman, who was subsequently revealed as Susie Long, laid bare the stark reality of public healthcare versus private healthcare. The Liveline phones were hopping as callers rang in with their own stories. Susie died of bowel cancer on October 12, 2007. Aged 42, she left behind two children, Fergus and Aine, and her husband Conor. Ten years after her death, Joe opened the Liveline again to find that despite the promises made at the time, little had changed. On that show in 2017, Dr Greg Kelly, who was practising medicine for almost four decades, told Joe that for most of his career as a GP, getting patients seen in public hospitals has been very difficult. 'The very idea that a patient is seen quicker based on their ability to pay, as opposed to their clinical, medical condition, is very wrong and is discriminatory and it's apartheid and it shouldn't be happening in a state hospital which is funded by taxpayers,' he said. It was in the midst of the pandemic, on May 5, 2021, that Joe became the person to bring the menopause into the spotlight of Irish life. Women at this stage of life found in Joe an unlikely hero as caller after caller told their own stories on air, shattering one of the major taboos around women's health in Ireland. Sallyanne Brady emailed Joe to say she lost five years of her life to the menopause, and went on air to describe her symptoms. 'I had cyclical depression, I had tinnitus, I had night sweats, I had flushes, I had migraine with aura, I had tingling, I had dizzy spells, I had all over body pain, I had vertigo, I had brian fog, I had digestive issues, I had issues with my teeth, I was permanently exhausted, I didn't sleep – the list goes on and on and on,' she said. She told how doctors had fobbed her off to the point where she became suicidal. 'I was nearly a statistic,' she said, before telling Joe that she had set up a support group for those in the same position. 'We have nearly 11,000 in it and what I have asked of you today is I want a voice for these women,' she said. 'These women have no voice. There is no help for them, there is no support.' She was horrified to find out that GPs were not trained in menopause and were 'not equipped to help half the population'. From then the floodgates opened as for the next five days women rang Joe to tell him of their own experiences and the lack of help that was available. These calls in no small part led to the announcement in September 2021 by the then Health Minister Stephen Donnelly that specialist menopause clinics would be rolled out the following year and that GPs would get training in how to spot and treat menopause-related illnesses. Since the beginning of this month, women in Ireland can get HRT for free as part of their menopause care. In no small way we have Joe and the brave women who spoke on RTÉ to thank for that. On November 2, 2022, Stephen emailed Liveline because he wanted to tell his story to rid himself 'of the shame and the guilt'. He was a student of Willow Park and Blackrock College, detailing how his mother and father had sacrificed a lot to get him there. But at the age of nine he became the victim of abuse at the hands of a teacher. His harrowing story was just one of many that emerged in the following days which led to a further inquiry being set up to examine allegations of abuse at Blackrock College. So often, Liveline was a place where those who had suffered at the hands of the Church and State were given space to tell their stories. Anne from Kilkenny told Joe in 2018 that her twin brother Joey, 51, had been abused in the industrial school they were both placed into. 'It's very hard to get the picture of my twin brother being bate every morning for wetting the bed… It's very hard to get that image out of my head,' she said. Anne told how the abuse her brother suffered led to a life of addiction before his untimely death. Anne's own story was just as tragic – she ended up in Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork at a young age, expecting twins who were subsequently put up for adoption. Three weeks after her brother's death, she was able to meet one of her daughters. 'It was lovely [meeting her], but it's not like what you see on the television, Long Lost Families, hugs and kisses,' she said. 'It might be for some of them, but there's an awful lot of mixed emotions. You give up those children as babies, and all of a sudden you walk into a hotel, scanning the corridor, the lobby area to pick out, I wonder which one is she? That is terrible for anyone to go through that. 'I told her my story and she understood and thanked me for giving her the life she had. It was lovely, but it's very hard to build a relationship. And the Church is there saying sorry for that.' In 2003, Imelda Murphy called to talk to Joe from the US. She had been previously forced to work at a Magdalene laundry. 'She said she had just discovered that a woman she worked with in the Magdalene laundry had died six weeks earlier and she did not want her buried in the communal [burial] plot in Glasnevin,' Joe said earlier this year. 'She wanted Margaret to have her own individual grave with her name on it and her own headstone. By the end of the programme, Margaret's two daughters had phoned in – two girls she gave birth to while in the Magdalene laundry – to say, 'we didn't know our mother was dead. We didn't know our mother had died eight weeks ago.' That was jaw-dropping.' Margaret's daughter Samantha later thanked Joe for 'effecting societal change in Ireland'. 'We first phoned in 2003, when we had found out live on your programme that our birth mother was dead and we weren't informed,' she said. 'She never got out of the institution, she was in there for 49 years altogether, impregnated in care. But when we first made that call after her friend highlighted the appalling vista of her being buried with so many other people – that, Joe, lit a spark and that spark turned into a fire and that fire was lit under the church and State in Ireland. That led to a massive national campaign.' Liveline hasn't all been doom and gloom though – Fiver Friday has always been a high point in the Liveline calendar. Fridays have normally been a day of fun with comedians and musicians like Syl Fox, Brendan O'Carroll, June Rodgers, Brush Shiels and many more gathering for a celebration to lighten the mood. It has always been a way of encouraging Irish people to spend that extra fiver in their local shops and a way for local businesses to offer discounts to customers, helping to boost the coffers of small Irish businesses and giving listeners a welcome start to the weekend.
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
Colin Keane teams up with Kalpana for the first time in Pretty Polly clash with Whirl
Champion jockey Colin Keane rides Kalpana for the first time at the Curragh on Saturday and will hope the €300,000 Paddy Power Pretty Polly Stakes proves to be the correct Group One weekend option for her. The Andrew Balding-trained filly was also in the mix for Sunday's mile-and-a-half Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud in Paris but instead returns to HQ for another race over 10 furlongs. Third to Los Angeles in the last month's Tattersalls Gold Cup when ridden by Oisin Murphy, Kalpana is another Juddmonte star for Keane to look forward to in his role as the ownership's number one rider in Europe. Juddmonte landed the Pretty Polly last with the subsequent Arc heroine Bluestocking and Paris in October also appears to be Kalpana's ultimate target. READ MORE A top-flight winner at a mile and a half on heavy ground last autumn, this distance may be short of her best and she could prove vulnerable to the Oaks runner up Whirl. The latter is one of just a pair of three-year-olds in a race that has favoured older runners in the last decade. However, she was only narrowly beaten at Epsom, impressed previously in the Musidora, and gets a hefty weight allowance from her elders including France's Survie. Keane teams up with Ger Lyons for the unbeaten juvenile Lady Iman in the earlier Group Two Airlie Stud Stakes. The filly has proved a wonderful advertisement for her new sire Starman and landed a Group Three at Naas last time. Before that she beat the subsequent Queen Mary winner True Love at the Curragh. Beautify was third over course and distance on her debut and Aidan O'Brien's call to pitch her straight into this sort of company is significant. Lady Iman, however, could hardly have been more impressive up to now. Colin Keane onboard Babouche. Photograph: Tom Maher/Inpho Keane and Lyons are represented by Suzie Songs in the Group Three Anglesey Stakes, a race they won with the top-class filly Babouche a year ago. The Cork winner could be up against a formidable colt in Flushing Meadows. He impressed over course and distance on his debut earlier this month. The International Stakes is named in honour of the late Kevin Prendergast who won it in 2006 with Mustameet. This time it might provide a perfect, if belated, start to the season for Elizabeth Jane. Sunday's big race in France is without Kalpana but has a handful of runners crammed with quality. Last year's Arc runner-up Aventure takes on very accomplished males such as the King George hero Goliath and Calandagan. The latter's effort will be of particular interest considering his resolution was questioned after a Coronation up defeat to Jan Brueghel. The Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud is off at 4.30pm Irish time. Joseph O'Brien took Al Riffa out of that big race but will be represented on the card by Scorthy Champ in the Group Two Prix Eugene Adam off at 1.55pm. He has engaged Christophe Soumillon to ride last year's National Stakes winner who finished out of the money in both the English and Irish Guineas and tries 10 furlongs for the first time.
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
Angela Scanlon: ‘I was the class clown ... Now I don't feel like I have anything to prove any more'
'My fiery seven-year-old is driving me crazy.' These are some of the first words out of Angela Scanlon's mouth when she jumps on to our Zoom call. She's running late, striding home from the school run, headphones on, hair an afterthought, looking more like a student than the sophisticate we're used to seeing on our television screens. You could never accuse Scanlon of not showing up as her real self. I'm immediately disarmed and laugh out loud, having expected an immaculately styled Scanlon to appear in a meticulously curated corner of her home; she is, after all, a former stylist and host of a home makeover TV show. But cool, calm and collected isn't Scanlon's vibe. Instead, the 41-year-old fizzes – with ideas, opinions, advice, gratitude and, most of all, good humour. Scanlon is a chatterbox, speaking as if she has a word count to hit by midday. To say she has great energy is an understatement. She comes across as irrepressible and it's not for nothing that the Meath native is following in the footsteps of some of Ireland's most revered broadcasters, from Terry Wogan and Dara Ó Briain to Graham Norton . Scanlon is currently a regular fixture on British TV and radio. She presents prime time shows including Your Home Made Perfect and she took over Norton's highly coveted Saturday and Sunday morning slot on Virgin Radio UK when the Corkonian decided to reclaim his weekends last year. [ Angela Scanlon to take over Graham Norton's weekend Virgin Radio UK show Opens in new window ] She is quick to make clear that she's not trying to replicate Norton's style. 'The truth is that I sit in that chair, but I'm not trying to be Graham Norton. Good luck to you if you are. It's an honour to have been given the opportunity to step into those shoes, but mine are definitely a different shade.' Shoes aside, Scanlon's feet are now firmly under that table, with the station's content director Mike Cass remarking on the amount of great listener feedback the Irishwoman has received since taking over Norton's headset in April 2024. READ MORE Ireland's best-known redhead is veering towards national treasure status, not just here, but across the water, helped by her dazzling turn on one of the BBC's most-watched shows, Strictly Come Dancing, in 2023. Scanlon finished sixth, proving herself to be a terrific dancer – her Charleston was declared by judge Anton du Beke to be 'the best dance of the series' – and winning over audiences with her lively, no-nonsense personality. In a season that boasted the usual line-up of big names (Krishnan Guru-Murthy), big personalities (Layton Williams) and big talents (Angela Rippon), her wicked sense of humour and self-deprecating charm cut through, rivalling Strictly co-host Claudia Winkleman's relatability and natural rapport. All of this alongside being mum to 'fiery' seven-year-old Ruby and three-year-old Marnie. 'Raising girls to be independent, confident women has its challenges,' she remarks wryly. 'You want them to be spirited and feisty until you're dealing with a furious kid at the school gate who's got big ideas and big emotions, and you're late for the train.' In the next breath, Scanlon confirms that both of her daughters are 'quite extra' and I instantly think, like mother, like daughter. Scanlon is pretty extra herself. A quick scroll through her Instagram feed and you'll see Scanlon in full comedic form, giving a tongue-and-cheek cooking demo in a strapless feathered top, performing outrageous dance moves in the middle of her livingroom or sliding out of her bedroom door down a staircase, headfirst in the grip of Monday morning malaise. Angela Scanlon. Photograph: Sarah Brick It's surprising to learn she studied business at TU Dublin rather than drama when she finished secondary school in Dunshaughlin. 'It never dawned on me as a kid,' she explains. 'I love the performance side of what I do now, but it almost happened accidentally, to be honest. My dad was a builder and he started a company and my mother worked alongside him. They were from the west of Ireland. I didn't know anyone in RTÉ; the whole media world just wasn't on my radar.' She admits that, looking back, there were signs of a performative side. 'There are certainly plenty of photographs of me dressed as a clown,' she says laughing. 'I suppose I was the class clown, though I don't think I was always comfortable in that role. But I think I've made peace with that side of me now. I just don't feel like I have anything to prove any more.' There's a side of me that's always pushing and sometimes not in a healthy way. But I've learned to kind of enjoy that, as long as I can tell myself to sit the f**k down every so often — Angela Scanlon She describes herself as 'really content', attributing it to a newfound confidence. 'Or maybe it's just because I've taken up gardening,' she interjects with characteristic playfulness. 'I feel really energised and confident in a way that maybe I faked before. I really know what I'm doing. I've hosted plenty of shows, so I feel like I've got the credentials and the experience. 'A lot of it always felt natural to me, but I think maybe I was fudging the craft and the technical side before. But now, I feel like, no, I know how to do this. I'm not faking it any more.' She adds quickly: 'It's not a very Irish thing, though, is it? To be like, I deserve this.' Scanlon has worked hard for it. Her CV is lengthy, spanning more than a decade of prime-time presenting slots on TV and radio, and guest appearances on television favourites such as Richard Osman's House of Games and The Great British Bake Off's spin-off, An Extra Slice. Her presenting gigs reflect her range: RTÉ's travel show Getaways and Saturday night chatshow Ask me Anything, Channel 4's Sunday Brunch and BBC's Robot Wars, World's Oldest Family, Your Garden made Perfect and The Noughties. She's also reported from the Baftas red carpet and hosted London Fashion Weekend. Fashion, interiors, comedy, documentary – Scanlon has done them all. Besides the TV and radio credits, Scanlon also has her own jewellery label, frkl , which she launched three years ago (she's wearing a frkl necklace in this photo shoot, along with pink platform Crocs by Simone Rocha). 'There's a side of me that's always pushing and sometimes not in a healthy way,' she admits. 'But I've learned to kind of enjoy that, as long as I can tell myself to sit the f**k down every so often.' It's fortunate then that her latest project involves a comfortable sofa. Get a Grip is Scanlon's new podcast, which she hosts with ex-MTV Geordie Shore reality TV star and winner of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, Vicky Pattison. The pair met on a panel show seven years ago and Scanlon says she was struck by Pattison's wit and intelligence. 'There've been a lot of judgments made about Vicky – about how she started out and where she's come from – but I just remember being so impressed by her and thinking, she's a bit of me. I loved her from the start.' 'Natural chemistry': Get A Grip co-hosts Angela Scanlon (right) and Vicky Pattison. Photograph: Amanda Akokhia Pattison was a guest on Scanlon's previous podcast, Thanks A Million, in 2022 and the Irish broadcaster appeared on Pattison's, The Secret To, a year later. 'They felt like standout episodes for both of us,' explains Scanlon, 'because we had a very natural chemistry. That, and the fact that I'd been wanting to do something along with someone else as opposed to solo, just made me think that it would work.' The podcast is described as 'the ultimate group chat' where 'speaking up, standing your ground and taking up space are non-negotiable' and explores everything from 'motherhood and navigating newly-wed life to pop culture, internet drama and much more'. Although only six episodes in, Scanlon says it's already evolving. 'From the off, it's gone from being solely about pop culture to really personal topics and serious issues. I mean, we definitely talk about Kris Jenner's face – or her new face, at least – and the Beckham family feud, or whatever's on people's minds, but we also chat about issues that are especially pertinent to women on any given day, like caring for elderly parents or talking down your seven-year-old.' Get A Grip: Vicky Pattison and Angela Scanlon's podcast has ranked ahead of the wildly successful How To Fail by Elizabeth Day and The Blindboy Podcast. Photograph: Amanda Akokhia Scanlon has spoken emotionally on the podcast about her own experience of having an eating disorder, Pattison has revealed the trauma caused by years of misdiagnosis of PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder) and the pair have railed against social media algorithms targeting vulnerable teenagers. But to give you the full 360, they've also talked about something called the 'boob gooch' (episode 3), soggy Spanx and kebab-scented perfume. The show continually flips from light to dark and Scanlon believes this key change is where the podcast's power lies. 'I think Irish people have that ability to go really close to the flame and then just do a little U-turn before it gets too much,' she says. 'I've shied away from that open vulnerability and sincerity sometimes, so I've been learning to let that out a bit more publicly.' Another motivation for joining forces with Pattison was a desire 'to have two heavily accented women on a podcast who are different in many ways but also have a commonality.' Representation is a theme that has influenced Scanlon's work from early on. In 2013, the documentary she wrote and presented, Oi Ginger!, examined prejudice and stereotypes around redheads and was an early indication of the broadcaster's deftness at tackling a serious subject with endearing cheekiness, while her follow-up documentary, Full Frontal, a year later tackled Irish people's nervousness of nudity. Last week, Get a Grip was ranked 56 on the Apple Ireland podcast chart, ahead of the wildly successful How To Fail by Elizabeth Day and The Blindboy Podcast. It's early days, but Get A Grip seems to be finding its niche and Scanlon believes the longform format really works for this kind of girls' chat set-up. 'It just allows for a bit more space and for the full picture of a person. It allows all the complexities we embody as women to spill out and I think that's really important and I also think that's what women are responding to.' It's easy to respond positively to Scanlon. She's generous with her time and self-effacing in her tone, easy to talk to and interesting to listen to. She seems like a genuinely nice person to be around. One of four girls growing up, Scanlon admits she was never acutely aware that there were differences between how, where and with whom boys and girls hung out. 'I wasn't familiar with the idea that boys can do this and girls can do that, or that girls should do this and boys shouldn't. Having three sisters and no brothers, I didn't have that frame of reference,' she says. [ If Angela Scanlon offers to take you to your forever home, do not get in the car. It's a Goodfellas situation Opens in new window ] 'I became aware of it much later than my friends so I remember being quite ballsy. When friends of mine would doubt whether they could do something, my response was always, 'Of course you can. What are you waiting for? You have this idea, go do it. How can I help?' I've always had a fire to push myself and others. That voice has become louder because I've realised more and more how women have been treated. For loads of different reasons, women have always had to hold back or shrink a little.' Scanlon's desire for others to just be themselves often gives her inspiration for her comedy skits. 'I do a series on Instagram called Things I Love That My Husband Hates. Clearly, it's a joke; I mean, I started off with pantaloons. But it seems to have caught fire and people are really responding to it. It's firing up other people to think, 'F**ck it. I'm going to wear whatever the hell I want.' 'Obviously, it has nothing really to do with husbands and what they like or don't like,' she adds, confessing that her own husband Rory is 'frankly unsurprised and slightly amused by whatever I wear.' After 11 years of marriage, Scanlon reveals drily, 'he's used to me'. 'It's more about giving women permission to just do their own thing and saying, 'Don't ask permission because nobody's gonna give it to you. You've got to save yourself. Do the thing. Stop waiting to feel empowered enough to create. It might be s**t, you might fall flat on your face, it might be embarrassing. But what's the alternative? Sitting around, wishing and waiting?' Last year Scanlon got another project off the ground. Called Hot Messers, it's a community that meets up in person to walk and talk and engage in open and honest conversations. 'Last year, I travelled to The Himalayas with the breast cancer charity CoppaFeel!,' says Scanlon. 'Women in treatment, post-treatment and with stage four cancer were sharing the most amazing, heartbreaking, empowering stories with virtual strangers. It was as if they felt a freedom to share openly because they were walking alongside each other rather than sitting opposite someone. I love a bit of therapy, but I think sometimes that scenario can make people feel self-conscious.' The name riffs on the stereotype of the woman who's a hot mess or a car crash. 'She's messy and chaotic and that's fine. It's about taking control of that,' says Scanlon, because despite having 'a brilliant [online] community of like-minded women who are rowdy cheerleaders of each other', Scanlon admits social media can sometimes make her feel 'really disconnected from reality, isolated and quite weird, truthfully'. 'There's such massive value in getting people together in real life and hanging out in a group where you can skulk in the background or you can talk something out.' [ Anorexia, My Family & Me review: Heartbreak and hope as Angela Scanlon narrates stories of Irish families hijacked by eating disorders Opens in new window ] Although she might 'present as an extrovert', Scanlon says her personality isn't that cut and dried. 'When I'm on, I'm on, but I can be very antisocial, shy and awkward – if I have a baseball cap on, don't come near me. Sometimes I want to just hide behind my husband, but then the next minute I'm cracking out the jazz hands and everything's fine. There are two very different sides to me.'
