Panoramica Tom O'Connor

A special report from Uganda on politics, refugees, religion and education in the country, which is also known as "The Pearl of Africa".

Named 'Radio Documentary of the Year' at the National Student Media Awards (Ireland) in 2024.

Presented and produced by Tom O'Connor for FlirtFM.

Credits for archive clips: NTV Uganda, Uganda Today, British Pathé and Louis Jadwong.

20 University of Galway students took part in the 'Sleep Out for Simon' in the Quadrangle on the night of October 6th.

The fundraising initiative was in aid of the Simon Community, which is an Irish charity helping homeless people.

Tom went to the Sleep Out where he spoke with Rory O'Flaherty, Dara Golden and Anna Sheehy.

Music courtesy of trad group Fiántas Ceol.

Kevin Boyle was a human rights lawyer, activist, and academic.

A leading figure in the Northern Ireland civil rights movement, he was a founder of the People's Democracy and a key member of NICRA (the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association). Kevin Boyle also contributed to the peace process, which culminated in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

As a human rights lawyer, he did significant work on cases regarding gay rights, abuse of prisoners, and the treatment of the Kurdish minority in Turkey. 

Kevin Boyle was also central to the freedom of expression organisation Article 19, Amnesty International's work in Africa in the 1980s, and the work of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson.

Hear all this and more in 'Boyle's Law', which tells the story of Kevin Boyle with archive audio and contributions from those who knew him.

This documentary was named 'Podcast of the Year' at the National Student Media Awards (Ireland) in 2023.

Presented and produced by Tom O'Connor for the University of Galway radio station FlirtFM.

Music credits:

- Intro/Outro music 

"Never Miss A Moment" from Scott Holmes Music on FreeMusicArchive. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license.

- Other

"Codeine Crazy" from Alexander Lavoe on FreeMusicArchive. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license.

Archive audio credits (more info available on request):

RTE Archives, BBC, Mike Chinoy, Council of Europe Facebook Page.

The Cairde Ronáin project brought together residents in a nursing home and children in a local school on the Aran Island of Inis Mór off the coast of Galway. They would chat, dance, play music, and more.

Noreen Watts is a staff nurse from Glenamaddy in County Galway who started the amazing Cáirde Rónáin initiative back in 2005. Noreen joined Tom to chat about the establishment of the programme, how it worked, why it stopped, and more.

Galway band ‘New Dad’ is one of the greatest Irish bands at the moment. The group has played Glastonbury, supported Fontaines DC, and gained over one million listeners in 176 countries on Spotify in 2022.

The band’s lead singer Julie Dawson and guitarist Sean O’Dowd chatted with Tom about the group’s history, its inspirations, gigging, their experiences of living together, plans for 'New Dad' in 2023 and much more besides.

A round-up of the main political events in Ireland, Britain and Northern Ireland in the second half of 2022 with:

- Mairéad Farrell, Sinn Féin TD for Galway West and party spokesperson on Public Expenditure and Reform,

- Darragh Nolan, Deputy Editor at SIN ("Student Independent News"), and

- Róisín Elizabeth Cowan, Editor-in-Chief at the University of Galway Law Review. 

The panel discussed everything from the change of Taoiseach and the fall of Boris Johnson to the chaos of Liz Truss's premiership and the Stormont Assembly deadlock.