Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning

403 episodes

Addiction by Design-How we became the gambling industry’s lab rats
30/06/2026 | 47 mins.
How many times do you look at your smartphone each day? How often do you pick it up? How aware are you of how it makes you feel?
On Thursday’s Free State we looked at how gambling has got out of control.
Today Dion and Joe examine how what we are dealing with is an entirely new phenomenon, a supercharged addiction of smartphone and gambling, a dopamine hit of huge power.
We look at the demographic most affected and ask when will people do enough to help them?
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Why the west stayed silent over genocide
27/06/2026 | 1h 8 mins.
When Fintan Drury wrote his first book on Palestine - Catastrophe, Nakba II, the manner in which it resonated with people told its own story. Now he has written Genocide - Sponsoring the destruction of Palestine, another searing and detailed account of how the Palestinian people have been failed. He talks to Dion about why now is the time to act. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Imitation World Cup - Gamble Responsibly (LOL)
25/06/2026 | 51 mins.
The 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act prohibited betting on baseball, basketball, American football and most other sports in nearly every US state.
In 2018, the Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional, opening up America to a stampede of betting.
On Free State today we look at how the gambling industry achieved such prominence and how they made gamblers feel that the problem wasn’t them it was you.
With tens of billions being bet on the World Cup and prediction markets like Polymarket allowing people to take a position on everything, we wonder where it will end?
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Can the World Cup save America?
23/06/2026 | 34 mins.
‘I have come to sell a product called soccer.’ The former FIFA president Joao Havelange announced himself in 1974 with these words. They have been the model for the expansionist, grasping FIFA that has existed to this day.
But maybe what matters was not the product but everything but the product?
On Free State today we look at why the World Cup matters and why it might be everything that Donald Trump’s America is not.
From David Clifford and Kerry to Messi and Argentina, sport is what it is because of the communities that are brought together.
Could it be that as America experiences the World Cup, they see that the world is a better place than their leaders want them to believe?
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
An Actor's Life: Power Ballad start Peter McDonald on working with Paul Rudd, dealing with fame and the Monday Club
20/06/2026 | 51 mins.
In Power Ballad, Rick, played by Paul Rudd, a washed-up wedding singer, and Danny, a fading boy band star, bond over music and a late-night jam session. On Free State today, old friends Dion and Peter McDonald, co-writer and co-start of Power Ballad, discuss their own late night escapades, Peter's time in the theatre and and his extraordinary time working with the legendary Robert Altman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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About Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning

Free State is a podcast for the curious that stimulates, provokes, challenges and entertains, while never taking itself too seriously. Free State covers topics from sport to politics, love to loss, the human condition and how to fix the world, with guests from across the planet including Nigerian princes, former Prime Ministers, ex convicts, footballers, boxers and extraordinary people from every walk of life. Free State is presented by Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning. Brolly is a barrister, an original thinker with a fascinating backstory, who donated a kidney to a stranger and then led a crusade to transform organ donation on the island of Ireland, and Fanning is an award-winning interviewer and author. They are not motivational gurus or life coaches. They are two people from very different worlds, with one core belief uniting them - this is not a high performance podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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