Episode with Richie Sadlier Second Captains

Nine months ago, Pat Sheedy walked out of prison after spending more than two and a half years locked up for trying to fund his decades-long gambling addiction through various scams. 
After winning his first bet as a teenager, he quickly fell into a cycle of working, borrowing and stealing to make sure he could place his next bet. Long periods of abstinence - at one point he went 12 years without gambling - followed, but it wasn't until finally being given a custodial sentence in 2020 that he began to really reflect on the damage he was doing to other people. 
Pat speaks to Richie just a few hundred metres down the road from where he placed his first bet in Limerick city today and explains why prison was the best thing that ever happened to him, describes the life of a compulsive gambler and how he's tried to make amends with the victims of his scams since being released last August.
Episode is a Second Captains podcast. 

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This week on Episode we're taking a mid-series break but fear not, Richie and Killian will be back on the road next week when we'll be bringing you another brilliant conversation. 
Until then, a massive thank you for all the support for the show so far this series!
Episode is a Second Captains production.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Richie and Killian travelled to Phibsboro to meet James Kavanagh at the home he's just about to leave after eight years for a new life in the countryside.
Richie and James look back at James' teenage years, the earliest of which he spent locked up alone in his bedroom, his sanctuary from the homophobic bullying that dominated his time at school. He speaks about the reality of having no friends whatsoever until he was sixteen, darting from class to class to avoid other students and how he managed to start afresh and leave those days behind him.
After the chat, Killian describes an experience both he and James have had in common with last week's guest, Donie O'Sullivan: recurring panic attacks and trying to manage them before they derail your day-to-day life.
Episode is a Second Captains production.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC on January 6th 2021, a relatively little-known Irish journalist walked CNN viewers through exactly what was going on as it unfolded. 
Donie O'Sullivan quickly became a household name, and within a few weeks he had decided to use his newfound platform to speak about the sometimes acute mental health issues which had been a part of his life over the previous decade. 
In the three years since, Donie has continued to report on misinformation and conspiracy theories on the American right for CNN, all the while managing his evolving relationship with his own psyche.  
He joins Richie today to chat about the way in which his personal experiences with irrational thinking guide his reporting on fringe groups like QAnon, how a diagnosis of OCD has brought more clarity to his life and how alcohol can muddy those same waters. 
Episode is a Second Captains production. 

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A few short weeks ago, a joint Oireachtas committee recommended that the Government legislate for assisted dying in controlled circumstances where a terminally ill person is approaching the end of their life. 
The fight for legal access to assisted dying began back in 2012 when Marie Fleming, who had advanced multiple sclerosis, and her partner and full-time carer, Tom Curran took a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. They believed that there was a right to die and to be assisted in doing so under Irish law; the Supreme Court disagreed. 
Despite the ruling and the threat of potential murder charges, Tom Curran publicly pledged to stand by a long-standing promise he had made to Marie. When the day came that she decided her condition meant her life was no longer worth living, he would help her to die peacefully and with dignity. 
Today Richie sits down with Tom just over ten years after Marie passed away to speak about their life together, her determination to end it on her own terms, and his work to provide information on assisted dying to people in similar positions to Marie. 
Episode is a Second Captains podcast. 

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It's been a few months since we closed out series one of Episode sitting at Damien Dempsey's kitchen table, and to mark the first show of the new series, we're bringing you an exclusive interview. 
Last week, Richie and Killian travelled to France to sit down with Vera Pauw at her home in the Dordogne, as she speaks publicly for the first time since the week the FAI declined to renew her contract seven months ago. 
Vera describes the impact she felt the allegations published just before the World Cup in The Athletic about her time as manager of the Houston Dash - allegations which she denies - had on Ireland's World Cup campaign, and how she thinks she is now unemployable in the western world. 
She also responds to Diane Caldwell's suggestion that everything Ireland achieved, including their first World Cup qualification, was in spite of Vera being their manager, and outlines the disconnect she feels with the team she spent four years with. 
Episode is a Second Captains podcast. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.