Aran Island Discs is an intimate, Irish-hearted interview series in which host Rossa McDermott invites guests to explore the soundtrack of their lives. Inspired by the timeless tradition of storytelling and the wild spirit of the Aran Islands, each episode blends conversation, memory, and music into a vivid portrait of the person behind the public image.
Across candid, often deeply personal interviews, guests choose the songs that shaped them — the tunes that carried them through childhood, challenge, triumph, heartbreak, and homecoming. These musical choices become gateways to unexpected stories: the mentor who changed everything, the night everything nearly fell apart, the place they return to in their mind when the world gets loud.
Recorded with warmth, humour, and unmistakable Irish authenticity, Aran Island Discs celebrates culture, creativity, and the emotional power of music. Whether the guest is a celebrated artist, an athlete, a thinker, or a local legend, every episode offers a fresh perspective on the people who shape Irish life today.
Settle in. Take the ferry. Discover the stories that live between the notes.
The podcast presenter is Rossa McDermott, and the series is recorded at Dublin South Podcast Studios in Dundrum. The concept is devised by Dos Amigos, and edited by Peter Rice
#aranislanddiscs #podcast #podcastseries #nusic #rossamcdermott #acast #spotify #applemusic #ireland #inismor #inismeain #inismaan
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Aran Island Discs is an intimate, Irish-hearted interview series in which host Rossa McDermott invites guests to explore the soundtrack of their lives. Inspired by the timeless tradition of storytelling and the wild spirit of the Aran Islands, each episode blends conversation, memory, and music into a vivid portrait of the person behind the public image.
Across candid, often deeply personal interviews, guests choose the songs that shaped them — the tunes that carried them through childhood, challenge, triumph, heartbreak, and homecoming. These musical choices become gateways to unexpected stories: the mentor who changed everything, the night everything nearly fell apart, the place they return to in their mind when the world gets loud.
Recorded with warmth, humour, and unmistakable Irish authenticity, Aran Island Discs celebrates culture, creativity, and the emotional power of music. Whether the guest is a celebrated artist, an athlete, a thinker, or a local legend, every episode offers a fresh perspective on the people who shape Irish life today.
Settle in. Take the ferry. Discover the stories that live between the notes.
The podcast presenter is Rossa McDermott, and the series is recorded at Dublin South Podcast Studios in Dundrum. The concept is devised by Dos Amigos, and edited by Peter Rice
#aranislanddiscs #podcast #podcastseries #nusic #rossamcdermott #acast #spotify #applemusic #ireland #inismor #inismeain #inismaan
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Kevin Cullen is an author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has written for The Boston Globe since 1985.
At the Globe, he served on the Spotlight team, as well as a local, national and foreign correspondent before becoming a columnist.
Kevin initially worked as the newspaper’s law enforcement correspondent, and won the Livingston Award for his 1987 portrait of an East Boston hoodlum. He spent several stints on the Spotlight Team, the Globe’s inestigative unit, and was part of the team that first exposed the mobster James “Whitey” Bulger as an FBI informant in 1988,
Cullen spent more than 20 years covering the conflict in Northern Ireland, and in 1994 was honored by the Overseas Press Club of America for interpretive reporting from Northern Ireland. In 1997, he was appointed as Dublin bureau chief, covering the peace process in Northern Ireland full time, the only American journalist who did so.
He was described by The Irish Times as “the most informed American journalist on Irish affairs,” while the media critic at The Independent of London called him “the most astute observer of Irish affairs in the American media.”
After a year in Dublin, he moved to London to serve as chief European correspondent, covering war in the former Yugoslavia. He reported from more than 20 countries across Europe.
In 2001, after four years abroad, he returned to Boston and joined the Globe’s investigative team which won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003 for exposing the coverup of sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic priests.
The team also won many other awards for those exposes, including the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, the George Polk Award for National Reporting, and the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting.
In 2007, he was promoted to metro columnist and the following year won the Batten Medal, from the American Society of Newspaper Editors for a selection of columns on people down on their luck.
in 2013. In 2010 and 2014, he was named best columnist by the National Headliners Awards.
His columns highlighting the suicide of a 15-year-old girl who was bullied by schoolmates won the top award from the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University in 2013.In 2013, the American Society of Newspaper Editors awarded him the Batten Medal again and is the only person to win the award twice
In 2014, Cullen won the Mike Royko Award as best columnist chosen by the American Society of Newspaper Editors and was part of the team that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings. Separately, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary.
Cullen has been a frequent commentator on National Public Radio, the BBC, and RTE, Ireland’s national broadcaster. His work has appeared in The Irish Times and Sunday Independent in Ireland. He also appeared weekly on Newstalk radio’s “Lunchtime” programe in Ireland.
He is co-author of “Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church,” and was a contributor to the book, “Britain and Ireland: Lives Entwined II.” Also, co-author of the New York Times bestseller, “Whitey Bulger: America’s Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice,” which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He wrote the opening chapter for the Houghton Mifflin anthology, “Our Boston,” to benefit victims of the Marathon bombings.
A Boston native, Kevin Cullen graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, attended Trinity College in Dublin, and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
An Irish-themed podcast presented by Rossa McDermott.
In the podcast invited Irish guests share stories, life experiences, and other key moments that resonate in ther life, ending with a musical choice that has accompanied them through that journey.
The conversation is about what Irishness, and what that means and any influence it may have had over their years. An understanding and of resilience and how is that a cultural ruggedness is part of our Irish makeup.
Aran Island Discs ☘️ is recorded at Dublin South Podcast Studio. Hosted by Rossa McDermott
Producer is Peter Rice
Sponsorship enquiries
contact@aranislanddiscs.ie
W www.aranislanddiscs.ie
Instagram @aranislanddisc
FB @aranislanddiscs
X @aranislabddiscs
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.