Free State with Dion Fanning and Joe Brolly

Bobson Dugnutt

If you recognise Brolly as an egotistical bollocks then it all makes sense .

Fanning should stick to the writing.

Nowhere near interesting enough to listen to and takes forever to get a thought across. That's grand when you're trying to up your wordcount for an article but insufferable when listening to it.

Did you smash it

I listened to a kneecap part 1 there. Brolly actually said they were up for 1.3 million worth of grant money from the British government. He comes out with the most remarkable bombastic exaggerations

Hyperbollix

The ads on this pod really take the piss. I listen to lots of podcasts with ads strewn throughout the episode and all of them are edited properly whereby the topic reaches a conclusion, a short jingle preceeds and follows the ads, then the podcast resumes on a new topic of discussion....

On Free State, they literally cut off Dion or Brolly in mid sent........................FOOTBALL FOOTBALL FOOTBALL, GET ALL THE FOOTBALL LIVE ON YOUR TV WHEN YOU SUBSCRIBE TO FOOTBALLNOW, DONT MISS A SECOND OF ALL THE BRILLIANT EARTH SHATTERINGLY IMPORTANT FOOTBALL. SEE FOOTBALLNOW.CO.UK FOR DETAILS.........ence and launch straight into a loud obnoxious ad. It's like a middle finger to the listener.

Did you smash it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121812109#Comment_121812109

If you have a vpn just listen to it with the vpn set to Poland and it might be ad free listening

Hyperbollix

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121812156#Comment_121812156

Thanks.... to be honest I only listen to certain episodes of it I have some interest in and even then i end up skipping through much of those episodes.

pappyodaniel

The more I listen to this podcast, the more I side with RTE for getting rid of Joe Brolly.

Hyperbollix

Same. The nuggets of insight or good analysis are completely dwarfed by the sheer amount of ego and narcissism here.

Bobson Dugnutt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121922313#Comment_121922313

He seems to think he was some great sage, wit and raconteur on the Sunday Game. When what he actually was is a tedious old bore with the sort of “I say controversial stuff” lines as any old barstool pundit. Correct to get rid of him and the punditry is far better these days.

Piskin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121922941#Comment_121922941

Also had a nasty chip on his shoulder towards "free-staters"

Piskin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121922924#Comment_121922924

And a huge chip on his shoulder

padd b1975

If the Trots had any cop on, they'd approach Brolly to run in the next election.

He certainly spouts their hoary old soundbites ad nauseum.

Hyperbollix

This pod!

They had on Gary Stevenson, the young Londoner who went from poverty to the top of the traders in the City and earned millions. Gary is a strong personality himself and, rightly, believed the idea of him coming on was to explain his book and speak for the majority of the time.

He wasn't expecting good old Joe who kept trying to talk over him, kept slowing down the flow of the chat with his loooong laborious ramblings about his hot take on high finance and casino capitalism. The pod was 40 minutes ish, with little structure, chronologically all over the shop and covered very little ground in the story of his life. It was part 1 of a 2 part episode that, judging from lots of other podcasts who have done Gary justice in 1 hour flat, didn't need to be strung out into two aimless episodes.

Just another example of this podcast taking the piss with listeners. The ad revenue must be fantastic for podcasts that these two can get away with this amateurish approach and still be a viable and lucrative use of their time.

Bobson Dugnutt

About to drop out of the Top 100 podcasts in the Apple Podcast charts.

jaykay74

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122165581#Comment_122165581

I gave up ages ago!

Westernview

Just after listening to the latest pods they did on Mickey Harte. 2 full episodes of Brolly indulgently moaning about what Harte has done to Derry. Fanning again very weak and getting bullied by Brolly any time he offers a different point of view. I couldn't listen to the end.

This topic didn't merit one full episode nevermind 2. The whole thing has gone really downhill after some promising episodes. Fanning should pull the plug on this nonsense.

HBC08

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122253089#Comment_122253089

I gave up on this about a year ago.

2 good episodes on the Rte scandal only buys you so much goodwill. Impossible to listen to Brolly,such as spiteful,hateful,petty man.

Dion Fanning is been bullied and humiliated regularly. I think he'll look back on this project in years to come and be embarrassed.

Westernview

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122253340#Comment_122253340

I think it goes to show that it's almost impossible to work with Brolly in media. A polite non-confrontational co-host like Dion should allow Joe the space he needs and he just needs to be reasonable in return. But no he can't even do that. Alternatively put a strong opinionated character with him and you get complete fallout. I don't think there is a happy medium either.

It really appears that Joe has insecurity issues and can't deal with sharing the limelight or pushback in any way. As someone mentioned already in this thread the only time he quietens down is when they have a charismatic guest like Christy Moore on and then it's about the guest more than Joe (2 excellent episodes I thought).

YabaDabaDooley

Brolly is not a fan of Dick Clerkin anyway. 'Dick by name, dick by....' he sarcastically said. And all because Fanning annoyed Joe so much for having the temerity to read a piece Clerkin did about how much he liked playing Derry during his career because basically their hearts were not in a lot of the time and he never really rated them

Obviously pissed Brolly right off and didn't suit his own narrative where you'd swear Derry were after winning five All Ireland in recent years the way he was going on. Clerkin did a bit of a hatchet job on Derry and Brolly had no other option but to likewise to Clerkin. And Fanning quite happy it seems to play underling and take Brollys criticism of him on the chin without any comeback.

I never heard of this podcast until i saw it on here and have listened to a few episodes but i find Brolly insufferable and Fanning too in his own rambling boring way. A match made in hell.

Hyperbollix

I had a go with the Mickey Harte stuff but just had to give up. I find the premise that this podcast is shackled to, Nordie issues, GAA and Nordie GAA, to be tiresome in the extreme at this stage. I think there is something here if Brolly could be reigned in and the topics were a bit more varied but as it stands it's just tedious.

padd b1975

I'll say one thing about the Mickey Harte episodes, they're easier to listen to than the Palestine ones.

Bobson Dugnutt

He really does have an astonishing ego.

Leslie Purkiss

Brolly is morphing into Alan Partridge. You’d worry for the man, and Dion having to suffer through it. Insane stuff.

Westernview

I've looked at the podcast titles the last few weeks and decided to give it a miss. How can every episode suddenly be about Joe's personal views on gaelic football? I like GAA but I can't understand how Dion allows this indulgence. Brolly is really making a fool of him at this stage.

Bobson Dugnutt

Fanning must be hoping to be the first man to be made a saint while he’s still alive.

Westernview

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122337001#Comment_122337001

He deserves the title of saint. The last person left in Irish media willing to put up with this nonsense it seems.

Bobson Dugnutt

Who actually listens to it? Is there an audience for a boring man from Derry pontificating, using non sequiturs, belittling his cohost, being overly personal about amateur players etc?

I’d rather give my elderly wheelchair-bound neighbour a sponge bath than listen to Brolly snorting and feeding his astonishing ego.

StevenToast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122337950#Comment_122337950

Some might say that Joe Brolly is living ' rent free' in your head Dr. Bobson...

touts

I gave up listening to it. Brolly started as a headwrecking crank but entertaining. The entertaining part died months ago. There is a real whiff of the Neil Oliver podcast about him. In that Neil, the scottish historian from the BBC, started out covering historical topics and was pretty interesting just as in his BBC TV shows. Then he started to throw in an odd comment or two. Now he gave up on history and is full on conspiracy theory, time for revolution, insanity. Brolly is about 2 years behind him on the spiral downwards.

Westernview

Some of the earlier episodes were quite enjoyable. I previously mentioned the 2 excellent Christy Moore pods where Joe kept quiet and let him speak. It worked well with Dion having a presenter role and Joe chipping in with some interesting anecdotes involving Christy and provoking an interesting discussion on the Stardust stuff. I hadn't known how deeply Christy got involved in all that.

But that's the whole problem - unless they have a big personality or some one very well known Joe will just go and make the whole thing about himself. I wonder why they have gone away from the guest slots - is it a money issue?