Armagh I Podcast

LGBTQ+ champion Councillor Pete Byrne on wearing a mask he was unable to take off for 10 years

Most of us have got used to wearing a mask over the past year, but imagine not being able to take it off for 10 years.
That’s what Pete Byrne says his life felt like until he finally told just four people that he was gay – at the age of 24.
Since then the well-known and highly-respected SDLP Crossmaglen Councillor has become a strong advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, including championing the annual Pride festival. He also married his husband Trevor in 2012, after struggling for years with worries and fears about acceptance in his small rural village.
The pain of inequalities, injustices, and having to mask his sexuality, runs deep however, and Pete, who is quiet by nature, feels compelled to help others and try to prevent them from suffering as he has.
His wounds have been opened many times throughout his life – most recently when having to debate the merits of banning conversion therapy in Northern Ireland. And when Pete spoke to Armagh I for this podcast he implored politicians and the church to look at the damage that abhorrent practice, along with archaic attitudes and hurtful language, causes to the LGBTQ+ community.

Co Armagh's very own Paranormal Investigator of things that go bump in the night

I never imagined I’d be jumping at shadows following a trip to Keady in broad daylight, but a visit to Sharon Moen’s house left me slightly ruffled.
Not that Sharon was anything but lovely company, but it was our conversation that made be glad I wasn’t driving home through the countryside in the dark Sharon is a Paranormal Investigator – or as some might say – Ghosthunter.
She set up a group called Paravent who believe that the dead are very much in tune with the living, and the group actively seeks these spirits out - or indeed find it to be the other way around at times.
Sharon says she has seen, heard and been visited by spirits since her adolescence, and she is out to prove to the world that they are all around us if we choose to believe in the signs.
With other like-minded individuals, Sharon has been to some of the most haunted places in Ireland and they have certainly lived up to their reputations. Evidence of paranormal activity is crucial to her investigations however, whether that be through photography or EVP (electronic voice phenomena).
For this week’s podcast, Sharon talks about one such ghostly photograph taken at Leap Castle which was scrutinised intensely by experts before being considered genuine enough to publish in the National Media.

Seán Treanor and bringing stories to life through Newpoint Players

For this week’s podcast we had a wide-ranging chat with Seán Treanor about his life, from his idyllic schooldays at the Abbey; channelling Donn Byrne through a strange coincidence; the plays he’s written, directed and acted in and people who he’s worked with; marking Martin O’Neill in a football match; his use of music in his work, from Gregorian chant to Philip Glass to Sean-nós, and much, much more including a poem about a childhood teacher Miss Sands.

People of the Year: Gary McCoo, Leeanne Gillespie and Philip Johnston

The inaugural Armagh I People of the Year awards celebrates extraordinary individuals for the extraordinary impact they’ve had on their communities over the past year.
In the previous podcast we spoke to two of the five winners and for this episode, proudly sponsored by Blackhill Energy, Armagh I caught up with the other three winners – Gary McCoo, Leeanne Gillespie and Philip Johnston

Bernie O'Connor talks autism and daughter Jodie as Stephen Fields champions community

After a year like no other, positivity and selflessness has never held more meaning.
The inaugural Armagh I People of the Year Awards epitomises just what community spirit is all about and the nominees and winners that you voted for are prime examples of that.
In this and the next week's podcast, we speak to the winners in each of the five categories.
For this episode, proudly sponsored by Blackhill Energy, Armagh I caught up with Bernie O’Connor, mother of Jodie O’Connor who won the Inspirational Young Talent Award.
It’s been a challenging year for Jodie who has autism, with the closure of the community facility her mother set up three years ago, due to Covid-19, and also familiar places such as the library and leisure centre where Jodie frequented.
Rather than sit it out however, Jodie took the first step that led her on a path that will no doubt continue long after the lockdown ends.
She took up walking and gradually challenged herself more and more, resulting in walking over 400 miles while raising money for a number of charities.
Jodie completed a marathon in 13 days, following her slogan ‘Doing it My Way’ and raised over £1,700 for the Southern Area Hospice. She walked 100,000 steps in aid of the Special Olympics and raised further funds for PIPs and numerous other charities.
Bernie tells us all about Jodie’s life, her joy on receiving the award and the challenges she and others with autism face through lack of funding.
We also speak to Stephen Fields, winner of the Community Impact Award.
Stephen is Community Development Manager for the West Armagh Consortium and also Chair of the Covid-19 Response Team.
While he has long been involved in community groups, Stephen really showed his mettle in this trying year.
From sourcing and organising PPE deployment to those in need at the start of the pandemic to setting up a cottage industry of over 35 seamstresses to make much-needed scrubs, Stephen pulled it all together.
He says the consortium was the core hub of activity, for the initiatives taken on, but it takes a special kind of person to come up with ways to make a difference, including liaising with vegetable producers to take unusable perishable produce and redistribute it to those in need.
Stephen modestly acknowledges that it’s a community effort that keeps things running, with classes and events continuing over zoom and outdoors where possible, but he is at the heart of it all and his and Jodie’s contributions to society have been acknowledges by you, the voters.

Quitting smoking and healthy eating tips from the Southern Trust team

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since Covid 19 stopped the world in its tracks and changed life as we knew it.
While we’ve all struggled - to varying degrees - there is support out there in terms of looking after our health.
For the next two episodes of Armagh I’s podcast, proudly sponsored by Blackhill Energy, we speak to some of those who are here to help from the Southern Health and Social Care Trust.
The Southern Health and Social Care Trust provides health and social care services across the five council areas of Armagh, Banbridge, Craigavon, Dungannon and Newry and Mourne.
This week Armagh I chatted with Valerie Gough and Colette O’Brien, who shared a number of tips, strategies and advice in the areas of smoking cessation and diet and nutrition.

Armagh's Stephen Darragh takes us behind scenes of Bloodlands, Line of Duty and more..

Bloodlands broke BBC viewership records in Northern Ireland after the first episode aired recently - with over 300,000 tuning in to the gritty crime drama.
But while James Nesbitt and Charlene McKenna kept us all on the edge of our seats, the magic on the screen was seen from a completely different angle by those on set.
For this week’s podcast, proudly sponsored by Blackhill Energy, we spoke to Armagh’s own Stephen Darragh who is one of those who knows just how much effort and money goes into a production like this – being one of the people heavily involved.
Stephen was the Second Assistant Director on Bloodlands, and that’s just a drop in the ocean when it comes to the tv shows and films that he has worked on since joining the industry in 2006.

Sinead O'Sullivan – Armagh's very own rocket woman who reached for the stars at NASA

Many from a young age have a fascination with space but very few would see this as a viable career path....well it is rocket science after all!
So it may surprise you that one of Armagh's very own has had a hand in NASA's designs for human spaceflight missions to Mars.
Sinead O’Sullivan might have spent her very really early years in Johannesburg, South Africa, but it is in Armagh that she developed her love for science.
Whilst at the Southern Regional College – or tech as she knew it – in the city, a 16-year-old Sinead got the opportunity to travel to NASA’s Johnson Space Center as part of a space camp.
Ever since then, it was her goal to make it back to mission control - and she did but it was not easy!
Sinead did complete a Bachelors of Aerospace Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast but soon found that jobs in the space exploration industry were hard to come by.
She even recalls at one point being rejected for a job designing rockets and another making sandwiches on the same day!
After some soul-searching, Sinead eventually got her dream job at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Working at the Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory, she worked on projects ranging from air and submarine autonomous robotics for the US Air Force and Navy, to creating algorithms to detect mine-laying patterns by enemy naval forces at the bottom of the ocean using rovers.
Sinead was also able to return to NASA, but this time as an engineer helping to design human spaceflight missions to Mars.
Topping off her CV, she then went on to complete a Masters in Business Administration at Havard in order to stay ahead as commercial spaceflight has begun to emerge.
Now a Research Fellow at MIT, Sinead is taking the methodologies she created at NASA and applying them to the social sciences to better understand global challenges, such as the interaction between democracy and technology.