TELL us a little bit about yourself:

I’m a sound artist and filmmaker, and more recently, producer of the bi-monthly Rebel Matters podcast which is presented by the Cork-based, West Belfast native Ainle Ó Cairealláin. I’m originally from Tuam, but have lived in Cork for almost 20 years. I live with my husband Dave, teenage daughter Sionnach, and our black cat Binsky Bungo.

Around this time last year, I first wrote to Ainle to volunteer my administration skills for his fundraising campaign for ACLAÍ Palestine — a community gym/movement space for the residents of the overcrowded and regularly tear-gassed Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem. The following day, Ainle and I met for a coffee at Alchemy and he mentioned that they were flying out to the occupied West Bank to smuggle in the gym equipment in two weeks time. Would I come too? Fire and 3fe coursed through me on the walk home as I stared at the Dublin to Tel Aviv flight path on my phone. Less than an hour after having first met Ainle, I texted back a screenshot of my plane ticket and the words “I’m in”. A few months after we’d gotten ACLAÍ Palestine off the ground, Ainle asked if I’d come on board as the producer of his podcast. We work well together and have a real laugh in the process, too. Teamwork makes the dream work!

What is your ideal way to spend a Friday night?

An ideal Friday night seems like such a distant fantasy now. I’m dreaming of pints in Callanan’s, live music, dancefloors and karaoke again. Still, living through this period has taught me to be incredibly grateful for what’s around me. Stretched across the couch listening to noise CDs in front of the fire with Dave is both a typical and ideal Friday night for me.

Lie ins or up with the lark — which is it for you?

I’m usually up first. I’ll make coffee for myself and smoothies for the other two. I’ll talk to the cat, give him his breakfast and read the news. After breakfast, we’ll all do a big clean of the house together before heading to the Coal Quay farmers market to pick up spuds and veg from Caroline Robinson and then on to the English Market for some other bits.

Does work creep into your weekend at all?

Yes, I don’t really have a clear break from work. The podcast comes out every second Friday, and there’s usually a lot of feedback over the weekend from our growing community of patrons and listeners so I tend to that. We get a lot of people writing to us from around the world and every new Patreon subscription means that Ainle and I can continue scheming and meeting interesting people, helping to introduce their work to our listeners.

I’ve become increasingly conscious of the hard, unpaid graft involved when people work on projects they are passionate about. Ainle and I devote hours of invisible work to each episode and we’d love to get to the point where that effort is valued and supported somehow. Patreon has opened up that possibility, but we’re still in the ‘doing it for the pure love of it’ zone.

In terms of my own art practice, I’m working on a project relating to the Tuam writer, Joseph O’Neill, so I schedule time for that, too.

Some Saturdays I might be working at My Goodness, or I could be home, researching potential guests or working on forthcoming art/music commissions. There are no clear markers in my life to delineate ‘work’ and ‘time off’, but I try to recognise when the balance is badly off and do something to fix it.

If money was no object where would you head to on a weekend city break? And who would you bring with you?

If money were no object it would have to be a Galway night out, with Dave and Pricey and whoever else appears along the way.

Closer to home, is there some place you like to head to recharge the batteries?

I don’t drive so am somewhat limited in terms of getting to nice spots outside the city. As a family, we often strike off on what we call ‘night walks’ together when it starts to get dark; we’ll walk down to the Port of Cork to see what boats are in and look at the lights on the water, and then we’ll circle back, hoping that bats will flit past us on the way home like they used to do in the summer.

Do you like to catch up with family/friends at the weekend?

I love to catch up with my friend Dan in Finland. We check in about Brexit bleakness (he’s from Kent) and talk about what we’re both reading or listening to.

Do you get to indulge any hobbies? Even as a spectator?

I really miss ordering and collecting books from the library! I only got into reading fiction a couple of years ago (thanks to both my friend Dan, and the brilliant Backlisted podcast), and now I love getting stuck into books. My favourite thing was to get newly obsessed with an older author and to track down a beautifully designed and well-thumbed-through, early edition of their book that might have been sitting unnoticed in some store room in Enniscrone for decades. The recent single shared catalogue system that connects all the libraries of Ireland together changed my life. I am passionate about library membership.

Entertain or be entertained? If it’s the latter do you have a signature dish?

I enjoy being a guest, and I love being tasked with being the music selector for the night.

We have so many places to eat out in Cork — where are your go to spots for coffee/ lunch/ special meal?

Alchemy and Filter for coffee, Bradleys for booze, Miyazaki, Iyers and My Goodness for everything else.

Sunday night comes around too fast — how do you normally spend it?

Doing some cooking for the week ahead, listening to music, folding a small mountain of clean clothes and playing card games with Dave and Sionnach.

What time does your alarm clock go off on Monday morning?

It all kicks off at 7am. If you come to the English Market through the Princes Street entrance on a Monday morning, it’s likely that the first thing you’ll encounter will be the clink of kefir and kombucha bottles, the languid strains of Sun Ra, and my tired, but happy masked-up face.

ABOUT REBEL MATTERS PODCAST

Rebel Matters, a bi-monthly podcast for and with activists, artists, and scallywags, presented by Ainle Ó Cairealláin, a West-Belfast native now based in Cork city, and produced by sound artist/filmmaker Vicky Langan.

New episodes are uploaded every second Friday.

Rebel Matters is fully supported by the listeners of the podcast through our Patreon (https://patreon.com/rebelmatters).

Ainle said: “The Rebel Matters Podcast started in 2017 as a side project to building ACLAÍ, a personal training business in Cork city.”

Rebel Matters episodes can be heard on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and anywhere where podcasts are usually found online.For more see https://www.patreon.com/rebelmatters and 

https://rebelmatters.ie/