High Noon: How one man retreated from the world and found his way back again

Eamonn Sweeney’s life changed on a June day in the year 2000.

He was a sportswriter enjoying the traditional rhythm of the GAA summer as he arrived at Fitzgerald Stadium in Killarney.

Suddenly he was hit by a bomb and couldn’t put one foot in front of the other.

It was the beginning of a descent into isolation and fear.

On Free State today, Eamonn Sweeney talks about the terror of those days when travelling became a nightmare and he retreated into a cocoon.

He speaks about his new book and how writing it helped to restore him as he found purpose again. It is a story about the community and the power of the GAA

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

Free State is a podcast for the curious that stimulates, provokes, challenges and entertains, while never taking itself too seriously. Free State covers topics from sport to politics, love to loss, the human condition and how to fix the world, with guests from across the planet including Nigerian princes, former Prime Ministers, ex convicts, footballers, boxers and extraordinary people from every walk of life. 

Free State is presented by Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning. Brolly is a barrister, an original thinker with a fascinating backstory, who donated a kidney to a stranger and then led a crusade to transform organ donation on the island of Ireland, and Fanning is an award-winning interviewer and author. 

They are not motivational gurus or life coaches. They will never try to sell you a penis scented candle. They are two people from very different worlds, with one core belief uniting them - this is not a high performance podcast.

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

• No. of episodes: 225
• Latest episode: 2025-05-03
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