Saturdays, 1 - 2:30PM
John McDonagh: host
Sandy Boyer: host
Liza Butler: engineer
Website (including partial audio archives): www.irishfreedom.net
For copies of the show: (212) 209-2971
Phone number: (212) 209-2971
Program description
Radio Free Eireann covers the Irish freedom struggle from an Irish republican point of view. We use the Irish experience to relate to struggles ranging from the war against the Palestinian people and the Turkish hunger strike to Puerto Rican political prisoners and resisting the burning of the Black churches in the south. Frequent guests have included human rights activist Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, journalist Eamonn McCann and former IRA commander Brendan Hughes.
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Host/producer profiles
John McDonagh is a cab driver, comic, and political activist.
John began his career as a New York City yellow cab driver after serving in the U.S. Army in Germany during the Vietnam War. He is also the producer, host and founder of Radio Free Eireann, a weekly radio show heard on WBAI New York for the past twenty years.
John has been writing and performing comedy for over ten years, and he has performed his cabbie comedy at Carolines, the Comic Strip, The Huntington Cinema Arts Center, the New York Society for Ethical Culture, the Puffin Room SOHO, and at Rocky Sullivan's pub in Manhattan. As a founding member of the Christmas Coup Comedy Players, John can be heard every month on WBAI, New York. His comedy is a combination of social commentary and political satire, with a healthy dose of wit. As he drives through the streets of Manhattan in the middle of the night, his passengers, both crazy and sane, provide much of the inspiration for John's comedy. His routines include a montage of New York stories, set against a backdrop of current events.
As a political activist, John organized the "Cabbies Against Bush" campaign in NYC during the 2004 republican convention, and works with Veterans Against the Iraq War. He has worked on many issues of concern to the Irish American community, and has acted as a monitor in the elections of 1990 in Nicaragua.
He has been the editor of the Irish People Newspaper, and started an Irish radio show in Perth, Australia. John's many media credits include Fox News, New York 1, Russian and Greek television, National Public Radio, Canadian Public Radio, BBC World Service, Australian Public Radio and Air America,German national radio, and he has been quoted in stories in the New York Daily News, New York Post and Newsweek Magazine.
Award-wining journalist Judith Kampfner, in conjunction with Soundprint and the BBC, produced a radio documentary about taxi drivers. John drove Ms. Kampfner around New York City in his yellow cab, and was featured in the documentary. This is what Soundprint had to say: "Talk about taxis as a guilty pleasure! Whether it's riding in style on the streets of New York (avoiding the hustle, bustle, and pain of the Subway), or zipping across London's spiraling maze of cross-streets (never doubting your intrepid guide's sense of direction), producer Judith Kampfner takes us on a tour of Taxi drivers -- the rough-edged New York City cabbies, and the traditional, vintage hacks of London."
John was also an extra in the film "The Departed". He is also in Stephen Fry In America which will be seen in 2009 on PBS. John's parents emigrated from CO. Donegal and Tyrone Ireland to Queens, New York, and, while raised in New York, John spent his summers in Ireland. John currently resides in Queens, New York and maintains a blog at hackshotnyc.blogspot.com.
Sandy Boyer has led campaigns to free Irish political prisoners including the Guildford 4, Birmingham 6, and Roisin McAliskey. He has taught Irish history at the Irish Arts Center and lectured on Irish politics and history at numerous colleges and universities, Boyer has contributed articles on the Irish struggle to publications in Ireland and the US including New Politics, The Irish People, Fortnight, Fourthwrite and The Blanket.
