Stephen Holland - Multimedia Journalist

This radio series, that originally aired on Flirt.FM a licensed student radio station for NUIG, takes one particular type of music, subculture, sub-genre, or moment in time each week and examines it in detail. Listening to some of the best or underrated music of that time and looking at the history behind it. On Episode 16 we're going to be taking things a little easier. Ryan and I are going through some of our favourite easy listening tracks of the 70s. That's smooth groovers, heartfelt ballads, and a little bit of inoffensive rock. Sit back, listen, and relax. Listen: Here (Originally 29/03/21)

We all have those books, novels, and plays that we wish we could read if only we had the time. While the idea of finally reading Don Quixote , War and Peace, or the Iliad sounds so enticing, life inevitably gets in the way and as the years go on it gets less and less likely that you are ever going to tackle these behemoths of literature. This is how I left for a long time and a couple of years ago I decided to do something about it. Each year I would challenge myself to read one difficult book. At the beginning of January, I would decide what it would be and from then I had until December 31 st to complete it. This method saw me finally tick books off my reading list that without it would have remained there for the rest of my life. Books that you know will be great, and informative, and you will remember forever, but somehow the motivation to start them is never there. In 2017, it was Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, a novel that has so much to teach us about what it means to be a...

The news that the Pontins campsite chain in the UK had a blacklist of Irish surnames which they labelled “undesirable guests” came as a shock to many, who saw it as discriminatory, racist, and unjust. This was the initial reaction as all the headlines said was, “Irish surnames”. But upon further investigation you learn that this policy was designed to exclude Gypsies and Travellers and was not aimed at everyday settled Irish people. This is when a lot of the shock, horror, and outrage began to dissipate and suddenly this was no longer the broad issue of social injustice that it first seemed. Why is that? Why is it that in an age rampant activism and accountability Travellers are so often left out of the conversation surrounding racism? As If it does not count when it is just Travellers? It is often claimed that Ireland is not racist, and we can point to the Pontins scandal and say, “isn’t it just awful what they’ve done in the UK”. But when it comes to discussions surrounding Traveller...

Stephen Holland · Christmas In Vietnam (Radio Package) OUT: NUIG News Christmas is a time of joy, a time for love and cheer, a time for making memories, to last throughout the year.  And as we all gear up for the holiday season here in Ireland, it’s easy to forget about the different Christmas celebrations happening all around the world.  We may be used to the classic Christmas dinner of turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy. But in Colombia they eat Patacones, a type of potato pancake, while in Greenland you’d eat whale blubber for dinner, and if you were in Japan, you’d eat KFC as your traditional festive feast. As children across the country draft their letters to Santa Claus. The kids in Austria are worrying about Krampus, a half-goat, half-demon, who punishes the Children who misbehave. In Iceland, there’s the Christmas Cat who eats up any little ones who haven’t received new clothes on Christmas day. And in Switzerland there’s Santa’s sidekick Schmutzli who he...

This radio series, that originally aired on Flirt.FM a licensed student radio station for NUIG, takes one particular type of music, subculture, sub-genre, or moment in time each week and examines it in detail. Listening to some of the best or underrated music of that time and looking at the history behind it. Episode 15 is all about the fab four from Liverpool, the Beatles.  Joining me today is my good friend Cian Carter who takes us on a journey through his favrouite tracks from each record.  Starting in 1963 with Please, Please, Me,  right through to 1970's Let It Be . Listen: Here  (Orginally aired 22/03/21)

This radio series, that originally aired on Flirt.FM a licensed student radio station for NUIG, takes one particular type of music, subculture, sub-genre, or moment in time each week and examines it in detail. Listening to some of the best or underrated music of that time and looking at the history behind it. Episode 14 was all about folk punk. Listen: Here (Originally aired 15/03/21)

Gautama Buddha once said, ““the past is already gone, the future is not yet here. There's only one moment for you to live, and that is the present moment”.  People have always tended to either live in a rose-tinted recollection of an Ill remembered past, or an over-exaggeration estimation on the possibilities of the future. Never has this been truer than under the gaze of Covid19. With nothing to do but ponder over memories from the before times, or to dream of the day someday soon when things will have gone back to normal. The question I wish to investigate today is, have people lost hope in the future thanks to this virus?  My answer to this question would be: No.  We have not lost hope in the future, but I think we may put too much hope in it. Every conversation I have is about what we will do in future, how great things will be when we can, or remembering back to when we used to be able to do this or that.  But we are alive today and whether we like it or not the...

  We are now the midst of Lent, but does that really mean anything in the world we live in today? The purpose of Lent is for Christians to prepare for the coming of Easter through penance and self-denial. It lasts for 40 days in commemoration of the 40 days and nights Jesus spent fasting in the Judaean Desert. As if through mimicking his actions, by abstaining from something that we enjoy, we can more thoroughly understand Christ and thus be brought closer to God. It is a noble concept, but in 2021 it can all feel a little bit old world and outdated. When I was a child, I took Lent very seriously. My two sisters and I would give up sweets every year. No chocolate, no jellies, no biscuits. If it was sweet, it was off limits. Occasionally we would make an exception for the St Patrick’s Day parade when sweets would be thrown out to the crowd. Although to me this felt sinful, like I had broken a sacred pact with God. I knew I should not do it, but the ChupaChups from the Sligo scouts b...

Saturday Night Fever was first released in 1977. The movie was a massive commercial success and had a colossal effect on popular culture in the late 1970s. It helped to popularise disco music around the world and cemented John Travolta as a huge movie star. The soundtrack includes songs by the Bee Gees and is still one of the greatest selling movie soundtracks of all time. These days, the film is mostly remembered for its extended dance routines, which you do have to admit are still incredible. But this movie is so much than that, and if you can look past its cheesy exterior for a moment, you will find a film that has a lot of say about the era it comes out of.  Saturday Night Fever tells the story of Tony Manero, a young working-class Italian-American from Brooklyn who spends his weekends dancing and drinking at the local discotheque. He is working a dead-end job, his parents do not respect him or support him, gang violence and racial tensions have ravaged his neighbourhood, and ...

This radio series, that originally aired on Flirt.FM a licensed student radio station for NUIG, takes one particular type of music, subculture, sub-genre, or moment in time each week and examines it in detail. Listening to some of the best or underrated music of that time and looking at the history behind it. Episode 13 is disco music, a seemingly vapid dance music genre, but was there more going on underneath the surface? Does disco represent the mass liberation of women, gays and black people that found a way to break out of a rock dominated music world? Listen: Here (originally aired 8/03/21)

  Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan My rating: 4 of 5 stars In Megan Nolan’s debut novel, Acts of Desperation , we get a glimpse into the interior romantic life of an unnamed narrator, her co-dependent relationship with a boy named Ciaran, and the consequences of obsessive love. Romantic attachments can be so frustratingly complicated. Sometimes from the outside it is easy to look at a relationship and see everything that is wrong with it. But just like the narrator’s friends in this book there is nothing you can do to stop it. You can see from the outset that the road she is walking down is paved with heartache and pain. That this is going to end in disaster. But unless you are the person in the relationship, you will never truly understand it. But that is what Nolan does with this novel, she makes us understand. Told through first person we get to experience the anxieties, self-destructive tendencies, and hedonistic indulgences of a young girl in Dublin who craves validation f...