Free State with Dion Fanning and Joe Brolly

Hyperbollix

Anyone listening to this?

I got into this pod around the time of the RTE payments scandal breaking and thought it did a great job of explaining the ins and out of the saga over a couple of episodes. I've stuck with it since but find it becoming a chore now and am about to unsub. Apart from the fact it's too NI / Troubles focused for my taste, Brolly has become unlistenable. He has a wonderful knack of getting to the cold hard truth of a topic but his enormous ego makes it impossible to stick with it. He is a co-host, yet he's constantly talking over Fanning. Fanning is forever saying "but Joe, hold on" "Joe, let me just say........." "Hang on Joe, its its its..........." The whole thing is becoming a monologue for Brolly to rant and rave.

What's worse are his strange Dunphyesque crying episodes. I was sick last week and on a dose of antibiotics. I stuck on the latest episode of this pod featuring Gaza and fell asleep. I then drifted into a sort of nether realm of half waking half asleep fever dreaming where Brolly was ranting about little kids in Gaza and crying manically into the microphone. I awoke in a cold sweat. I geuinely at this point don't know if the man is for real or mentally ill.

Bobson Dugnutt

Brolly is both a fruitcake and a tremendously boring man. Enormous ego as well. I’d rather listen to my best friend bang my sister than listen to Brolly. You’d want to be a sadist to listen to Brolly.

Damien360

Like every podcast, some of them are brilliant and some, particularly when he gets emotional, are dreadful. The recent two part just before the Gaza ones are very good. He talks to a GAA ref about everything except GAA. I listen regularly and enjoy them.

Leslie Purkiss

Overall it’s very good. Fanning’s dithering and timidness are frustrating at times.

JB is coming from the right place, but his personality is grating. A strange man.

Hangdogroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121384864#Comment_121384864

He gets right up your nose so he's doing something right.

Steviemak7

I enjoyed it when it was released but have stopped listening to it now. Like the OP, too much NI, I find Gaza too depressing to engage with and Joe Brolly never lets Dion have an opinion not in line with his own

Hyperbollix

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121400346#Comment_121400346

Disagreeing would be fine but he doesn't let Fanning speak half the time. It's beyond tiresome to hear one person continually trying to get a word in edgeways while the other openly and rudely talks loudly over them until they shut up.

Bobson Dugnutt

Brolly’s enormous ego doesn’t allow him to be able to engage with or even properly understand the opinions of others. We all know the sort - he knows everything, thinks he’s the cleverest man in the room, and will take a contrarian opinion on everything just for the sake of it.

Incredibly tiresome personality type, and why you’d actually go to the bother of spending time seeking out and listening to that in audio format is a genuine mystery to me.

There’s far too many podcasts anyway, and it’s no surprise to see it trapdoor down the ratings.

Hyperbollix

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121401462#Comment_121401462

Well, I find him to be a bit like one of those prolific but troubled Gah players he's always waffling about......! The kind that could score you a good few points but could then get a red "kyard" for clotheslining a fella out of the blue!

Brolly has a great ability to break down a topic into a straight forward explanation. He was first class on the RTE scandal and I recommended those episodes to many at the time, for anyone wanting to hear a clear breakdown of events and a barrister's interpretation on the motives of the various parties involved. He has sort of struck a similar note on the Israel/Gaza conflict. He is certainly full of background info, sourced information and quotes etc

But he just can't reign himself in. He strikes me as a man who has led a charmed life who has been smelling his own farts for decades. Academically gifted in school and university. A high profile sportsman throughout his life. Of course, in a profession and operating at a level in that profession that isn't noted for shy, retiring or humble individuals. Of course, he's newly married to a woman 15 odd years (?) his junior, which really has sent his ego into orbit altogether! Then there's this mad crying and wailing he goes on with. He could be literally talking about seeing a child in a wheelchair outside the four courts and he will break into tears for a minute before manically laughing about a different topic two minutes later. A very strange man indeed.

Sunjava

Somebody needs to have a word with Joe to stop taking up all the air time and involve Dion. It's extreme at times and very much to the detriment to the overall atmosphere of the podcast. I presume it has been said to him many time but it goes in one and out the other

pappyodaniel

Agreed. It's completely turned into a grief and tragedy wankpod. I like a podcast to give a brief distraction to to what's going on in the real world as I'm only too aware of what's happening in Gaza and what happened during the troubles. I also find it a bit too parochial when he's speaking of the North "sure I was talking to Patsy McGee and his lovely wife Mary Divine, who's father was a great GAA man might I add, and wasn't he a selector on the BallyTaigue intermediate football team who famously reached the semifinals of the Tyrone county championship....(bla dee bla dee bla)"

He can be incredibly charismatic at times but he's chosen to ignore that side of his personality of late.

HBC08

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058323164/free-state-with-dion-fanning-and-joe-brolly

I could have wrote this exact post.

Brolly has proven himself to be a bully and a coward before,also a massive hypocrite so I just avoided him for the last few years.

A lot of people were recommending the pod on the RTE episodes so I listened to it and it was very absorbing,interesting and funny.

I listened over the rest of the summer but Joe's ego was getting harder and harder to listen to.I had to stop and have unsubsribed.

Hes right and everybody else is wrong.....until he has the exact opposite view on a similar subject, in that case he's right and everybody else is wrong also.

JKerova1

I like the interview with Peter Taylor. Taylor is such an interesting person and not someone I have heard interviewed on Irish television or radio before.

Damien360

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121426983#Comment_121426983

Definitely one of the better ones. Joe Brolly was in awe of the man so he let him talk.

Utopia Parkway

Such a strange podcast in a lot of ways. I'm not sure why Dion Fanning is even there. He can barely get a word in edgewise such is Brolly's motor mouth and enormous ego.

Hyperbollix

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121482781#Comment_121482781

I feel sorry for Dion. I used to enjoy his football writing back in the day. He's a decent journalist and his old podcast, Unfiltered, was good. He's wasted here because he's increasingly becoming a host to simply introduce the topic before Brolly winds up into a long, meandering ramble down the byroads and boreens of the northern matters. I used to have an uncle in law who was an athletics and Olympics games bore. I never remember a conversation in any setting that he didn't try to steer into athletics chat. The man had practically no small talk beyond that.

Brolly is the very same when it comes to GAA and the Troubles / Nordie issues. He's like a broken record. I know the pod is called Free State and that is it's USP, but why stick to that when your audience are probably bone sick of it, and you have proven to be quite good on other topics (RTE scandal, the Dublin riots etc)

The answer is the show must cater to Brolly's "strengths" and they seem to be sleep inducing blather about club football championships in Derry and whinging about the DUP, loyalism and the Brits in general.

Bobson Dugnutt

He’s one of the country’s great bores. A tedious middle-aged man who thinks his half-baked brain farts are somehow profound. He was terrible as a pundit on The Sunday Game and that was why he was dropped.

Can’t see this fiasco of a podcast paying its way much longer.

The only episode I found remotely interesting was Dion’s talking about his alcoholism and recovery. Even then Brolly was butting in snorting, guffawing and pontificating.

Hangdogroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121488164#Comment_121488164

No ones forcing you to listen to it Doc.

Blanco100

I love it, I think Brolly is fascinating, a hugely intelligent man who has personality flaws galore. He absolutely adores attention and works extremely hard to be centre of attention.

His inability to rein it in is quite funny to be honest, it's impossible for him to control, there is huge ego involved. But it's all coming from a good place with him. He will disagree with everyone, and those he agrees with Brolly will say he can explain it better.

His episodes with Roddy Collins are very funny. Roddy says whenever he meets Brolly they talk for about 20 mins and then go their separate ways. He said they didn't talk "to" Each other, both just talked for 20 mins and neither would have a clue what the other said, but they went away feeling better.

When Joe is in his whispering or soft spoken ways he's a great man to put you to sleep.

jaykay74

He laughs a lot in advance at things he is about to say.

Bobson Dugnutt

Joe Brolly and Roddy Collins guffawing, snorting and regaling unfunny auld stories they’ve been telling for 20 years is like something imagined about in Dante’s 8th circle of hell.

I’d rather listen to my mother suggest to my auld fella that tonight is pegging night.

Hyperbollix

The lastest episode popped up in my feed, about the Supervalu Park renaming story..... Had a listen. A long whinge from Brolly about the excesses of corporate medaling in sport and how on a recent trip to the US, he couldn't get over how insanely commercial everything is over there, with constant advert bombardment the norm. He complained that we are being conditioned to no longer think about anything beyond being good consumers.....

His rant was off course prefixed by a 4 minute intro where he and Dion talk about how the content on the streaming service which happens to sponsor the podcast is absolutely unmissable. He was also cut off mid sentence half way through the podcast for a loud Sky Sports advert or possibly some other premier league purveyor!

You'd have to laugh!

HBC08

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121681915#Comment_121681915

I largely agree with you on this.

However,about 50% of your " I'd rather" shtick relates to your parents sex life,that's a bit strange.

You're also repeating the jokes,you seems to have a stock of only 4 or 5.Thats spreading it thin for a hyper poster like yourself.

jackboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121682054#Comment_121682054

Yep. The sponsorship ads before the podcast are always the two boys having a chat about how great the product is. Very casual, almost not like an ad at all, its almost like they are trying to trick people into thinking its not an ad or scripted.

Damien360

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121682094#Comment_121682094

That's every podcast. Been a while since I listened to the Athletic podcast (football). It's main sponsor complete with explanation was a brand of razor for the hair around your bollocks.

Damien360

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121681915#Comment_121681915

I actually enjoyed the Roddy Collins podcasts. There were 2 with him in it, both close in time to each other.

pappyodaniel

It looks like Dion is getting really fed up with Joe Brolly ranting and raving and completely hogging the microphone.

evolvingtipperary101

I find it a bit frightening the ease with which Brolly goes into lawyer mode- the lone tone, the bombastic anger, and the crying. It’s so heavily performed… you’d wonder if the man is genuine or performing a character or has just let his work persona take over his personality. That need to needle and jibe and pressurise people - from Fanning to guests is all courtroom stuff too. The most ego maniac thing I found was his attempt to put himself at the centre of the stabbing outside the school as a witness - it was so clearly for promotion/pr/views…

I don’t mind his north focus because that is something he does have a deep knowledge about and it is important

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121682156#Comment_121682156

It was great - only that Brillo kept bringing up Roddy’s more famous brother which was unfair.

Beechwoodspark

Absolutely no interest in voluntarily listening to the pound shop Dunphy wannabe Joe Brolly.

It was a great day to see him gone from RTÉ.

Hyperbollix

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121723917#Comment_121723917

Yep, I listened to the latest one and found it very interesting. Not for the subject matter really, more NI/Sinn Fein coverage, but for the fact that Fanning finally lost the will to live and walked out of the studio mid podcast, it sounds like. There was a couple of minutes of dead air where I thought the recording had finished.

They were discussing Gaza and Fanning was trying to make the point that while he wasn't condoning what Israel are doing now, we should try to see it from the perspective of the Jewish people there who witnessed a horror show on October 7th. Brolly, instead of engaging with this line of thinking in a sober, relaxed manner, threw his toys out of the pram and effectively told Fanning he was talking shíte and he wouldn't allow any balancing of blame on this topic. "I will not listen to it..... I will not hear it!!" Who the fúck does he think he is? lol

Poor old Dion isn't really the quickest to articulate a point, he does a lot of stuttering and certainly not one for shouting down someone so he just let himself be steamrolled by Brolly, then just said "Ive had enough" and walked off.

I don't recall anything in the way of a climbdown from Brolly on resumption, it was more a vibe of "God almighty, you're an awful soft wee south Dublin chappy aren't ye, God love ye...........can we continue now or do you need another few minutes"

It's actually something how little respect he has for his co-host and I would imagine in his own head he thinks this is what people are listening for, real talk, arguments and bantz. When in reality he comes across as a real cnut who just turns people off listening. It's pretty incredible to think a 50 year old man needs someone to tell him to focus his vitriol and no fúck's given approach onto the the people and topics they are covering, not onto his co-host.

It must be paying for a few Rugby outings for Dion. If I was him, I'd walk and get a new show with a new co-host.