Fintan O'Toole: Brexit

Perhaps Ireland’s best known journalist, Fintan O’Toole is well known for piercing political commentary and in this episode he ruthlessly dissects the psychology and politics of Brexit. His First Thought Talk Listen, recorded in 2018, is both pointed and prescient. Listen to learn how trivial journalistic lies became far-from-trivial national obsessions; how the pose of camp indifference to truth and historical fact has come to define the style of an entire political elite; the redefinition of a country that once had colonies as an oppressed nation requiring liberation; the strange gastronomic and political significance of prawn-flavoured crisps, and their role in the rise of Boris Johnson.

This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at NUI Galway at the Winter 2018 First Thought Talks programme presented by Galway International Arts Festival. To watch the Q&A which followed the talk, visit the talks section on Galway International Arts Festival’s website on giaf.ie: https://www.giaf.ie/talks/first-thought-talk-with-fintan-otoole