The Women’s Podcast: ‘I lived in a palace but I love small places’

“Only a few months ago, I moved out of a flat that was small. It was a room . . . I called it ‘the shoebox’ and lived there for two years, but I liked it,” Dublin based Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan said on the latest episode of The Women’s Podcast.

“I lived in a 300-room palace before, but I love small places. I love Ikea, I like simple, I like cosy.” Narayanan-Mohan grew up in India’s presidential palace after her grandfather, KR Narayanan, became the first “untouchable” president, from India’s lowest caste.

Irish Times journalist Sorcha Pollak, writer of this newspaper’s weekly series New To The Parish, told presenter Kathy Sheridan how the series came about. “We spend a lot of time speaking about the young people who are leaving us. What about all the people who are setting up their lives here, who are coming here for work, who are immigrating to this country? We wanted to find out a little bit more about them”.

New to the Parish chronicles the lives of people who have recently moved to Ireland from other countries to find out what it is like to settle here.

“It became really popular really quickly. Throughout the summer it snowballed and now everyday when I open my email, I’ve got new messages for people looking to get involved,” she said.

On this week’s episode, Pollak spoke to three women who have moved to Ireland in recent years: Narayanan-Mohan, Zeenie Summers from Nigeria and Flor Sylvester from Argentina. The women talked about their differing experiences.

Comedian and author Tara Flynn joined us on the podcast this week to talk about Giving Out Yards, her new book, which is all about the art of complaining Irish style. In it, she leaves no moan unturned.

“Nothing tastes as good as giving out feels,” Flynn told Kathy Sheridan, host of The Women’s Podcast.

Also in Episode 6, there’s an interview with transgender rights activist Dr Lydia Foy, who received the European Parliament’s Citizens Prize in Brussels last week. Her 22-year legal battle for a new birth certificate led to the passage of the Gender Recognition Act this year.

Foy is the first trans person ever to receive an award from the EU and talks about her decades of work on trans rights in Ireland.

This week’s question of the week was prompted by Conor Horgan’s documentary about Panti Bliss, The Queen of Ireland, which is on general release now.

Our question this week is: Who would you nominate as your queen of Ireland and why do they deserve the crown?

Listeners are invited to tweet their answers @ITWomensPodcast, post to our Facebook page or email thewomenspodcast@irishtimes.com.

Individual episodes of the podcast are available on Soundcloud, iTunes and Stitcher.