With Samantha out of prison in 2018, she was now turning 30 years old. She began working as an au pair again and was about to commit her most serious crimes to date. With access to children, she began manipulating them into presenting themselves as victims before she was eventually charged with child stealing... (Ep 6/7) Credits: Finding Samantha is written, recorded and produced by Sharon Davis in Australia and Tim Desmond and Nicoline Greer in Ireland. Soundtrack composed by Paddy Flynn....

Sharon receives a strange phone call from a mystery woman with something to give her. Samantha receives her first full jail sentence as we hear from the Appeal Court Judge who decided on her case. And we receive an insight into how Samantha uses other people as she appears tries to play with us. (Ep 5/7) Credits: Finding Samantha is written, recorded and produced by Sharon Davis in Australia and Tim Desmond and Nicoline Greer in Ireland. Soundtrack composed by Paddy Flynn. Sound Engineer is...

With Samantha Azzopardi continuing to face police and judges, she fails to heed their warnings to change her behaviour. Instead, she continues to target people in Australia, then returns to Ireland before moving to another continent. And all the time, she’s creating new characters, new aliases and leaving new victims in her wake. Where is this all going to end up? (Ep4/7). Credits: Finding Samantha is written, recorded and produced by Sharon Davis in Australia and Tim Desmond and Nicoline...

A 15 yr old Russian gymnast turns up hoping to be adopted by a new family. A Police Prosecutor in Perth is not quite sure what kind of an individual he's dealing with. One Samantha Azzopardi actually reaches out to us - and we get to meet another. This journey is getting deeper and wilder than we could have ever imagined... (Ep3/7) Credits: Finding Samantha is written, recorded and produced by Sharon Davis in Australia and Tim Desmond and Nicoline Greer in Ireland. Soundtrack composed by...

As we follow the trail of the Girl at the GPO – who we now know is Australian woman Samantha Azzopardi - we dive into a surreal world where fact and fiction are often blurred. Samantha has connections to Ireland and a seemingly long and troubled back history in Australia. To begin to understand where this all started, we travel to Australia, to the suburbs of Sydney, where journalist Sharon Davis comes on board. Samantha’s trail leads us into the Blue Mountains in New South Wales and to a...

A new 7-part podcast series from RTÉ Documentary On One. To listen to the series in full, subscribe to 'Finding Samantha' from wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes released weekly, on Tuesdays. EP1: 2013 - A distressed teenage girl is found wandering in front of the General Post Office (GPO) in Dublin city centre. As suspicions rise that she’s the victim of serious crime, everyone scrambles to help her and to get to the bottom of her story. But a massive month long investigation by the...

A woman who has created more than 100 fake identities. A young girl found wandering the streets of Dublin. A teenager deported from Canada. Stories of sustained sexual abuse at the hands of many. Kidnapping charges, prison time, lies, fraud and deceit. Could all of these stories go back to just one person? A new 7-part podcast series from RTÉ Documentary On One unravelling the wild world of Samantha Azzopardi... Episode 1 available from April 25th 2023 from wherever you get your podcasts...

What do you do when you're not practising Catholics but your daughter wants to make her First Communion? daughter Mairead is excited about making her First Communion with all her school friends. Mam Anne, is an Australian immigrant to Ireland and wants to understand why the celebration of First Communion is so popular in Ireland. Narrated and produced by Anne Wayne. Production Supervision by Liam O'Brien. (2014) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On April 15th, 1941, German bomber planes began to bomb Belfast City. Ireland had remained neutral throughout the war, but on that night Taoiseach Eamonn De Valera put its neutrality at risk by sending its firemen from the Republic to help fight the blaze. Produced by Paddy O'Flaherty. (2011) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For years gangs have been looting the ancient treasures of Ireland. In 1990 Jim O’Connor is accused of being involved in stealing a Sheela Na Gig, a stone carving of a naked woman. Later another Irishman tries to sell ancient Irish stones to a college in the US, leading to an FBI sting operation. But are the two stories connected? Since first broadcast, A Tale of Two Sheelas has won a 2019 New York Festivals Radio Awards Finalist Certificate. Narrated and produced by Tim Desmond. (2018) ...

April 2nd 2023 marks the 45th anniversary of the death of Con Carey, the only man in Kerry to be buried twice. The story itself goes back to April 1978, when Con Carey, a bachelor labourer, was found dead on the outskirts of Brosna village in Co. Kerry. With no family around, Con’s burial was rushed and unusually quick. Having died in the early hours of Sunday morning, April 2nd, he was buried the following day, Monday April 3rd, 1978. The talk was that Con had not even been properly...

In October, 2013, a four year old blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl named Maria was discovered peeping out from underneath a blanket on a Roma camp in Greece. Her discovery would prompt a wave of near hysteria around the globe. Within days, two Irish children with similar features would be taken from their Roma parents here in Ireland. Since first broadcast, Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes has won a Silver Award at the 2019 New York Festivals Radio awards and shortlisted in the top five at the Justice...

Shane Dunphy goes in search of the truth behind one of Ireland's worst maritime disasters. The Saint Patrick, a Rosslare to Fishguard passenger ferry, was bombed and sunk by the Luftwaffe on 13th of June 1941, resulting in the deaths of 30 people. What puzzled Shane was why: the ship was not a military vessel, and Ireland as a neutral country was not at war. Yet the St Patrick was targeted not once but twice – the year before it was sunk a German plane had opened fire on the ship. (First...

Patrick O’Connell was a superstar and a cheat.  He was a superstar of soccer in Ireland, Britain and Spain and cheated on his family. He married two women with the same name and same appearance. Patrick, or Paddy O'Connell, played for Ireland in the early days of the national game; he led the country to its first Home Championships title in 1914.  He was tall, broad-shouldered, good-looking and robust: he played the final game against Scotland with a broken arm. Narrated by Flor MacCarthy and...

Sometimes history throws up stories that are more dramatic than any fiction. And this is one such story. Taking us on a dramatic journey from the south west coast of Ireland to the souks and harems of North Africa's Barbary Coast, it begins on a summer's morning in 1631, when a pirate ship sailed into Roaring Water Bay in West Cork and raided the quiet coastal village of Baltimore. A crew of ruthless slave traders roused the villagers from their beds, slaughtered anyone who resisted, and...

On February 23rd 1943, a fire in St Joseph's industrial school in Cavan Town, an orphanage run by an enclosed order nuns caught fire. 35 orphans and one elderly woman died that night. After the fire, attention turned to the role played by the Poor Clares, the order of nuns who ran the orphanage, and the local fire service and what could have been done differently... (First published 2013) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Irish comedian Maeve Higgins looks for people who write to Saint Valentine in Whitefriar Church Dublin. She meets people who are looking for love, asking for help, telling him their most intimate hopes and fears - all written into a public book on display Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brendan Behan is one of Ireland's greatest writers. Some of his most important work was influenced by time he spent in Paris just after World War II where he mixed with some of the most important writers of the 20th century. In an interview never previously broadcast, Behan reveals the influence Paris had on him as a writer. (2019) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A Civil War Story. Exactly 100 years ago, in February 1923, a baby girl is abandoned on a doorstep in Dublin. A priest and his housekeeper seen acting suspiciously are handed over to the police. One month later, a young doctor is murdered, shot dead on the streets of a small town in county Leitrim. Are the two incidents connected? Was there a conspiracy of Church, State and Irish Rebel forces determined to cover up a scandal? A murder case was investigated by the authorities at the time, but...

From the ages of 12 to 17, two brothers, Mark and David Ryan, were both repeatedly sexually abused in Blackrock College in South County Dublin. Their abusers were from the Spiritan community at the school. Several court cases ensued as David and Mark fought for justice. Now grown men, David and Mark are ready to publicly tell their story for the first time. (2022) If you’ve been affected by any of the issues raised in this podcast, please visit www.rte.ie/support for helpline contact details....

Mary Folan, long emigrated to America, made a dying wish to be buried back home on her native island of Inis Meáin. But after Mary’s death, the unthinkable happened when an attempt was made to transfer her coffin from Shannon airport to the Aran island in a cargo sling attached underneath a helicopter. And that was only the start of things to come… (2022) Narrated and produced by Sarah Blake and Treasa Bhreathnach. Mix engineering by Peadar Carney. Readings by Karl Quinn and Roger Gregg.  ...

A devastating fire at a halting site in South County Dublin on October 10th 2015 led to multiple members of three families losing their lives. We delve into the events of that night and travel to Bray, Co. Wicklow and to Carrickmines where, for the first time, all the families involved and some of those who tried to help speak about what happened. (2022) Narrated by Lisa-Marie Berry. Produced Lisa-Marie and Ronan Kelly. If you’ve been affected by any of the issues raised in this podcast,...

In 2013, an upset and distressed young girl was found wandering in Dublin. In need of help, members of An Garda Síochána - the Irish police - brought her to the children's hospital. When they began speaking with her, she didn't talk but did draw pictures suggesting she was in serious trouble. What followed was one of the most unusual Garda investigations ever seen, and it became a global news story. The answers to that investigation lay with a woman named Samantha Azzopardi. Fast forward...

In September 1985, a riot erupted on Spike Island Prison in Cork Harbour. The island fort had been turned into a prison for 'joyriders', but within months, they rebelled against the regime and set the prison on fire. During that chaotic night there were reports that prisoners who had escaped found they couldn’t get off the island and had to break back into the prison they had just escaped from. The Army was sent for and then sent away again. Civilian islanders were taken hostage by prisoners...