Explore every episode of the podcast Spoken Stories: The State of Us

A near head on collision on a remote mountain road brings two women together who know each other since their school days, but who have been avoiding each other for years. Everyone knows these people, some of us might even be them, as they passing judgement on the state of each other, and on our passions, prejudices, sorrows and joys.

A widower is reeling from the death of his wife. In the tradition of his Igbo tribe of Nigeria, and as a musician, he turns to proverbs and songs to make sense of what has happened and to bring peace to him and his son, Odeke.

Léite le Caitríona Ní Mhurchú. Cé go bhfuil cónaí ar Mhóna in Éirinn, tá sí préamhaithe i gcré a tír dúchais cé gur cré na hÉireann a ghreamaíonn di anois.

Read by Maria Doyle Kennedy. A mother with limited custody of her children and believing they are in danger from falling space debris takes them out of school to shelter for the time being.

Read by Dmitry Vinokurov. As his hard-won personal freedom is being coming to be realised a global pandemic is also unfolding and will shut down the narrator's new-found freedom of movement. 

Read by Aidan Kelly. When a writer resident at an artist retreat in a remote part of Finland falls in love he starts thinking about his life and his home country, Ireland.

Read by Naoise Dunbar. It is Leaving Cert night in a small Irish town. School is done. Eoin is all buoyed up thinking how the whole world lies ahead of him when off-guard he recognises a childhood friend whose life is on a different path.

Read by Pat Shortt. A middle-aged man returns to his hometown he left twenty years ago, desperate to escape its confines and the traumas that it held for him. He hopes to find sanctuary and perhaps face some of the demons that have troubled him.

Read by Charlene McKenna. Sisters reared on an Irish farm have different lives now on either side of the Atlantic. When their father has a stroke, the farm doesn’t stand still nor do relations between the two sisters.

Read by Stephen O'Leary. A young man has has dug himself so deeply into an incessant conflict with his father, that it stops him from leaving home.

Read by Emma Dargan-Reid. With her move away from being home schooled in remote Australia to boarding school near Adelaide a young girl is confronted with thoughts and feelings around family, absence and belonging.

Read by Daryl McCormack. Having been cast out from his life a man exiles himself far from where he had lived with his wife and their child and is bewitched by a woman of the place where he is now.

Ag taisteal ó thuaidh ó Dheilginis ar an Dart, músclaítear cuimhní a bhí múchta le fada i bpaisinéir, a thapaíonn agus a shoiléiríonn le gach nóiméad dá thuras. Is machnamh é an scéal ar chuimhne, ar thuiscint, agus ar bhogadh ar aghaidh. | On a rare Dart journey into town, a passenger is stirred to meditate on memory, understanding and moving on.

Read by Fiona O'Shaughnessy. 'On Being Sophia' gives voice to Sophia, an actual female android who in 2017 was granted full citizenship by Saudia Arabia. 21 years later, Sophia now addresses the United Nations Education, Cultural and Scientific Organisation in Paris.

Read by Siobhán McSweeney. A young mum and a teacher is living in emergency accommodation in a Dublin hotel. Considering herself a complete failure, things are about to take a turn one when her three-year-old daughter presents her with a seemingly impossible task.

Read by Eileen Walsh. The Silver Coast is a story about what it is people owe each other, and the interplay between the human impulse to escape or transcend the world and give yourself over to it. It is set in the kitchen of Lorna's house between the burial and the meal in the Silver Coast Hotel on the funeral day of a neighbour.

Read by the author. In this Irish language story, its narrator moves back and forth, contemplating life’s changes and consequences, what moulds and shapes us, as his mother’s mobility and memory are being irrevocably challenged. The broadcast coincides with Seachtain na Gaeilge 2021.

Read by Marty Rea. A story of personal grief and loss, of negotiating different familial views, and the levels of independence offered to those who come to Ireland fleeing from oppression, violence and human injustices, seeking protection.

Read by Stephen Rea. The unforeseen consequences of the hug, never mind the common kiss, having been long outlawed to outwit a contagious deadly virus, requires radical action. A lowly graduate student has come up with what might be its solution.

Read by Ashley Xie. Nan and Akmaral, two young Asian students attend a Dublin language school. In the process of grappling with an assignment from their teacher Aisling, to engage in an authentic conversation with a stranger, their perception of authenticity grows. Broadcast to coincide with the Chinese New Year.

Read by the author. Cut-throat tv talent show UK OK, gets more than it bargained for with E-Zee or Ballyshannon girls, Eimear and Zofia, among its contestants.

Read by Saoirse Ronan. 'Shorn' moves hauntingly between a brutal long ago and a present time of purge the past, while not forgetting it.

Read by the author. From his high-up perch under his Velux window, a pirate radio DJ watches a routine morning grow and the good people of Limerick city getting up and out into another April day.

A rare date for Julie and her husband Frankie turns sour when a toddler in the restaurant is let roam free, uncontrolled. Their own children are being minded by auntie Terry. On the way into Belfast city centre earlier, Julie and Frankie had passed near The Bray, where when she was a child her father had been shot dead for no reason at all.

Read by Caitríona Ni Mhurchú. 'Assignation' opens hopefully on a bright mid-April New York morning in 1938. The quiet intimately devastating telling of the story of Irish emigrant, Marion, signals the life-changing consequences of how we handle what is thrust upon us.

Wildlife is set in Cape Breton, against the backdrop of post-crash Ireland and a family holiday in Canada. Marieva and Finn have each other under the microscope as they and their children spend more than usual time together on a break that may reveal more to them than either of them expect.

Verity has bad physical health and her adult daughter, Lillis is trying to reach a state of mental balance. They are navigating their complicated relationship, having moved from Dublin to Dingle to start afresh. The place and a saint connected with the area may provide the succor they both crave. 

Early on Malachi learns that there is them and us and ways of behaving when out in the world. At seventeen he gives more cash than he need for a copy of An Phoblacht on a night out near Enniskillen. It is noted. He feels pride, something he seldom enjoys. He seals his future.

Read by Peter Coonan. Swimming, addiction and longing collide in this Dublin pandemic story. Its flow, stops, starts and changes of direction, are that of the sea.

Read by Mark O'Regan. A retired teacher is navigating recent widowhood. He is in Italy for the first time, a place he has always wanted to go, but never thought he would do so alone.

Read by Annie Ryan. Erin, a young woman from Minneapolis visits Ireland for the first time, a country mad for sporting heroes. Landing into the country of her parents with an open and adventurous heart ultimately leads to catastrophe.

Read by Cathy Belton. Told in the form of a public information pamphlet it tells a story that begins in 1980s Ireland. It is an elemental, gut-wrenching account of the life changing nature of teenage pregnancy, motherhood, loss, longing and love.