Five teenagers dead, three sisters and a seven-year-old boy seriously injured, and a wave of public outrage in the wake of the horrific wrong-way crash on the M9 motorway last weekend.

In the days since, the tragedy has sparked a huge amount of anger and debate around youth crime, garda powers, social media and even the role of parents.

Has this incident exposed a much bigger problem in Irish society?

And are we witnessing an unprecedented social reckoning unfold?

On this Extra episode of The Indo Daily, host Fionnán Sheahan is joined by Kevin Doyle, executive editor with the Irish Independent and group head of news at Mediahuis Ireland, to examine the public, police and political reaction to a story that continues to dominate the news agenda.

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The Sand and Sage motel in Odessa, Texas was the kind of rough outpost that attracted lonesome drifters and hard drinkers.

In other words, if you were of a sensitive disposition or simply happened to wander off the beaten track, it was probably best if you found somewhere else to bed down for the night.

By the early 1980s, Odessa was regarded as the murder capital of the United States. And so, the discovery of a body, bound and beaten, in a blood-soaked room at the Sand and Sage wasn’t all that shocking to the local authorities.

However, there was one piece that didn’t fit. The victim - Father Patrick Ryan.

One man would answer for this brutal crime. The wrong man.

On this episode of The Indo Daily, host Fionnán Sheahan is joined by Allison Clayton, deputy director of the Innocence Project of Texas, and by Deborah Esqeunazi, director of the documentary Night in West Texas, to look at a vicious murder of an Irish priest, a miscarriage of justice and a cold case that keeps raising questions.

This episode was first released in April 2026

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It was supposed to be an oral record of the Troubles, made by those who were there.

Initially, the ‘Boston Tapes’ project seemed like a good idea, albeit one which would unavoidably include descriptions of violence and terror.

The concept was simple – former paramilitaries would be interviewed; the tapes would then be kept in storage, and their stories only revealed after the interviewees' deaths.

However, it became clear that the scheme was flawed and that the recordings were not as secret as participants had assumed.

Earlier this year, the Belfast Telegraph revealed that the Boston College tapes archive has been formally closed - and will remain shut for 75 years from when it was first created.

On this episode, host Ciarán Dunbar is joined by Belfast Telegraph reporter, Andrew Madden, to look at what went wrong with the project and why the records have been sealed.

This episode is brought to you by our sister podcast The BelTel and was first released in April 2026.

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Carrie Jade Williams. Sadie Harris. Lucy Fitzwilliams. Jade Cookes. Samantha Black. Rebecca Fitzgerald. 

These are just some of the fabricated identities used by serial con artist Samantha Cookes. 

In 2024, her Walter Mitty-style life finally collapsed as online communities, journalists and a WhatsApp group of victims cross-referenced the inconsistencies in her story, joining the dots that authorities had missed. 

In March 2025, Samantha Cookes was jailed for three years for deception and theft. 

Yet her story keeps getting fresh chapters. 

On this episode of The Indo Daily, host Katie Byrne is joined by Alan Bradley, documentary filmmaker and author of Unmasking Samantha Cookes: The Many Lives of a Serial Fraudster, to discuss the breadth and the impact of an incredible deception.

This episode of The Indo Daily was first released in May 2026

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The five teenage boys killed in a horror crash when their car was driven the wrong way on the M9 motorway were all aged between 15 and 18 years of age.

Post-mortem examinations will now be carried out on the bodies of Joey Carthy (15) and Jack Kennedy (17) from Athy, Co Kildare; Alex McCarthy (17) and his cousin Jeremy O’Brien (18) from Carlow; and Kamil Pustkowski (17) from Limerick.

The teenagers, including some members of the so-called Lucky Dip gang, were killed when the stolen BMW car they were driving sped the wrong way down the M9 motorway and ploughed head-on into another vehicle.

Three women and a seven-year-old boy who were travelling in the other Hyundai vehicle were hospitalised with injuries ranging from serious to critical following the early-morning smash on Sunday.

The women and child were on their way to Dublin Airport at the time of the crash which occurred shortly after 3am near Moone, Co Kildare, on the northbound lane.

Gardaí believe that the five juveniles were travelling in a suspected stolen BMW and are alleged to have been involved in a burglary and attempted break-ins in Carlow and Athy, Co Kildare, before the fatal smash.

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Robert Sangster later recounted how he then poured himself a ‘generous glass’ of Roederer Cristal champagne, “and I inhaled it as if it was draft lager, and I kept on saying over and over, ‘I like it John. I like it. I really like it.’”

It sounds like a scene from a film where the plot is about to go into overdrive.

For the young John Magnier, it was the eureka moment.

But how exactly did he set a cunning plan in motion that would pave the way for his envious billionaire bloodstock empire? What did he see in America that Ireland sorely lacked? And, given his recent and chastening high-profile defeat in court, what is the ultimate legacy for the man who changed horse-racing in this country forever?

On this episode of The Indo Daily, Fionnán Sheahan is joined by Sunday Independent journalist Liam Collins to profile the early days of Magnier and examine how one of our most intriguing and reclusive figures built his fortune.

This episode of The Indo Daily was first released in January 2026

The Indo Daily is part of the Trust Project. You can see our ethics policies at independent.ie/ourjournalism

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Ireland sits at the heart of the world’s digital economy, with most transatlantic data cables passing through or close to its waters. But is Ireland prepared to protect the infrastructure that keeps businesses, banks and public services connected? Today's episode of The Indo Daily is brought to you by The Big Tech Show, as Adrian Weckler is joined by Fearghal O’Connor, Chief Business Writer with the Irish Independent, to examine growing concerns over Ireland’s maritime security. 

The Indo Daily is part of the Trust Project. You can see our ethics policies at independent.ie/ourjournalism

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“I would class it as a form of grooming, that day in 2016 when we met at the GPA dinner and he gave me his whole life story. He was setting me up for the future and he put me into his diary, and he hit me up seven years after.”

The words of businessman Noel Tynan, who loaned DJ Carey €10,000 for what he claimed was life-saving cancer treatment in America.

But how did DJ’s stories about his health make it into the mainstream media?

And what about DJ’s former partner Sarah Newman? How did she find out about his lies?

Today on The Indo Daily, we bring you the final episode of our DJ Carey series and look at how his lies finally caught up with him, but there would be a last-minute twist to the story that nobody saw coming...

This episode of The Indo Daily was first released in November 2025.

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It’s the mid-2000s and hurler DJ Carey is still playing at the top of his game for Kilkenny.

He’s divorced from his wife Christine but is in a new relationship with the multi-millionaire Dragons’ Den star, Sarah Newman.

They’re one of the Celtic Tiger’s golden couples, and Carey is fast becoming famous for his off-the-pitch activities. He is living the high life, owning several properties in some of the most exclusive addresses in Ireland and abroad.

But not everything was as perfect as it appeared. The financial crash of 2008 hit the country hard, and Carey was not immune to the global meltdown.

His businesses were coming under strain, as was his relationship with Sarah Newman, and soon stories about Carey’s health would circulate privately - stories that Carey would tell sympathetic people as he convinced them to part with their money.

Today on The Indo Daily, we bring you the second episode from our special three-part documentary on the rise and fall of DJ Carey.

This episode of The Indo Daily was first released in November 2025.

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If you asked people to name the biggest stars in Irish sporting history, Rory McIlroy, Katie Taylor and Brian O’Driscoll would be at the top of many lists – and, up until recently, many people would have gone for hurling legend DJ Carey.

The former Kilkenny and GAA icon is no longer famous for his sporting prowess alone.

Instead, he is currently serving a prison sentence for fraud and deception that nobody could have predicted just a few years ago. But how did DJ Carey go from a titan of Ireland’s favourite game to a convicted criminal?

Today on The Indo Daily we bring you the first episode from our special three-part documentary on the rise and fall of DJ Carey.

This episode of The Indo Daily was first released in November 2025.

The Indo Daily is part of the Trust Project. You can see our ethics policies at independent.ie/ourjournalism

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“Everybody was interested in the case, and everybody wanted to know what was happening.”

That’s former RTÉ legal affairs editor Mary Wilson's recollection of reporting live on the Catherine Nevin trial back in 2000, after the violent killing of publican Tom Nevin in March 1996.

“I’d walk from the Four Courts to Tara Street to get a Dart home in the evenings, and people were shouting at me out of car windows and shouting at me from trucks: ‘Any sign of a verdict? What’s going on?’," Wilson says.

The media sensation that accompanied the trial was unlike anything Ireland had seen before. Speaking on the Indo Daily podcast, Wilson remembers someone describing it as like having a novel read aloud to you in court.

And that was before Catherine Nevin herself took to the stand.

“To say she wasn’t a good witness in her own defence is an understatement,” says Wilson. “[It was] all so bizarre that you look back on it and say; ‘What was she thinking?’.”

On the second episode of this two-part Indo Daily special, host Fionnán Sheahan is joined in-studio by Mary Wilson as they look back at how one of the country’s most notorious murder cases gripped the nation, and ask: why do we remain so fascinated with the ‘Black Widow’ today?

This episode of The Indo Daily was first released in March 2026.

The Indo Daily is part of the Trust Project. You can see our ethics policies at independent.ie/ourjournalism

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.