This week Barry is joined by Sara Louise — Sydney-based brand strategist, singer, musician, and author — for a roulette through her notes app. In the last thirteen months, Sara has recorded an album at Abbey Road Studios, written and released her debut single "Buen Hombre", and self-published May the Road Rise, a book tracing her Irish family roots back to the Cork flying columns and the War of Independence. Her grandmother was a member of Cumann na mBan, awarded IRA medals, and was involved in printing illegal propaganda with Erskine Childers in a cottage outside Kilnamatra, Macroom. Also: working in Tokyo and why KFC is Japan's Christmas tradition, singing "My Way" in Spanish at a Bolivian celebration of life, Barry's overheard Bray prom conversation that doubled as a commentary on Ireland's cocaine statistics, and what it means to carry your grandmother's DNA a hundred years after she left Cork.

Links:

• https://www.saralouise.me/
• https://barrytaylor.co/
• https://www.instagram.com/secretphonenotes/
• Email: barrytaylor1993@gmail.com

00:00 — Intro / meet Sara

04:57 — GUEST RANDOM NOTE

08:18 — Japan: KFC Christmas and NYE traditions: Shinto New Year, Yoroshiku Negaishimasu

14:14 — RANDOM HOST NOTE:

Ireland's cocaine stats → Jameson whiskey → the Boston deathbed story

22:51 — GUEST RANDOM NOTE

singing at a Bolivian funeral → Irish songs and grief → dream of singing in Irish

37:54 — GUEST RANDOM NOTE

Coke for Vinnie → Sri Lankan food in the Hunter Valley → what is jaggery

46:17 — Irish family history: the flying columns, 8th Battalion, Cork ambush sites

52:20 — Cumann na mBan → grandma's IRA medals

56:41 — Erskine Childers, illegal propaganda, TB, and leaving Cork in 1925

1:00:09 — Wrap-up: May the Road Rise book, the album