North Dublin native Fergus “Fergie” Carey didn’t just open a bar in Philadelphia, he helped invent a neighborhood, a scene, and a sense of community that stretches from Center City to the Irish arts world and back again. In this on‑location episode recorded upstairs at Fergie’s Pub on Sansom Street, Irish Stew cohost John Lee traces Fergie’s journey from Burgerland on O’Connell Street to becoming one of Philly’s best‑known publicans and civic connectors.

Fergie recalls the bleak job prospects of 1980s Dublin, his short, ill‑fated stint in Houston, and the sudden sense of being “revered because you’re Irish” when he finally landed in Philadelphia and started a job at El Taco Grande the very next morning. He walks us through bartending at McGlinchey’s, the leap to open Fergie’s with his Palestinian partner Wajih Abed in a rough‑and‑tumble City Center street, and the chaos of a first night saw the Guinness run dry in 40 minutes.

We explore how Fergie built a career as co‑owner or founder of beloved spots like Monk’s Café, The Goat, The Jim, and soon The Monto, while never losing sight of the core lesson he learned in fast food: you’re managing people, not walls. He talks about keeping a pub current yet grounded in tradition through his self-invented live-band karaoke, Quizzo evenings, Saturday trad sessions, ballad nights, and the hugely popular “pub sing.”

We also hear about Fergie’s deep engagement with Philadelphia’s civic and Irish cultural life, from Inis Nua Theatre Company and Beckett in the back room, to his tours to Ireland and charity concerts like his recreation of The Last Waltz.

We spoke on eve of the Irish American Business Chamber & Network’s Ambassador’s Awards Luncheon, the signature annual Irish event on the city’s calendar, after which those in-the-know kept the craic going at the nearby Fergie’s Pub.

Among them were local business and civic leaders John Cummins and Adele Farrell who will share their insights on the Irish American Business Chamber & Network and tales from their own Dublin-to-Philadelphia success story on a future episode of Irish Stew.

Links

Fergie’s Pub

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram

All Irish Stew Libations Episodes - Ten episodes. All in one place.

• Libations Episodes

Irish Stew Links

• Episode Page: Fergus Carey
• Website Home Page
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• Media Partner: IrishCentral

Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 12; Total Episode Count: 153

A language returned
Mollie Guidera returns to the Irish Stew for a second conversation. Since her first appearance in November 2023, she has published The Gaeilge Guide and grown Irish with Molly into the fastest-growing Gaeilge community in the world — more than 10,000 students across 75 countries. But what Mollie is really doing is harder to quantify: dismantling the barriers that sit between Irish people and their own language.

The problem was never the language
Fourteen years of compulsory classes, taught through the very language you were trying to learn, left a generation feeling guilty for failing at something that was never properly taught. Mollie's argument is simple: the language is logical, patterned, and far more learnable than people believe. The problem was always the delivery.

Hidden in plain sight
We spend time on Hiberno English — the way Irish survives in everyday speech. "Is the dinner not ready yet?" Nobody in America says that. Say it in Irish and it makes perfect grammatical sense. From Wilde to Joyce to Sally Rooney, the Irish literary tradition is Hiberno English in action — a colonized people turning the language of their oppressor into a thing of beauty.

The key holder
The episode carries the presence of Manchán Magan, who passed away last year. Mollie recalls asking Manchán for advice on a documentary about her offshore students — Hong Kong, Moscow, Alaska — and his reply coming back immediately: go for it. His wife's words at the Irish Book Awards said it best: Manchán opened the door and showed us all the way through. We just have to walk.

The language is yours
Fluency is a myth. What matters is showing up consistently, with curiosity, and without shame. The language is yours. It always was.

Episode Quote
"People have this negative reaction to Irish — and yet this regret for not learning it. There's a very complicated relationship. But I don't think the language itself is complicated."
— Mollie Guidera

Links

Mollie Guidera

• Website: Irish With Mollie
• Book: The Gaeilge Guide
• Podcast: Irish with Mollie
• Instagram
• TikTok

Irish Language Resources

• TEG: Irish Language Certification
• An Siopa Leabhar - Irish Language Book Store

All Irish Stew Irish Language Episodes - Ten episodes. All in one place.

• Irish Language Episodes

Irish Stew Links

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• Media Partner: IrishCentral

Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 11; Total Episode Count: 152

Award-winning director, producer, and writer Ruán Magan joins Irish Stew for a timely conversation ahead of his double appearance at this weekend’s Solas Nua Capital Irish Film Festival, where he’ll present two very different visions of Ireland on screen.

Ruán reflects on a creative life that has taken him from early collaborations with his brother, writer and broadcaster Manchán Magan, through decades of boundary-pushing work that has reached audiences around the world. He talks about growing up in a family steeped in story, language, and history, and how that background propels him toward projects that dig beneath the surface of Ireland’s past and present.

One of his festival offerings is the new documentary “Daniel O’Connell – The Emancipator,” which marks the 250th anniversary of O’Connell’s birth and revisits the life, legacy, and global impact of “The Liberator.” Ruán describes the film as “a chance to step back from today’s noise and remember how one determined Irish lawyer changed the democratic DNA of the modern world,” connecting O’Connell’s campaigns for Catholic Emancipation to later movements led by figures like Frederick Douglass, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr.

He then turns to his Irish-language drama “Báite,” a feature that takes his fascination with Irish history and identity into more intimate, psychological territory. Ruán calls it “a story where the past seeps up through the floorboards of ordinary lives,” using the rhythms of the Irish language and the coastal landscape to explore guilt, memory, and the pull of old ghosts.

Throughout the episode, Ruán shares his approach to filmmaking as “trying to make the invisible visible—whether that’s buried history, an overlooked revolutionary, or the quiet truths people carry inside them.” He talks about balancing scholarship and emotion, why collaboration matters, and what keeps drawing him back to Irish subjects for a global audience.

Irish Stew will be the Podcast in Residence at the Capital Irish Film Festival, Feb. 26 – Mar. 1, appearing on stage after the Friday 6:30 p.m. screening to discuss Northern Irish film with a panel of Northern Irish filmmakers.

Links

Solas Nua

• Website
• Capital Irish Film Festival
  • Báite
  • Daniel O'Connell: The Emancipator

Ruán Magan

• Website
• IMDb
• LinkedIn

Irish Stew Links

• Website
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• Media Partner: IrishCentral

Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 10; Total Episode Count: 151