Everyone is talking about The Traitors — the hit reality TV series where deception is currency and trust is constantly under threat. But what happens when lying moves from the gameshow roundtable to a Garda interview room? In real life, spotting deception isn’t a parlour trick. It can mean the difference between conviction and acquittal.

In today’s podcast, Ciara Doherty is joined by former investigator and forensic psychologist Geraldine Noone, who spent decades in policing and helped bring killer Graham Dwyer to justice. Together they explore why humans are so bad at spotting lies, whether body language really gives the game away, and how detectives actually uncover the truth when the stakes are at their highest.

From poker-style “tells” to the myths about shifty eyes, Geraldine explains what science really says about lying, and why elaborate stories often trip people up. Along the way, she compares the chaotic decision-making of the Faithful on The Traitors with the careful, evidence-driven strategies used inside police interview rooms. If you’ve ever wondered whether you could survive in The Traitors castle - or whether you’d spot a liar in real life - this conversation has the answers.

🔍 Want more from Geraldine? Revisit our earlier episode 🎭 Unmasking Graham Dwyer, where she explains how careful investigative work exposed one of Ireland’s most infamous killers.

They’re big, they’re bold, and they’ve crash-landed in Cork. The Asian hornet - an uninvited tourist with a sting in its tail - officially arrived in Ireland this summer. Picture it: beach-ball nests hidden in your local sycamore, buzzing with thousands of honeybee-hungry invaders. The National Parks and Wildlife Service has already registered 24 verified sightings.

But hornets are just the latest in a long parade of alien gatecrashers. From rhododendrons running wild in the woods, to grey squirrels muscling in on our reds, to coypu lurking in canals, invasive species have been rewriting Ireland’s nature story for centuries.

Biologist and broadcaster Éanna Ní Lamhna joins Ciara Doherty to separate the myths from the stings. How dangerous are these hornets really? Why do invasive species thrive once they set up shop? And can our native wildlife fight back?

It’s a conversation that’s part creepy-crawly horror film, part natural history lesson, part call to arms. Because spotting, reporting, and understanding these invaders might be the only way to keep them in check – or, as Éanna puts it, “clobber them” early on!

🐝 Report your Asian hornet sightings at invasives.ie
📚 The new edition of Éanna Ní Lamhna’s book, Wild Dublin: Exploring Nature in the City, is published by The O’Brien Press

Enoch Burke has become one of the most talked-about figures in Ireland’s courts - a teacher turned serial litigant whose refusal to accept rulings has made headlines from Wilson’s Hospital School to Mountjoy Prison.

And the saga shows no sign of slowing. At a High Court hearing just last week, Mr Justice David Nolan ordered Burke to pay a total of €225,000 in fines for repeatedly breaching a court order directing him to stay away from the school where he once worked. The judge also increased the daily fine to €2,000, after Wilson’s Hospital School applied to have Burke arrested and jailed again for continuing to appear at the campus despite the injunction.

Suspended in 2022 after row about the school’s request to use a transgender student’s chosen pronouns, Burke’s battle with the school has spiralled into a long-running confrontation with the Irish legal system. He’s been jailed for contempt of court, had his salary and bank accounts seized, and insists his fight is about freedom of religion and free expression.

So what’s really at the heart of this case - a clash over pronouns and belief, or a challenge to the authority of the courts themselves? How does contempt of court actually work, and why was Burke released from Mountjoy without “purging” that contempt? And when judges suggest a school might need private security to keep someone out, what does that say about the limits of judicial power in practice?

In today’s podcast, Ciara Doherty speaks with barrister Peter Leonard, co-host of The First Court legal podcast, to explore the Enoch Burke saga from start to the latest developments. From the school gates in Westmeath to the High Court in Dublin, this is a story about the rule of law, the resilience of institutions, and what happens when one man simply refuses to comply.

🎙️ Peter Leonard – The Fifth Court Podcast: https://www.thefifthcourt.com/