meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Behind The Shield

Daragh Fleming (The Power of Poetry, Emotional Connection and Basketball) - Episode 1150

Behind The Shield

James Geering

Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Fitness

4.9667 Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2025

⏱️ 87 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Daragh Fleming is an early career writer from Ireland who uses wit and an introspective lens to delve into the subleties of the human experience. He is an author, writer, poet, performer and award-winning mental health blogger from Cork, Ireland. He holds an MA in Linguistics, a BA in Applied Psychology, and a passion for mental health.

Daragh’s debut in non-fiction – Lonely Boy – a collection of essays on mental health arrived on November 24th 2022 and has been well-received. Daragh hit the ground running with two collections of short stories published by Riversong Books back to back in 2019 and 2020. He has also been published in a number of literary journals, such as Southword, Stand, Crannóg, Paris Lit Up, Atrium, Eat The Storms, Beir Bua, The Ogham Stone, Gutter Magazine, An Áituil, Cork Words 3, and many more.

Daragh’s second poetry chapbook arrived in July of 2022 with Dark Thirty Poetry. Entitled: Poems That Were Written On Trains But Weren’t Written About Trains. His debut collection, Enigmatic, was published Octover of 2023 with Sunday Morning at the River.

In 2021, Daragh won the Cork Arts ‘From The Well’ Short Story Competition with this story, Evening Walk, due to be published as part of an anthology in the autumn. He has been Highly Commended for both the Patrick Kavanagh Award and the Fool For Poetry Prize. He was also shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize. He won the Duncairn Flash Competition in 2024.

Daragh works as the Communications Lead for A Lust For Life, an Irish mental health charity. He is an ambassador for See Change Ireland, a charity that works to break down mental health stigma. He is also an ambassador from Movember Ireland.

Daragh also does a lot of public speaking across Ireland at festivals, schools, universities and workplaces. He has given a TEDx Talk on how we can use creativity to nourish our mental health. He has spoken at UCC, Amazon, Healthy Ireland, the West Cork Literary Festival, Kaleidoscope Festival and many more. His Tedx Talk was nominated and shortlisted for two Mental Health Media Awards in 2024.

Thoughts Too Big has been nominated for several awards, including two nominations in the Mental Health Blog Awards. Thoughts Too Big won the award for Blogger of the Year in the Mental Health Blog Awards 2022. Daragh’s latest book, a collection of essays called A BRIEF INHALATION was released this year through Broken Sleep Books.

Daragh has a passion for normalising the chat around mental health, and it the owner and founder of Thoughts Too Big, a blog and enterprise that focuses on overcoming daily mental health issues.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to the Bionishio podcast. As always, my name is James Gearing, and this week it is my absolute

0:04.4

honor to welcome on the show, poet Dara Fleming. Now, I came across Dara through one of his poems

0:12.4

that was posted on Instagram entitled If I Ever Have Boys, and it resonated with me so deeply that I

0:19.6

wanted to reach out to him.

0:26.6

As I dove into his work, I discovered that a lot of it also address mental health, another commonality with this podcast. So we discuss a host of topics from his own childhood, losing a friend

0:35.1

to suicide, catharsis through poetry, his own powerful mental health story,

0:42.5

some of his favorite poems, and so much more.

0:46.7

Now before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment.

0:52.6

Go to whichever app you listen to this on. Subscribe to the show,

0:56.9

leave feedback and leave a rating. Every single five-star rating truly does elevate this podcast,

1:04.5

therefore making it easier for others to find. And this is a free library of well over 1,100 episodes now.

1:13.4

So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women's stories

1:19.1

so I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.

1:25.6

So with that being said, I introduced to you Dara, I want to start by saying, firstly, I came across you on social media when you were reading, if I ever have boys, and we want to obviously get to that

2:02.3

poem as you progress through here. But I was so moved by that, that I obviously, I wanted to reach

2:07.5

out to you on social media. And I want to thank you so much for saying yes, and coming on the

2:12.1

Behind the Shield podcast today. Oh, no, it's an absolute pleasure like. And yeah, I feel like at this point a lot of people

2:20.0

fail me that way, that poem. Yeah, just really connected with people and I suppose just at the top

2:25.9

I have a lot of, you know, I have a lot of gratitude and I suppose credit due to Lucas Jones

2:33.8

who that poem was in response to Lucas

2:37.0

so without him none of that would happen for me either but it's something I think about a lot

2:43.3

because I don't have children yet so like how I would raise my children

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from James Geering, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of James Geering and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.