Hello. Today I'm talking face to face with someone who's not short of opinions, opinions on just about everything.

He's a distinguished sportsman, a television and radio pundit, a newspaper columnist, a podcaster and a criminal barrister.

He also made headlines and won universal respect in 2012 when he donated a kidney to someone he then barely knew. He appears to court

controversy, he can be sharp, some might say lippy, and his political worldview is not as straightforward

as you might imagine. Joe Brolly, welcome to Red Lions. It's my great pleasure. This series of

interviews is focusing on political awakenings and influences.

And your circumstances in life now are very different to those of your childhood in Dun Given during the 1970s and 80s.

You did grow up in a Republican family in an overwhelmingly Republican town.

How do you remember that time?

Yeah, but it wasn't...

You know, the idea that might be seen from the outside

is that it was like North Korea.

You know, that it was a very militaristic approach to life

and a hateful approach to the British Army

and the Protestant community and all those sorts.

I think it wasn't like that.

I mean, my childhood was, I mean, obviously my father was a person of interest. And from an early

stage, you know, the army were at the house

you know her majesty

her majesty took a keen interest

and so we'd have been tossed out of the beds

you know the car would have been ransacked regularly

...