Updates

Tribune has republished my Orwell Society and NUJ Young Journalist Award winning piece, "Nothing to Report at Shannon Airport", as part of their coverage of Ireland's role in the arms trade.

The piece argues that the Irish state's policy of not inspecting US military aircraft passing through Shannon lets it claim neutrality while quietly enabling the supply of the war on Gaza.

Grateful to Tribune for giving the argument a second life, and a wider audience.

The Orwell Society and National Union of Journalists have jointly awarded me the Young Journalist Award for 2026.

My winning piece, "Nothing to Report at Shannon Airport", examines the Irish government's stance on protest over the US military's presence in Shannon Airport.

It was an honour to receive the award personally from Richard Blair, George Orwell's only child, and to be judged by a panel featuring Gary Younge, Dr Jaron Murphy, Hardeep Matharu, Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff, Tam Hussein, Dorian Lynskey, Bea Bennett and Ian Bloom.

It is especially meaningful to have won an award connected to Orwell's legacy. Orwell has been an inspiration for my writing since I first read his works as a teenager, and I'm proud to have won for a column that tries, in its own way, to follow his example: to say what is happening, as clearly as possible.

Huge thanks to the Orwell Society, the NUJ, the judging panel, and everyone involved.

That's the question I explored during my six-month fellowship with Journo Resources, where I developed my skills through workshops and mentorship while producing a long-form print feature on the state of the field.

The piece looks at how the decline of print has been paired with a boom in blogs, community forums, fan communities and live streamers; how music journalists have shifted from breaking news to contextualising culture; and what that means for authority, access and representation in music media.

Thank you to my interviewees Dwayne H., Solomon Pace-McCarrick and Cheri Percy, to my editors Jem Collins and Kayleigh Watson, and to the sponsors who make the programme possible.

I had a letter to the editor published in The Guardian arguing against criticisms of electoral reform and proportional representation.

It was great to see my writing in print in a national newspaper, especially for a cause I believe in, as part of my work with Make Votes Matter, an organisation campaigning for proportional representation in the UK.

The Irish Times selected my Abroad column, "An Irishman at Oxford: It was an education in being an outsider", as one of its Top Stories of 2025.

It was pushed out across the paper's main social channels, Facebook, X and Threads, and Google's AI Overview now summarises the piece as the defining story of an Irishman at Oxford in 2025, citing the article and the response across The Irish Times' platforms.

Grateful to every reader who shared it, argued with it, or sent a note. A year on, it's still finding its way to new audiences.

Today marks ten years since the November 13th ISIS attacks in Paris, a night I lived through as a 13-year-old Irish kid, and one I never truly processed until I finally wrote it down.

The piece ran digitally on The Irish Times, was selected as a Highlight and a Top Story, and landed in the Top 10 Most Read. So many readers reached out to share their own connection to that night.

Huge thank you to Genevieve Carbery for editing and publishing this story.

Journo Resources picked me as one of just 16 fellows for its 2025/26 cohort, its biggest and most competitive yet, selected from around 200 applications by a panel of four senior editors, and marking the fifth year of the programme.

The fellowship is a six-month run of bespoke mentoring, career-development workshops, and one-to-one editing with the Journo Resources team, culminating in a paid long-form commission. Around 90% of past fellows have gone on to paid work in the industry. This year's programme is backed by Newsworks, The Daniel Phelan Trust, the Association of British Science Writers, Women in Journalism, Reach Plc and the NUJ London Freelance Branch.

In their announcement, Journo Resources introduced me as a freelance music journalist and presenter, founder of Culture with Kogan (interviews with Maverick Sabre, Kojey Radical and Lynda Dawn, plus festival coverage of Cross The Tracks and Wide Awake), a presenter on Voices Radio and Noods Radio, a Reprezent Radio trainee, and someone who writes non-fiction for The Irish Times and has interviewed political figures including Zack Polanski and Noam Chomsky.

My fellowship piece, a long-form print feature on the state of music journalism, has since been published, it's the next post up.

My first ever time on air talking about my real passion, interviewing, live on BCfm Radio's Weekend World with Ian Pinkney.

It's a strange feeling to do that on a weekend daytime drive-time show, knowing you're probably speaking to an audience of around 10,000 people across Bristol.

Thank you to Patrick Hart, Steffi Barnett and Ian Pinkney at BCfm for having me on.

The Oxford Mail ran a follow-up news article on my Irish Times column about studying at the University of Oxford as an Irish student, under the headline "Oxford University student felt 'alienated from the start'".

It was strange and gratifying to see a piece I'd written about my own student years become a local news story in the city it was about.

I wrote about my experience as an Irish student at the University of Oxford for the Abroad section, being honest about the good, the bad and the ugly.

The article ranked in the Top 3 Most Read on The Irish Times website several days in a row and was selected as a Highlight, something I never expected when I set out to write it.

It's a privilege to share stories from my own life in such an established publication. Thank you to everyone who reached out.