The Uneducated PT Podcast - Episode 123 Ireland’s Silent Struggle: The Hidden Crisis of Male Suicide Solo Ep

Episode Date: October 19, 2025

In this episode of The Uneducated PT Podcast, we open a raw and honest conversation about one of Ireland’s most painful and often-ignored realities — male suicide. Every year, hundreds of Irish men take their own lives. Four out of five suicides in Ireland are male. Behind those numbers are stories of unemployment, financial strain, broken relationships, addiction, isolation, and a deep loss of purpose. We explore:Why Ireland’s male suicide rate remains stubbornly highHow poverty, the housing crisis, and loneliness feed despairThe collapse of male friendships after marriage or divorceWhy many men still feel “the world would be better off without me”And how community, sport, and connection could be part of the solutionFrom the decline in community sport funding to the pressure of modern masculinity, this episode pulls no punches. It’s a wake-up call — not just for men, but for the systems that fail them. If you’ve ever felt lost, unseen, or disconnected, this one’s for you.

Hello and welcome back to another solo episode of the uneducated PT podcast with me, your host, Carla Ork. Today I'm going to talk about mental health and I'm going to talk specifically about suicide and dying by suicide and the rates of young men in Ireland who are dying by suicide. And the reason I wanted to touch on this today was because I haven't spoke about it in a while. And, you know, right now I'm not feeling great at the moment. I'm feeling very downing myself. I'm feeling very aimless. I just feel like crap at the moment. And I remember, and obviously you go through waves of this, I think, as a man.

People in general go through waves of depression, go through waves of mental health struggles, go through waves of suicidal ideation. And I remember back in COVID when I was really, really struggling. I had just come back from, I came back from a week in Dubai with a friend. And I went back to a... empty a house and I was like you know what I can't even be in this house by myself and I just would leave and I would just walk and I would walk and I'd walk and I'd be walking on my own through the night and I wasn't ready to talk to anyone about any of my struggles or issues

and I didn't feel like I could talk to anyone about them and I was just having these thoughts of ruminate in my head and the only thing I could turn to at the time was a podcast I would just went on to Spotify and I just typed in suicidal ideation or struggling with mental health or I can't remember exactly what it was but I just needed to hear someone talk about the things that I was actually struggling with and that's what I did

I put a podcast in and I just walked and I just listened to someone else's voice who I didn't know and I thought you know what since I have my own podcast that's probably something that I should still be doing as well because I know there's a lot of people suffering with their mental health at the moment I know there's a lot of men who are suffering

with loads of kind of different different struggles that they feel like the only way out is probably is probably suicide which you know can make a lot of sense to people when they're struggling with different issues so what I wanted to do was I wanted to

talk about the different issues that we should be talking about in Ireland when it comes to suicide and not just the like regular catchphrases like oh I'd rather you cry on my shoulder than me cry at your funeral like yeah it's a great sense sentiment and I believe that we should definitely be encouraging people to open up about their mental health struggles. I definitely think we do. But, you know, when they do open up, why don't we actually listen to what they're saying, what they're actually struggling with and actually look at the systemic issues that are causing such high rates of suicide among young men in Ireland. Remember, 346 men, four out of five deaths by suicide in 2022 were men. So 436.36 men. So 436. people in Ireland died by suicide 346 were men

and there's lots of different reasons that we should actually be talking about that can contribute to that and I want to just start with a Richard Reeves quote that I really love because I think it really embodies where people are at. So as a man

who has lost his sense of usefulness is a man who is at risk of withdrawal of addiction and of suicide. When you don't feel useful to society to your family to your friends this is why it's so powerful when men have a family because you know they're and when they have to provide for a family it's because they feel useful you know when they have the job to go to so they can put food on

the table for their family that is them being useful and you know when their family appreciates that and you know loves them for it I think that can be something that men really really need. So yeah, that's just going off on a tangent there. But I suppose I wanted to start by talking about the different kind of systemic issues that we should talk about when it comes to suicide in Ireland. So I think the first one is, you know,

falling behind in education. I think the first thing that we should actually we should touch on is who are the people most at risk. Okay, male, young, low socio-economic backgrounds. So there's loads of things that we could talk about there, right? But obviously, falling behind in education is a big one, all right?

Educational disadvantage links to poor employment and income prospects, compounding mental health risks and help access barriers. Yeah, so put it this way. Boys are falling behind in the educational system. A lot of boys struggle to self-regulate. in a classroom. You're telling boys to just sit at a classroom for nine hours and behave. You know, it's not how boys, a lot of boys work. It's not how I worked. You know, I need to be out moving my body. I need to be, you know, proactive. That's why I learn a lot better when I've moved my body. You know, if you can get me to go out for a walk and listen to a podcast,

I'll do a lot better than, you know, sitting down and reading. I struggle to keep my attention. And I struggled in school. I was one of, I got one of the the worst leave inserts in school. I actually left school after third year and tried to work for a year with my dad, which didn't really work out. And I ended up getting in a lot of trouble. And then I was like, right, okay, I'm ready to go back to school if they'll have me. So I had to do a meeting and got myself back into fifth year and I finished off school. And I did terrible in all my exams. not that I wasn't a smart child but I just struggled to

hold any attention in class I just wanted to do other things I was just you know I was bouncing off the walls had like a bundle of energy that I just needed to expend and I wasn't allowed to do that we didn't even have Pee in school after third year was insane when I look back at that so I would say there's a lot of boys who struggled with the current

education system and you know know that's making making boys feel like they aren't intelligent when they just they work in in different ways to to girls in a lot of ways um that doesn't mean that they can't be academic and it doesn't mean that there isn't boys who who aren't good in that environment but i just don't think we should be treating everyone the same um but then if you don't do well in school then you don't go and get a degree and if you don't go and get a degree then you might not get a high paying job and then another thing that that causes a lot of deaths by suicide is financial strain and unemployment so if you don't do well in college or you don't do well in school and you don't you know

you don't get a good degree or a good master's then you know it might be if especially we're kind of manufacturing jobs in decline as well um it means that you might not have as many opportunities as as you would like um two to three times higher male risk suicide when unemployed risk was particularly strong for men from 15 to 54 so if you have a financial strain if you're unemployed and then we live in we have a cost of living crisis as well and that is going to make it more difficult for you to you know find work and then again if you are struggling financially and that also puts you in the category of housing homelessness addiction

all these things all right so self-harm 30 times higher among people who are homeless a hundred and twenty one deaths among people homeless in 2022 so yeah um like you have to think about this is this is not just a mental health story this is like a housing policy story this is a education story this is a you know a financial story it's like you know if most people don't need to go to therapy they need to probably make 20 20k more a year than they do. And that's something that we should be having a conversation about. Like how do we, how do we improve the quality of people's lives in Ireland?

You know, being able to afford a home would be helpful and not being out on the street, being able to, you know, get some form of education. You know, and with all that as well, I think there's, I don't have the research here, but there's, there's a lot of research, especially in the States, shows that men who have higher education versus those who aren't are likely to have more of a friendship group and also to get into a relationship as well. So yeah, there are all things as well that obviously contribute to, yeah, if you feel lonely, if you feel isolated, if you have lack of relationships, you know, that is going to contribute to poor mental health. And then on top of that

in terms of lack of relationships and friendships as well. Men obviously struggle to hold on to relationships. And there's some research in regards to divorce as well and lack of support after the divorce population data show, higher suicide risk after separation and divorce in men. Young divorce men at a high risk. Yeah, there's a name for this. I can't actually find it, but it's basically, you know, when two people get together, you know,

all the kind of outside partnerships or relationships that you were in, start to kind of tin out. And usually the male ends up taking on the relationships of the female as well. So you lose that connection with friends after you get in a relationship with someone. And then, you know, they get divorced in their in their mid-40s or their mid-50s and they're like, where is all my support systems I don't have any so they're all kind of things that you know contribute just just some there's there's loads more I could talk about as well addiction as well which obviously coincides with where homelessness coincides with struggling or falling behind in the education system and all these

things all these things contribute to what I said before about Richard Reeves is that quote is like when you feel useless you know when you don't have friends, when you don't have a home, when you can't make money or feel like you can't make money, you're unemployed, when you don't feel that you have opportunities, and then you feel aimless because of that, what would be the point in sticking around? That would be your mindset, and I can completely get that.

I completely get that. So there are all things that we need to look at. And obviously, this is something that really, really annoyed me as well. Because I think it's something that can solve a lot of problems for people. And now I'm biased when I'm saying this because it's something that really helped me. Obviously, I didn't do well in education, okay? Which means that I would have had a lack of opportunities in regards to, you know, making money and you know making a little world for myself um you know and then engaging in friendships meeting new

people and feeling like i'm useful to society feel like feeling like i'm useful to my community feeling like i'm useful to people uh but then i found fitness and fitness really helped me and obviously i played sport when i was younger um and a lot of that really you know helped me in many many ways like even just playing football and having structure throughout my week. And, you know, on the weeks when I did feel useless, when I did feel crap, when I was suffering from my mental health, you know, I had a reason and accountability to kind of just show up on a pitch with, you know, 16 to 20 other lads. And even when I was feeling like crap, you know, you'd go and you'd run around and you'd move

your body and you're also just having a little bit of crack and a laugh with other lads And even when you're feeling like crap, they lift you up because they're in a good mood and they're joking with each other. And before you know it, right, you've moved your body so you feel physically better. You also feel mentally better because you're outside. You've also created a little bit of community and social connection and bonded with other people. So you're hitting all them things that are going to help you to just feel better about your mental health. You feel connected. You feel part of a community.

you feel useful because you know you're part of a team that's that's helping you to um feel useful um you do feel useful they need you and you need them and there's a lot to be said for that and there's the accountability to to show up even when you're not feeling great and i do believe that like community sports whether that is football or whether that is athletics or whether that's basketball or whether that's tennis or whether that's just run clubs or whether that's bowling or like I find in anything whatever it is that gives you community that gives you connection that keeps you active that's really really important and why this pisses me off so much is because right Ireland has the lowest tied with Bulgaria Ireland has the lowest public expenditure for recreation

and supporting services. So when you look at Ireland spending on local sports, things like pitches, Astros, swimming pools, parks, you know, community sports clubs, all right? Things that ordinary people in their community can take advantage of. And like coming from a place like Bray, which is essentially like a working class community, and us being one of the biggest towns in Ireland

and we don't even have an Astro pitch for the community, which is absolutely shocking. Like compared to the rest of Europe, we are at the, we are rock bottom. So across the EU, government spend on average about 0.8 of their budget on community sport and recreation.

That's everything that helps ordinary people stay active and connected locally. So like I said, you know, if you are part of a football team or a basketball team or a running club or, you know, a paddle team or whatever it is, it's like you have community,

you have connection you have everything that you need to stay on top of your mental health Ireland spends around 0.1% that's about 1 8 of what European countries spend in regards to community sport right so that's basically if Europe spends 8 euro on community sport Ireland spends only one euro on community sport that comes straight from the European Commission's own day to Eurostat we are rock bottom of that list with Bulgaria which just draw me in saying that the facts that are like in a country that talks about oh we need to um help people get on top of their mental health and we need to deal with this a crisis of young men who are dying by suicide in this country um you know the biggest threat to a man under 30 is his own

hands and yet you're not doing anything in regards to to helping communities that could you know create environments where people could go when they feel low you know Like when you feel like you've nowhere to go, you've known around you, you've no support, you don't feel connected, you don't feel useful. What is the point in sticking around? And I just think that's, I think just, I just think that's like such a, such a thing that you could just focus on that would really, really improve. The physical and mental well-being of people in this country is give them more opportunities, give them more. We call it third spaces, right? Your first space is home.

your second spaces work and your third space is somewhere where you can go where you can connect with other people we don't have that anymore and as much as I'm an advocate of yeah like put money into mental health services well you could also create environments in this country where you know people people feel like they don't actually need to use them services anymore because they actually feel connected and we can see across the data where they have things like social prescribing where it's like, you know, people go to the doctors because they're sick. And, you know, it turns out that they're actually disconnected and lonely. And what they do is they, the doctors suggest that they do different kind of, different time of community activities. And the rates of hospital appointments reduces dramatically because of it. So I think that's something that we need to be looking at is that like, we need to invest more in the community because that is what's going to essentially help to bring down

these deaths by suicide. The total sports budget is expected to be just over 290 million in 2026. But that doesn't look like anything in regards to local level. That doesn't look like anything in regards to the pitches, the gyms, the small volunteer run clubs, the things that keep people connected. And although it's great that, you know, Ireland, they're putting money into the, you know, winning more medals and Olympic programs and athletes and stuff like that,

it's not the same as funding local pitches and new clubs and keeping community sports affordable for people. And again, in a housing crisis, in a financial crisis, when people don't have money, when people are struggling to, you know, put food on the table, and you're not investing anything into community, into sports. Like, who's the people that are going to benefit from that,

the most who are the people that are going to benefit from um you investing in in community sports young men young men from low socioeconomic background you know the people most at risk of suicide and they've been forgotten you have forgotten them and i think it's it goes to show where the government's intentions are is that they focus more on medals than mental health more on medals than belonging and prevention uh so that's that's where we're at with ireland right now. There's so many things I could just start giving out about the government, but but I'm not going to bother because, you know, I'll just get myself worked up about that. But yeah, the whole point of this was just to, just to look at it from a systemic point of view,

was that like, you know, if you want to help improve people's mental health, if you want to reduce the numbers of young men dying by suicide, you can't just use slogans anymore. You can't just talk about men need to open up. Now, you need to listen. You need to listen that the education system isn't working for young men, that there's a housing crisis, that there's a homeless crisis, that you're not putting any money into community anymore. And I don't think any amount of hours of therapy is probably going to help that.

And that's not me bashing therapy. I'm an advocate of therapy. You know, I'll help push. that to people as much as possible. But there also comes a time where it's like, okay, you have to leave the, leave the therapy room and then what? You know, where's your prospects?

Where's your opportunities? Because if you don't feel like there's something to aim for, if you don't feel like you're useful, if you don't feel like you're making a difference in life in any sort of way, then you're gonna come, you're gonna continue to come into these top patterns of, I'm work,

I'm a piece of shit and nobody wants me nobody needs me I could just die today and it wouldn't make a difference nobody's going to even notice

so I think we should be looking at all these other things as well not just focusing on improving people's mental health but maybe improving people's mental health by pulling them out of poverty giving them a home, giving them purpose and finding different ways to educate them.

Maybe investing in some some things that engage the community together rather than creating the divide which is what this country is basically doing at the moment. All right, that's all I have for today. Sorry for rambling but I hope some of that made sense.