“Terrifyingly good” – The Slate
“Fast tracked to national-treasure status” – The Guardian
“Probably the world’s best football podcast.” – VICE

Second Captains is an international award-winning production company founded by Ken Early, Simon Hick, Mark Horgan, Eoin McDevitt and Ciarán Murphy and based in Dublin, Ireland.

The Second Captains Podcast was launched in March 2013 and quickly became the most-popular pod in Ireland, winning the iTunes podcast of the year in 2014. Focusing mainly on sport but also touching on comedy, politics and popular culture, the show has since been chosen as one of The Guardian’s 50 best podcasts and as one of the top ten British and Irish podcasts of all-time as part of iTunes Essentials list.

In 2017, the company expanded its online shows and launched The Second Captains World Service, a podcast feed available only to members. The independent, member-led, commercial-free platform is now one of the biggest podcasts in the world on Patreon.

Second Captains also produce radio, podcasts and television for the BBC and RTÉ. Their radio show Second Captains Saturday has been a summer favourite on RTÉ Radio 1 since 2015 and regularly welcomes internationally-renowned guests such as Malcolm Gladwell, Conan O’Brien and Michael Sheen. The team also broadcast 5 series of the IFTA nominated Second Captains Live for RTÉ 2 television.

In 2020, the company produced the groundbreaking investigative series Where Is George Gibney?  for BBC Sounds. Presented by Mark Horgan, the documentary podcast was one of the most successful in the world that year, winning a Banff World Media award, a Prix Europa award, three golds at the New York Festival Awards, two Justice Media Awards, an ARIA Award, a Webby Award and a British Podcast Award. Their critically acclaimed new BBC series Stakeknife, again presented by Horgan and co-produced by Ciarán Cassidy, is available now and has already been listened to over 2 million times. The series has been universally hailed after it’s release, described as an “exceptional piece of audio documentary – riveting” by the Observer & as “one of the finest pieces of audio storytelling in recent years” by the Examiner.

Second Captains also regularly perform live recordings of The Second Captains Podcast, recently selling out the Gaiety Theatre, Olympia Theatre and National Stadium in Dublin, and the Earth Theatre in London.

WHY THE NAME SECOND CAPTAINS?