Annie Mac looks momentarily perplexed. “It’s a really interesting question,” she says, furrowing her brow as she nods. I have just asked the Dublin native whether she still considers herself a broadcaster first and foremost, considering the numerous other hats that she has worn throughout her career. “I think it’s funny, because there’s ‘broadcaster’ and then there’s ‘podcaster’ – but I wouldn’t call myself a broadcaster as quickly now.” She mulls over the question a little more, shrugging. “If someone asked me what I do, I’d say that I write books, and I DJ, and I podcast.”
It has been four years since the 47-year-old multi-hyphenate left her position at BBC Radio 1, where she presented a variety of shows including Future Sounds, which positioned her as one of the UK’s leading tastemakers for new music. She has not ruled out a return to radio at some point but, as things stand, she has “no pangs at all” about her decision. “What I find is that I still meet people a lot who are genuinely cross with me for leaving, which is funny,” she laughs. “And then the first question is always like, ‘Well, when are you coming back?’ And I don’t really have an answer for that.”
One of the reasons for her departure was to spend more time with her young sons, who are now 12 and eight, and her husband Thomas Bell, aka DJ and producer Toddla T.
“When I was on radio I’d miss bedtime and dinner time every night, and then a lot of the time I’d be away at the weekends DJing, as well,” she explains. “Sometimes you were around at the weekends, and sometimes you weren’t. Now, it’s completely different. I still DJ, but much less than I used to. And I’m around in the evenings, and I’m really, really loving that.” She grimaces. “I haven’t become a better cook, though.”
RM Block
In any case, the woman born Annie Macmanus has plenty else to be getting on with. She has also written two novels (2021’s Mother Mother and 2023’s This Mess We’re In), and recently handed in the manuscript for her third, which is tentatively set for publication in early 2027. She still DJs, mostly at her Before Midnight club nights, which are going from strength to strength (she promises to “get another Irish date in the diary” after its successful Dublin debut earlier this year.)
Macmanus and her fellow DJ Lucy Monki floated the idea of running a club night that finished before 12am, catering for an older crowd – many of them with busy jobs, young kids or other commitments – that still wanted to go clubbing, but didn’t want to pull an all-nighter in order to do so. The reaction was “unanimously positive” from the beginning, she says.
“I had written off my DJ career in a way; I was kind of in a state of pre-grieving it. I went from ‘I don’t think this is going to be able to continue’ [after Covid and leaving Radio 1] to then having this path in front of me that is now very clear. I can see myself growing older as a DJ and also being able to challenge myself as a DJ, by playing these extended sets for three or four hours. It’s just a lovely feeling. I’ve never enjoyed DJing as much.”
[ A ‘middle-aged rave’ that ends before midnight? I’ll get my dancing shoesOpens in new window ]
Macmanus has also been able to keep her toe in the music world with the weekly Sidetracked music podcast for BBC Sounds which she co-hosts with Nick Grimshaw, and of course, as the long-running co-host of Other Voices for RTÉ television.
“It’s so much more for me than just the presenting aspect,” she says of her annual pre-Christmas pilgrimage to Dingle. “And it comes at a time when you’re really frazzled, and there’s always so much going on. But then you go to Dingle, and it just fills you up in so many ways, on a soulful level; just being witness to so many amazing different bands and artists playing within such a concentrated time.
“And also getting to hang out in nice pubs and speak with nice people, and work in Ireland with the really talented Irish crew and the other presenters. I just love going home. I don’t do a lot of work in Ireland – I never have – so it means a lot to me to go back and work there every year. I never come back not feeling really nourished – and about half a stone heavier.”
Macmanus’s priorities have certainly changed, and she admits that the emergence of the latent novelist within her “feels like coming home”. Her writing has also extended to her excellent Substack newsletter, Changes. (She previously hosted a podcast of the same name, which is currently on hiatus.) One of the topics she has written about was the agonising decision whether to relocate her family from London to Dublin, which they ultimately decided against.
“It was Covid-induced,” she says of the dilemma. “The luxury of being able to [easily] fly back being taken away really sobers you. I thought about it for a good while, because my [eldest] son was starting secondary school. If I had an Irish husband, I would have been back a long time ago – but I have an English husband, and it’s not so easy as his career is here.” She shrugs. “For now, I feel at peace with the fact that we’re here, on the condition that I go back a lot. And I do go back regularly on my own to see my mum and dad, even just for a night, sometimes. And that kind of scratches the itch.”
We speak about Christmas, and her sons’ inevitable tilt towards the grown-up version of the season, which she is understandably saddened by. “With them growing up in London, they feel a lot less innocent than their Irish cousins, in a lot of ways,” she nods. “They feel more kind of worldly, somehow. That could just be me projecting it, I don’t know – but the Santa thing is pretty sad.”
Still, there is plenty to be happy about. As always, the family will split their Christmas between London with her in-laws, and then on St Stephen’s Day, they will fly to Dublin where the extended family converges on her parents’ home in Dundrum. “The house is packed,” she chuckles, “but it’s lovely chaos.”
Is she where she thought she’d be at this point in her life? She smiles, pausing to think about her multiple reinventions over the years. “When I was in my 20s, I would have said there was no way I’d be DJing when I was over 40,” she laughs. “One of the biggest things that happened to me this year was I started playing football competitively with a team, in a league. I’m one of the oldest women in the club, and I surprise myself constantly by the fact that my body can work and get through a game. So that’s been so cool.
“And I have realised that I’ve had a sense of kind of internalised ageism, where I thought ‘There’s no way I could do something like this.’ But I’ve had to just shut up the inner voices and crack on. So that’s been a big learning curve for me: don’t age yourself more than what you are. Don’t limit yourself.”
She smiles again, her trademark curls bouncing as she nods. “And I feel really happy to be still DJing, but in a way that feels like it’s on my terms, in a way that feels really good and purposeful. I don’t know what the next 10 years will bring, and I’m quite excited by that. I like the idea of not really knowing what’s around the corner.”
Follow Annie Mac on Substack at anniemacmanus.substack.com. Other Voices returns to Dingle November 28th-30th.
