Podcast Corner: Family tales of the Irish contribution to Manchester through the years 

Hannah Donelon's podcast, There's A Lot I Haven't Asked, was inspired by stories that began to emerge from her own family 

Thousands of Irish moved to Manchester in the decades from the 1940s onwards.  (Photo by Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)  

Hannah Donelon explains early on in the opening episode how the idea for her eight-part series, There’s a Lot I Haven’t Asked, came about: “The impetus for this series came from a summer holiday to Ireland with my mum and dad in August 2024 as we took to the road visiting family in Galway and Kerry. Mum and Dad began telling me stories from their youth; some hilarious, some weird, some unbelievable, and some sad. And I thought to myself, wow, there's a lot I haven't asked.” 

 The podcast series revolves around stories, scenes, and memories from the Irish diaspora in Manchester and the impact of its legacy on the present day. With original music composed and arranged by Michael McGoldrick, Donelon talked to 35 people over the course of just a month about their varied lives. Why Manchester in particular? Donelon explains: “For two centuries and more, Manchester's story has been tied to Ireland. Since the city began its transformation into an industrial metropolis, the Irish have come, the large majority, to find work and have been enriching Mancunian cultural and social life in the process. The period of emigration we're looking at in this series is from around 1945 to 1975.”