Mother Mother: A poignant journey of friendship and forgiveness

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A: Annie Mac’s most famous radio show is “Annie Mac’s Mash Up”, which features a mix of the best electronic dance and pop music. Through her groundbreaking career, Annie Mac has paved the way for women in the music industry, inspiring aspiring female DJs, presenters, and musicians to follow their dreams. Her legacy continues to inspire generations to come. The first thing Macmanus did was google Irish people who had accepted and rejected similar offers. “There are a lot of Irish people who turn them down.” She didn’t say no straight away. “I thought it would be disrespectful not to consider it. It made me think about my place in the world, my allegiances. I was never in any doubt about the absurdity of the monarchy, but it made me think about all of that.” Orla has moved to London from Ireland in pursuit of a career in the music industry- Orla sings, produces and plays guitar, so music is a huge part of her existence. Mother Mother is a story about the cost of unconditional love, but also about finding light in the darkest of places, says the publisher.

A: Yes, Annie Mac is a strong advocate for various charitable causes, including supporting organizations that promote mental health and music education. Multiple research trips to Belfast followed. She covered a wall in the room she wrote in with maps of streets. She drove the journeys her characters take. She wandered a cemetery where scenes unfold. She befriended some Belfast women who told her of their experiences growing up, the minutiae of their school uniforms, First Holy Communions, their houses. The thing became real, she says, when she journeyed to a beach where key parts of the novel unfold, and realised that what was in her head, had been willed into being. “I was standing on this beach where this huge scene happens, and it all felt really exciting at that moment because it was all feeling so real, being able to stand in these places that I had been imagining for so long. It was wonderful.” The ending felt rushed, the best part of a book is the feeling of catharsis you get at the end. Which this book didn’t provide. I would’ve like to feel more a build towards the end, even if things still don’t end up wrapped up neatly with a bow (which is not what i expect of every book i read). On Saturday 10 June 2023, Annie Mac supported Harry Styles at Slane Castle performing to a crowd of over 80,000 people. Annie was the second support act to play on the day, taking to the stage at around 3:30pm, preceded by Mitch Rowland, and followed by Inhaler (band) and Wet Leg. Last year I became a staunch Radio 1 listener again for the first time since my teens. I needed the ceaselessly refreshing joy of pop music during the pandemic, but also the pastoral bump on the shoulder from its presenters looking out for audiences considerably younger than me: the pure, giddy fun of phone-ins and running jokes, the gentle mood-guardrails and circumspect parcelling out of the day’s events on Newsbeat. It frequently made me sentimental, and still does: just this week I had a moment at a sunny roundabout as Greg James played the new Wolf Alice song. Its entire presenter cohort deserves to join the national role call of pandemic heroes – and in particular Annie Mac, who yesterday announced that she was leaving the station after 17 years.

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Orla makes a few poor and impulsive decision along the way, but hey didn’t we all in our early 20’s? I could barely read this one fast enough. It absolutely fizzes with the energy of youth as Orla navigates her new life in the city. Living with a band on the brink of stardom and trying to find her own feet in the music business, her new life is full of opportunity and excitement. Her trips home have steadily increased. She always goes at Christmas or Easter, and for a month in the summer with the children, but these days she also goes alone, just for a day and a night, to spend quality time with her parents. Her mother is 81, and her dad 76. “One little day with them on my own is like two weeks there with the kids,” she says. “It scratches that itch.” Mary clings on to her family, even though her father and brother probably don’t deserve her attention and love, and TJ takes advantage of her unquestioning love - like a typical teenager. Annie Mac performs on the main stage on at Parklife 2016 festival in Manchester. Photograph: Visionhaus/Corbis via Getty

Loved the characters in the pub she works at too. I can definitely chime with those older Irish men full of yearning and Guinness - I have plenty in my own family She’s not completely averse to the idea. “But I don’t want to force it. No, if I feel like I will, then I will. I’m all ready to go now. Like, as menopause comes in, I’ve started feeling a bit sweaty.” Thinking a little bit more about her own confident nature, she credits her parents. “I was left alone a lot as a kid in a very good way. I was provided with a lot of love and a feeling of safety but I was allowed to form my own identity in my own way and in my own time ... My parents are amazing.”

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Mary McConnell grew up longing for information about the mother she never knew, who died suddenly when Mary was only a baby. Her brother Sean was barely old enough to remember, and their father numbed his pain with drink. I wish there were more characters that were fleshed out. I did not mind the ending, I found it realistic. But I think there was lost opportunity with some of the characters that were significant in Mary’s life, and wishing there was more reference to them. Do you ever read something and instantly think this needs to be adapted into a series? Because that’s the case with The Mess We’re In! I enjoyed all the characters, it kind of gave me a YA feel, in a good way. It reminded me a lot of How To Build A Girl by Caitlin Moran. The flaws of Orla kind of added to this as well, and I liked Annie's perspective on this at the end. At the start, there were enthusiastic attempts to include the children’s grandparents in their home-schooling curriculum, but, as the weeks rolled by, the kids stopped engaging. I got cross with them, but really I was cross with the whole situation. Cross with the bad internet connections, the stilted interactions, the worry pulling at me all the time that something would happen to my parents.