How a Cork duo turned chats with their mammies into a hit podcast

Lads, I’m up to ninety with I’m Grand Mam. No but seriously, this podcast has repeatedly made me weep with laughter and provides a glorious splash of colour over any backdrop of grim. Even when the talk turns serious – and it does – there’s some magic here that always manages to leave this listener with her gob in a grin and a transient, pretty woeful and difficult-to-explain Cork accent.

I’m Grand Mam was conceived on a plane to Budapest, and reached the rest of us in February of 2019, when friends and flatmates Kevin Twomey and PJ Kirby put a mic they spontaneously bought on Amazon Prime to sparkling effect. The rest is Irish podcasting history.

The podcast title comes from chats the hosts have with their mammies – often long-distance as both are from Cork but began their podcast when living together in London, and both are equally at pains to reassure said mammies that danger is not in fact lurking at every tube stop. And each episode ends with the classic Irish mammy send-off consisting of repeated goodbyes of gradually fading volume, familiar with anyone who has ever tried to hang up the phone in Ireland ever.

What comes before the echoey goodbyes though is real, raw fun, and here’s how it works: the two pick a theme, from coming out, to money management, to having babies, to summer camps. Then they spin off into discussions of such, complete with personal stories, general pronouncements, “learning” about everything from what you can and can’t put at the top of the kitchen cabinets to the difference between the North and South Poles, and on-theme bops courtesy of Alexa.

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At times they also invite a guest to share the airwaves: episode number 34 with Paul Mescal, where they had him read some thirsty tweets about him, as well as some fan fiction written by Twomey involving Paris and douches, was an absolute stunner. Over its 93 episodes and counting, I’m Grand Mam has also included regular codas from the hosts’ real life mammies giving advice or answering listener questions, as well as confessions from fans on subjects from lying about Leaving Cert results to sibling revenge, and at one stage regular Mam Crush Mondays highlighting mammies and their myriad accomplishments. (Also included: a crash course in Irish history – starring Oliver Cromwell as Voldemort – and the possible appearance of Michael Collins through a fridge magnet.)

The mammy worship is conceptually brilliant (full disclosure: I am a mammy). And Twomey and Kirby are both giving serious performer energy. But somehow I’m Grand Mam works, perhaps paradoxically, because these two are also so unabashedly genuine, fearless in their capacity for self-abasement, and grounded in a long-standing friendship, their affection for each other allowing them to tease and tickle each other and invite us all into the warmest, winningest place.

It’s no wonder their fan base of mammies is legion. Count me among them.