Welcome to the Irish nan belt

Dear readers — there’s arguably nothing quite so chic as an Irish nan. Maisy, our Operations Manager, has one who worked in the Dunlop factory, and of that the Mill team are very envious. Jack Walton has an Irish grandad, but that’s not the same at all and doesn’t count. 

When Cameron Baillie first broached to us the concept of the ‘Irish Nan Belt’ – a stretch of land through Lancashire and beyond, where nearly everyone you ask has a grandmother from Ireland – we thought that at the very least it was worth looking into. In his search for the mythical nan belt, Baillie uncovers an overlooked part of Manchester’s Irish history: the women who moved from Ireland to the north of England, significantly outnumbering the men, and who went on to shape Manchester’s culture. That’s in today's exclusive member's-only piece, right after your briefing.

🗳️ Rumours of Andy Burnham returning to Westminster have re-entered the chat. The going theory remains that Burnham is eyeing up Andrew Gwynne’s Gorton and Denton seat. As you may recall, Gwynne was suspended from the party following the “triggers me timbers” WhatsApp chat scandal and is still under investigation. If he steps down, it would trigger a by-election that could give Burnham an in. And though he’s been sticking to the line that he loves the mayor’s office too much to leave it, that wavered at the recent Real Estate Investment & Infrastructure Forum last week. After giving a speech about the Bee Network and Greater Manchester’s general rise, he was asked by an audience member whether he’d stick around to see the rest of the Greater Manchester strategy through. “He said he really loved this job,” another audience member told us. “But: ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next 12 months’.”

📚 2026 is set to be a big year for one of Stockport’s historic villages. A charity dedicated to encouraging high standards of architecture in Cheadle is hosting a series of free events that celebrate the village’s relation to the best-selling novelist of all time, Agatha Christie. The country house that pops up in so many of her books is said to be inspired by Abney Hall, where Christie’s sister lived between 1902 and 1950. For the 50-year anniversary of Christie’s death this month, Cheadle Civic Society is excited for more people to learn about how her writing was inspired by her connections to their community. Phillip Gould-Bourn MBE, the charity’s chairman, wants it known that while “lots of places claim a ‘Christie connection’, Cheadle’s is a very personal — and influential — one.” 

📱As the government considers recreating Australia’s social media ban for under 16s, one Bolton headteacher has weighed in on the proposal. Tony McCabe, from St Joseph’s in Horwich, thinks “a more nuanced approach” is needed, telling BBC Manchester a blanket ban doesn’t account for the positive impacts social media can have on young people. Though McCabe doesn’t let students use mobile phones within school hours, he thinks social media can foster connections in “healthy, positive” ways, providing opportunities for group revision or emotional support.

Welcome to the Irish nan belt

By Cameron Baillie

“We don’t have a name,” says Debbie Garvey one wet Sunday afternoon in Bia Cafe. There’s ten musicians sitting around the table, with squeeze-boxes, Irish harps and fiddles, tambour drums, Guinness, Magners cider and pots of tea. “I don’t even know them,” Debbie tells me. “We just get together and play.”

Debbie organises the folk sessions in the little Levenshulme cafe with her pal, Grace Kelly — no relation. It’s been open two years now, the cafe, selling Guinness stews and Irish breakfasts and fresh-baked soda bread of a standard that’s hard to come by this side of the Irish Sea. The folk night has been going almost as long as the cafe’s been open. Sometimes it’s just Debbie and Grace on their fiddles. Other times, like today, the place is thriving. A small, loose crowd of onlookers gather. One mother bounces a curly-haired toddler on her knee.

Regular customer Majid Khan enters halfway through the group’s performance, ordering a beer. He’s a Sufi Muslim, denominating Islam’s spiritualist, meditative practices. Whenever he’s passing through Levy on Sunday afternoons, he stops by. “Irish music is healing for the soul,” he tells me. “This is meditation.”