"Clubbing doesn't have to be just for young people." DJ – and now Doctor – Annie Mac on the future of clubbing

Superstar DJ Annie MacManus is worried that she shouldn't call herself Doctor because her degree from Queen’s University, Belfast is honorary. Oliver Callan is quick to reassure her that a doctorate is a doctorate and she should use it anytime she likes. So, Doctor DJ Annie Mac? DR-DJ? She might have to put some thought into a rebranding.

Annie was presented with an honorary doctorate by Queen’s – where she had studied English Literature – in recognition of her contribution to the arts. Described by Oliver as a "the music legend, DJ Annie Mac; broadcaster, author, mammy and a forever raver," Dr MacManus was presented with her doctorate by the university’s Chancellor, Hillary Clinton, something Annie told Oliver she wasn’t expecting:

"We only found out about Hillary a couple of days before and I didn’t realise she was Chancellor of Queen’s until I Googled it, I was like, 'Wow, that’s, that’s a pretty major person to have bring you your doctorate.’"

Annie confessed to "not really being fluent in the language of academic honours," and even suggested that maybe she mightn't be worthy of the honorary doctorate, but the occasion calmed any anxieties on that front. Her parents were with her on the day and for her it brought things full circle because when she was in school, she wanted to study Drama in Trinity College, Dublin, but she didn’t get accepted. So, her mum suggested she apply to Queen’s. She got in and studied English Literature and had an amazing – and deeply formative – time there for three years:

"It was a whole different Ireland that I had never experienced before, and it was the place where I discovered dance music and nightclubbing and the place where I decided I would like to try to be a DJ."

So Belfast turned out to be the place where Annie Mac bought her first set of decks and set out to be a DJ and to get on the radio, both of which things she achieved in a remarkably short space of time. Her career as a DJ and radio presenter on BBC Radio 1 has been acclaimed, so when she told the BBC that she wanted to leave in 2021, it came as a shock to many people, but, she feels, 3 years later, it was the right move:

"To kind of just have more time to devote to writing novels, which is what I really wanted and the DJing hasn’t stopped. I was unsure when I left Radio 1 whether my DJ career would sustain and also, I think I felt, post-Covid, when I had, you know, time off being a working DJ and when I say that, I mean time where you get to sleep in a normal way and go to bed in a normal time and wake up in a normal time and be around at the weekend and not feel like you’re jetlagged, you know?"

Working as a DJ often means not getting home until 5 o’clock in the morning, which is pretty tiring at the best of times, but when you have small children, it’s harder for everyone. So Annie worried that her DJing career might be over, but then she hit on an idea that worked for her and, she hoped, people who wanted to dance but didn’t necessarily always want to be out until 4 o’clock in the morning. That’s how her club night Before Midnight was born:

"A club night that began at 7pm and ended at midnight and is for anyone who wanted to go clubbing and needed to sleep. I launched it kind of tentatively, hopefully, that other people might feel the same and it’s been a kind of landslide of people."

So many people who love dancing but don’t want to be out all night and who felt that there was nowhere they could go were suddenly saved by Annie’s Before Midnight club night. And the success of the club night opened up Annie’s DJ career in ways that she wasn’t expecting. It also gave her hope for clubbing, after a fairly precarious few years:

"I think there is a future for clubbing, but this is one way of doing it, it’s kind of realising that clubbing doesn’t have to be just for young people. You know, there’s a whole generation of people who grew up with acid house, who grew up with the birth of dance music."

Dance music, Annie says, is 40 or 50 years old and there are a lot of people the same age who grew up listening to it, so why not give them what they want to hear? That’s exactly what Annie is doing.

You can hear Oliver’s full chat with Annie Mac by clicking or tapping above.

Annie Mac’s Before Midnight club nights are on at Vicar Street in Dublin in March 2025.