Today, I will be speaking with Colleen Corbett. Any Irish person who has moved to Toronto is sure to have encountered the famous Colleen at some stage. She brings energy and enthusiasm to any conversation she is in and this is no exception. Colleen’s mother, the equally famous Maureen Mulvey O’Leary, winner of the 2024 Irish Person of the Year Award, was a previous guest on this podcast. Colleen talks about how her mother raised her as Irish in Toronto, attending Irish cultural events in the city and traveling around the North American continent to various Comhaltas events. Colleen discusses how St. Patrick’s Day is like Christmas for her and she also discusses how it feels to be on the other side as Irish people begin to move back home, after having formed close bonds with people in Toronto.

Colleen’s experiences as Irish growing up in Toronto is unique and she is currently chronicling these experiences in a novel she is writing. We discuss the ups and downs of creating writing and how she came to lose her original manuscript.

Today, I will be speaking with Sarah Cartin, who I refer to as ‘Saz’ for the remainder of this podcast. Saz moved to Canada the same month as I did and we became friends through her ex-partner. In this episode, Saz opens up about her initial struggles finding a job here in Toronto to her fractured relationship with alcohol. This episode is being released one day before Saz’s three-year soberversary. She is refreshingly honest about her journey to sobriety and I admire how she approaches it. Her Instagram page, sackedthesauce is a wonderful resource for people curious about quitting alcohol. I really appreciate her honesty throughout this chat. Quick trigger warning for people, there will be mentions of alcohol use disorder and disordered eating.

I would still encourage people to download the episodes and to share them with friends and family. Downloads are the easiest indicator for me to gauge how many people I am reaching with these conversations so I would really appreciate it.

While we have had some amazing guests on this podcast over the past three years, today I am proud to introduce our most distinguished guest of all, Her Excellency, the Consul General of Ireland in Toronto, Ms. Janice McGann. In fact, Janice became the inaugural Consul General of Ireland in Toronto back in 2022.

As her appointment in Toronto comes to its end, Janice took time out of her busy schedule to sit down with me and suffer through what she called a truly authentic Irish in Toronto experience by appearing on the podcast. We discuss the challenges of establishing a brand new Consulate in a place with a large Irish diaspora. We also discuss Janice’s career before coming to Toronto and what the future will look like for her as she begins a new role with the Department of Foreign Affairs at home in Dublin.

The Irish community in Toronto will be forever grateful to Janice and her team for the work they have put in over the past few years to establish the Consulate and we wish her the best.