I am delighted to say my new documentary ‘The Power of the People’ will go to air on 26th December 2025 at 2pm on Irish national radio Newstalk. This doc has been a long time in the making but it’s been a privilege to meet and interview those involved. I cannot emphasis enough how impressed I was with them and the courage and commitment they showed when they went on strike in 1984. I’ll let the documentary tell the story but for those of you who are not familiar it’s all based around a group of nine women and one man who worked at Dunnes Stores in Henry St in Dublin who went on strike in 1984. They were responding to an instruction from their union and rather unbelievably they ended up on strike for 2 years and 9 months and to say it was a wild ride is an understatement. In this time they were abused, spat on, intimidated, vilified and detained in South Africa.
On the flip side they travelled extensively, found international recognition and counted Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Reverend Jesse Jackson amongst their friends and supporters. They made a remarkable impact. You need to hear it to believe some of it so I urge you to listen. I’ll share the listen back links here once they are live.
A huge thanks to all the contributors to the documentary, namely; Mary Manning, Liz Deasy, Karen Gearon, Joe Murray, David Gibney, Pádraig Durnin, Lerato Memela and Kevin McLoughlin.
‘Have You Frozen Your Eggs Yet?’ launches
It’s here! A side podcast project I’ve been working on for a few months with another Edinburgh-based producer Louise Mason. The podcast’s focus is on being a woman, the annoying questions we are asked and surviving ALL the expectations that are placed on us.
It’s taken us a while to get it off the ground but I am delighted it’s out in the world and feedback so far has been great. We even made it into the Culture Magazine in the Sunday Times!
Fertility is an important topic and we want to use it as a jumping off point to explore all sorts of things that affect women today. In fact, we dropped the first two episodes this week and the content of the second episode was completely unforeseen as Louise dealt with a shocker of situation in her love life. We weren’t expecting an emergency episode so early in the series but here we are.
We’re already doing what we set out to, simply sharing the load with our listeners and starting conversations. If you’d like to learn more you can find us on Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube. Episodes drop on a Tuesday and you’ll find them wherever you get your podcasts from 🎙️🎧
Autumn 2025
Apparently the website is on the way out – well, it would appear I may be contributing to its demise by not keeping this site up to scratch. It’s been 5 months since my last post and things are hectic, in a good way. I graduated from the Radio Academy Mentoring Programme in July and found the whole thing inspiring and encouraging and well, excellent. Thanks to all involved and my wonderful cohort, who I know I’ll be in touch with for a long time to come. I’m about to launch a new podcast with another female producer based in Edinburgh, its aim is to share some of the load we feel as women between the ages of 30-50 or thereabouts. More detail will be coming very soon.
I’m also about to wrap up recording on my forth-coming documentary for Newstalk in Ireland and to say the people I have been interviewing are inspiring is a complete understatement. It’s about the Dunnes Strikers of the mid-1980s who against all odds did something remarkable. In my final bit of news for today you can catch me on Edge 2, Edinburgh’s Classic Tracks station every Sunday evening between 5 and 9pm when I play goldie oldies as well as some ‘choice indie picks’ – think new music for the indie and alternative peeps. I have always got time for a chat if you have a presenting gig or a project you need a producer’s input on – just drop me a line! Cheers
Spring 2025
How is it Spring 2025 already? It’s been a pretty hectic year to date, I’ve been working on various ongoing projects and a couple of new ones which has been exciting. I’ve a commission for a new documentary for Irish radio – social history again – I do love a wonderful human story. I’ve also been chosen to be part of the Radio Academy’s mentoring programme RAMP which I am absolutely loving. I’ve met so many wonderful, talented people and it’s going really well – I’ve been matched with an awesome mentor too so I am really excited to see how the next few months go. Finally, at National World we got a stack of nominations for this year’s Publisher Podcast Awards – it will feel difficult to top last year but I am very much looking forward to the event in June. I’m privileged to have been asked to judge again this year and the competition is stiff I can tell you! I only have about 25 podcasts to listen to in the next 3 weeks – better get on with that! As always if you have a project you’d like to work with me on please do get in touch on LinkedIn or via social channels.
Summer 2024
We had some great news at the start of June when 2 of the podcasts I make for The Scotsman won 3 awards at the Publisher Podcast Awards in London (Scran and The Steamie). It was a fab opportunity to meet up with audio peeps and Media Voices make it such a great event. I gave a presentation earlier in the day at the Publisher Podcast Summit about making niche podcasts which I really enjoyed. I was totally blown away later that night when I picked up the penultimate award for ‘Publisher Podcast Hero of the Year’. What a wonderful surprise it was and I was really humbled to have my work recognised by the judges, especially when there were such great nominees in the category. Hopefully some more exciting projects coming later this summer so I’l be back to talk about them soon.
‘Tainted Blood’ goes to air…Aug 2023
I am delighted to say my first solo documentary, ‘Tainted Blood‘, aired on Newstalk (Irish national radio) in August 2023. It’s a heartbreaking story I was compelled to tell when I first came across it a few years back and thought ‘why have I never heard about this before’.
In 1982 the first case of HIV was recorded in Ireland. By 1985 all people with haemophilia were being tested for the disease. More than one third of them were found to be HIV positive having contracted the disease through infected blood products that were made up of pooled plasma from thousands of donors, much of which had been imported. At this time there was little or no government response to HIV. Support groups for those affected by the crisis such as the gay and haemophiliac communities were essentially left to deal with this crisis on their own.
‘Tainted Blood’, shares the heartbreaking story of how this community was plunged into desperation and the actions that had to be taken to secure justice. I would like to thank the truly inspirational contributors who help make this happen.
Summer 2023
I was delighted to recently pick up the award for ‘Best health and wellbeing podcast’ at the Publisher Podcast Awards 2023 for The Reset Room which I produce, host and edit.
I also produce and present the Fox Force Five Podcast with my sister Nicola O’Brien. It’s a weekly topical show that tells you five things you need to know from current affairs, media and pop culture.
As you might be able to tell my true passion in life is audio and storytelling. I currently work as a Podcast Producer across a wide range of genres for National World – brands like The Scotsman and other newspapers and news websites.
Here’s a few links to some of my audio work;
Mission Possible, Newstalk Documentary, premiered April 2023, Assistant Producer.
Fox Force Five Podcast, co-presented with Nicola Murphy. Five things you need to know, every week.
Podcast at National World/Laudable – Scran, The Steamie, Screen Babble, The Reset Room, Uncovered and Testimony: The Body on Seaham Beach.
Angles of Mercy, Newstalk Documentary, premiered March 2021, Assistant Producer.
If you are interested in my work or have an idea for a story, feature or podcast, please get in touch. Topics that interest me are music, culture, current affairs, social history and women’s issues.
Kelly Crichton 