HeadStuff Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary
We are delighted to announce that this year HeadStuff is celebrating its 10th Anniversary. To celebrate this achievement we are bringing you back to the very start.
HeadStuff History
HeadStuff was founded by Alan Bennett in 2014. It started as a website, HeadStuff.org, that covered topics from literature and music, to film, computer games, and podcasts. Having become more and more interested in podcasts, Alan decided to make one himself, which was when The HeadStuff Podcast started. On the show, Alan interviewed an interesting or creative person on each episode and some big names were featured – starting with Jarlath Regan, whose podcast ‘An Irishman Abroad’ was one of the biggest at the time. If he’s honest, Alan would admit that the episode was really just him asking Jarlath how to make a podcast! Other episodes included Saul Williams, John Connolly, Annie Atkins, Kevin Barry, Arthur Matthews, Josie Long, Ken Early, B. Dolan, and Mary Morrissy.
The podcast did well and was a lot of fun, and it wasn’t long before the idea of a network started to look very appealing. Alan approached Gearoid Farrelly, who had an excellent podcast called Fascinated, and The HeadStuff Podcast Network was born. Now with a small, newly fitted-out recording studio, new shows were added to the network – some from HeadStuff.org editors (Juvenalia and NO ENCORE), and others by opening up to new applications (Double Love, In the Shower with Taz and Marcus, Personality Bingo with Tom Moran, and The Alison Spittle Show). The Network grew as new shows were developed (Motherfoclóir) and established ones were brought in (Dubland with PJ Gallagher and Suzanne Kane), and soon HeadStuff was the biggest podcast network in Ireland. In 2019, The Dublin Podcast Festival was created, in collaboration with Aiken Promotions, attracting international podcasting talent to Ireland, and the network continued to develop.
As the network grew, and with a podcast studio available, HeadStuff became increasingly involved in working with people outside the network to make podcasts. When the legendary Dublin recording studio, Westland Studios, became available, HeadStuff took the leap and spent the best part of a year refurbishing it and turning it into The Podcast Studios as we know it today.
From the 80s-themed Blog Awards at which we won our first award. (Alan Bennett, Paddy O’Leary, Matt Mahon)
HeadStuff 10 Years On
10 years on, HeadStuff has been awarded Ireland’s best podcast network at The Irish Podcast Awards in 2023. Along with the big win, HeadStuff Podcasts were nominated across five categories: best comedy, best entertainment, best factual, best wellbeing, and best interview. We have also added some great new shows to the network including ‘Young Hot Guys’, ‘Keep It Tight’, and ‘The Baby Tribe.’ The exciting news is there is more where that came from!
‘It is a pleasure to be the Network Coordinator for HeadStuff at its 10th anniversary. For 10 years HeadStuff has been at the forefront of Irish Podcasting, offering high-quality production and bringing some of the best Irish podcasts to life. At the moment, I am working on some very exciting things behind the scenes and there’s plenty more to come from HeadStuff!’ – Hilary Barry (Network Coordinator)
‘If I had told my mother in 2014 that in ten years time I’d be running a respected podcast and media company with ten employees, she’d have said, as she said many times back then… “what exactly are you doing?” And to be honest, while I told her at the time what I thought I was doing, even 2014 me would have been fairly surprised if you told him we’d be here. So that’s all to the good. I’m pretty proud of what we’ve achieved. I love my friends who came along with me and the friends I’ve made along the way. And I’m excited to see where we are in another ten years.’ Alan Bennett (CEO)