About
Fender Jackson
Fender Jackson is a musician, composer, interviewer, and writer whose work centres on listening, conversation, and cultural memory.
He is the host of The Ireland Podcast, a long-form interview series recording life on the island of Ireland through careful, unhurried conversation.
Across music, writing, and recorded conversation, his work explores how people make sense of their lives, memories, and experiences - particularly in places shaped by history, conflict, and change.
Sperrin Mountains
Background &
Early Influences
Fender was born in Ulster and grew up in a rural community in the Sperrin Mountains. The landscape and the people around him shaped an early sense of place, language, and belonging.
He is the grand-nephew of Rev. Patrick J. Heron, whose work forms part of the Heron Papers, an archival collection documenting Irish language, folklore, and local life in the Draperstown/Ballinascreen area. The collection preserves material from a period when Irish was disappearing as a community language in the area, bringing questions of language, memory, and cultural inheritance particularly close to home.
Belfast
Life During Wartime
During the early 1990s, Fender spent formative years living and working in Belfast, during the final years of the Troubles. Music remained central to his life: alongside performing, he volunteered in a local prison, using music as a means of connection rather than performance.
Those years exposed him to different communities, experiences, and perspectives at a time when questions of identity and belonging were part of everyday life.
Yorkshire > London
Arts > Editorial > Knowledge Management
Fender studied Theatre (Design and Technology) in Leeds, funding his studies partly by working as a stilt walker. He later moved to London, where he worked across music, writing, media, and project management.
His career included freelance writing for the BBC, project management, and later knowledge management at PwC.
China
Performing Arts Teacher
Fender spent eight years living in China as a musician and performing arts teacher, where he wrote, designed, and directed large-scale productions involving hundreds of performers.
Living far from Ireland changed his relationship with home. He regularly listened to Irish radio, following events and conversations from thousands of miles away and maintaining a connection with family and life on the island.
That habit of listening from a distance would later become one of the foundations of The Ireland Podcast.
Galway
The Third Piece Of The Puzzle
Now based in Galway, having returned after many years living abroad, Fender records much of The Ireland Podcast from the west of Ireland.
Growing up in the North and later settling in the west has given him different perspectives on the island - its communities, histories, rhythms, and sense of place. After years away, returning has involved both recognition and learning: coming to understand Ireland again through everyday life and conversation.
These experiences inform his approach to THE IRELAND Podcast: curious rather than prescriptive, and interested in how people understand their own lives and the places around them.
Ireland
Recording The Island
Fender views THE IRELAND Podcast as an ongoing effort to record life on the island of Ireland through conversation. Each guest brings a perspective shaped by their own experiences, background, and journey. Taken together, these conversations form a growing record of voices, memories, and lived experience.
He believes there is value in paying attention to how other people see the world, particularly in a place where history, identity, and memory remain closely intertwined. Conversation cannot resolve every difference, but it can create space for understanding.
The work continues one conversation at a time.
You can find Fender Jackson on:
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