Community and county radio in the Republic of Ireland. Unpublished paper presented to the Roy H. Park School of Communications Faculty Colloquium, Ithaca College. Ithaca, New York. In this presentation two Irish radio stations will be compared.
Close examination does reveal certain similarities between the stations, but also key differences.
These differences illustrate several larger issues in the current debate about the structure of the radio industry in Ireland under its new broadcasting law. To place the current situation into perspective, a little history would be appropriate at this point. The 26 counties that comprise the Irish Free State separated from the United Kingdom in 1922. Four years later the Wireless Telegraph Act placed broadcasting in Ireland under the control of the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs. That same year Ireland's first radio station went on the air in Dublin, followed the next year by another, in Cork.