From 2RN to Online: The Story of Irish Radio
On New Year’s Day 1926, a voice crackled across the airwaves from a small studio on Little Denmark Street in Dublin: “Sé seo staisiún 2RN, Baile Átha Cliath.” This is Radio 2RN, Dublin. Douglas Hyde, founder of the Gaelic League and future President of Ireland, spoke of his hope that radio would be a unifying force for the Irish people.
A hundred years later, the Irish radio station has evolved beyond anything Hyde could have imagined. The signal that once struggled to reach Cork now reaches every country on earth. The medium that was born on shortwave and AM, survived the pirate era, migrated to FM, and eventually found its true home online — where an Irish radio station can serve not just a nation but a global diaspora of 70 million people.
This is the story of how Irish radio got from there to here.
2RN: The Birth of Irish Radio (1926–1930s)
Ireland was relatively late to radio. The BBC had been broadcasting since 1922, and stations were already operating across Europe and America. The Irish Free State, only a few years old and still rebuilding after civil war, was cautious. But the pressure to have an Irish radio station — an Irish voice on the airwaves, not just relayed British programming — was strong.
2RN launched on 1 January 1926, run by the Irish Post Office under the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. The station’s name is often said to come from the last three syllables of “Come Back to Erin,” though this may be apocryphal. The initial transmitter was a modest 1.5 kilowatt affair that could barely reach beyond Dublin. When listeners in Cork complained they couldn’t pick up the signal, the station director reportedly suggested they didn’t know how to operate their sets.
A second station, 6CK, opened in Cork in 1927 to relay 2RN’s transmissions. In 1932, a high-powered 60kW transmitter was installed at Athlone — the most powerful in the country — timed to coincide with the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin. The combined service became known as Radio Athlone, later renamed Radio Éireann in 1937.
Programming in those early years was limited and conservative: news, talks, music (including traditional Irish music), drama, and religious programming. The station operated for only a few hours a day. But it was an Irish radio station, speaking to the nation in both Irish and English, and it mattered.
Traditional music on early Irish radio
From the very beginning, traditional Irish music had a place on Irish radio — though not always a comfortable one. The station broadcast céilí bands and occasional solo performers, but programming was heavily influenced by the cultural priorities of the new state. Irish-language content was promoted, and traditional music was valued as an expression of national identity, even as the broader culture was ambivalent about it.
The real impact of radio on traditional music wouldn’t come until later. In the 1920s and 30s, while Radio Éireann was finding its feet, it was commercial recordings — Michael Coleman’s 78rpm discs, made in New York — that were transforming how the music sounded and spread. Radio would catch up in time.
Radio Éireann: The Middle Years (1940s–1960s)
Through the 1940s and 50s, Radio Éireann was the only legal radio station in Ireland. It had a monopoly, and it sometimes felt like it. Programming was cautious, schedules were limited, and the station was frequently criticised for being out of touch. Many Irish listeners preferred the BBC or Radio Luxembourg, which offered livelier fare.
Traditional music appeared on the schedule but was not a priority. The station’s Mobile Recording Unit, introduced in 1947, travelled to Irish-speaking areas to record speech and music — an important act of preservation, though the recordings were not always given prominent airtime. Séamus Ennis, who worked as a collector and broadcaster, was one of the few figures who brought traditional music to a wider radio audience during this period.
The Broadcasting Authority Act of 1960 transformed the landscape. Radio Éireann was freed from direct government control and reconstituted as part of the new Raidió Telifís Éireann (RTÉ). Television arrived on 31 December 1961, and the energy of the organisation shifted to the new medium. Radio was suddenly the older sibling, overshadowed but still vital.
New Voices: Raidió na Gaeltachta and Radio 2 (1970s)
The 1970s brought two new Irish radio stations that changed the broadcasting landscape.
In the early 1970s, Irish-language activists in Connemara established a pirate station, Saor Raidió Chonamara (Free Radio Connemara), to demand a dedicated Irish-language broadcasting service. The authorities responded by creating RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta, which began broadcasting on Easter Sunday 1972 from studios in Casla, County Galway. RnaG became an essential platform for traditional music, giving airtime to sean-nós singers, session musicians and emerging artists like Clannad and Mairead Ní Mhaonaigh. For the first time, an Irish radio station existed where traditional music was not a minority interest but a central part of the programming.
RTÉ also launched Radio 2 (later 2FM) in 1979, aimed at younger listeners with pop and rock programming. This split the audience and gave the main Radio 1 service space to develop more specialist programming, including traditional music shows. But the real competition for RTÉ was about to come from an unexpected direction.
The Pirate Era (1970s–1988)
Ireland’s pirate radio era was one of the most colourful chapters in European broadcasting history. At its peak in the mid-1980s, an estimated 200 unlicensed stations were operating across the country — from bedroom operations running on homemade transmitters to professional outfits like Radio Nova and Sunshine Radio in Dublin that commanded 40% and 20% of the listenership respectively.
The pirates thrived because RTÉ had a monopoly that left huge gaps in the market. Young listeners wanted pop music. Local communities wanted local radio. Advertisers wanted affordable airtime. The pirates provided all of this, exploiting a legal loophole (if equipment could be proven to have an alternative use, it wasn’t illegal broadcasting equipment) that made enforcement nearly impossible.
Radio Nova and Sunshine Radio were the “super-pirates” — professional operations with full schedules, advertising revenue, PAYE-paying staff and listenership figures that dwarfed RTÉ 2FM. In rural areas, smaller pirate stations served their communities with local news, death notices, music requests and GAA coverage that RTÉ couldn’t match.
The pirate era ended dramatically on New Year’s Eve 1988, when around 70 stations voluntarily shut down ahead of the new Broadcasting Act that would introduce licensed independent radio. Some presenters cried on air. Listeners brought cakes and gifts to the studios. It was, as one account put it, a series of wakes.
The pirates didn’t play much traditional music — their audience wanted pop, rock and country. But they changed Irish radio fundamentally. They proved there was demand for local, independent broadcasting. They pushed RTÉ to improve. And they set the stage for the diverse radio landscape that exists today.
Licensed Independent Radio (1989–2000s)
The Sound Broadcasting Act of 1988 created the Independent Radio and Television Commission (IRTC), which began licensing commercial stations in 1989. Over the following years, dozens of local, regional and national stations launched across Ireland. Today FM and Newstalk became national commercial alternatives to RTÉ.
For traditional music, the licensed era was a mixed blessing. The new commercial stations were format-driven — they played pop, country or talk to capture the broadest possible audience. Trad was niche, and niche didn’t sell advertising. Some local stations in the west — Clare FM, Shannonside Northern Sound, Connemara Community Radio — gave traditional music meaningful airtime, but on most stations it was absent.
RTÉ Radio 1 remained the best mainstream outlet, with programmes like The Rolling Wave (later presented by Aoife Nic Cormaic) and Cílín sessions providing dedicated trad content. Raidió na Gaeltachta continued to be the most consistent home for the music on Irish radio. But for a listener who wanted nothing but trad, 24 hours a day — there was no Irish radio station that offered that.
The Digital Shift: From FM to Online
The internet changed everything. It didn’t just add a new way to listen to existing stations — it removed the barriers that had defined radio for a century.
In the old world, launching an Irish radio station required a licence, a transmitter, a frequency allocation, and significant capital. The signal was limited by geography and physics — an FM transmitter in Dublin couldn’t reach Boston. The number of stations was constrained by the number of available frequencies.
Online, none of those constraints apply. Anyone with a server, a stream and a library of music can launch a station that reaches the entire world. There are no frequency battles. No licence applications. No coverage maps. The only thing that matters is whether the music is good enough to attract listeners.
This shift was transformative for traditional Irish music. Trad never had the audience numbers to justify a dedicated FM station in the commercial radio market. But online, it doesn’t need to. A station that serves a niche — even a passionate, global niche — can thrive without mass-market listenership. The economics of online broadcasting make it possible to run a station that plays nothing but traditional Irish music, funded by listener donations rather than advertising.
The end of the longwave era
RTÉ Radio 1’s longwave service, which had been a lifeline for Irish listeners in Britain and sailors at sea, was shut down in 2023 and the Clarkestown mast in County Meath was subsequently demolished. RTÉ had occasionally broadcast on shortwave for the diaspora — notably covering GAA All-Ireland Finals — but these services have also ended. The message was clear: the future of Irish radio is digital, not analogue.
Radio Siamsa: An Irish Radio Station for the World
Radio Siamsa launched as an online-only Irish radio station, streaming traditional Irish music 24 hours a day from Dublin. No FM transmitter. No shortwave signal. No licence. Just a server, a stream, and an archive of traditional music that spans nearly a century of recordings.
It’s the kind of Irish radio station that couldn’t have existed in any previous era. In the 2RN era, the technology wasn’t available. In the pirate era, there wasn’t the audience for trad. In the licensed FM era, the economics didn’t work. Only in the online era — where geography is irrelevant, where a global diaspora can tune in from anywhere, and where a station can survive on listener donations rather than advertising — does a station like Radio Siamsa become possible.
The stream runs at 256kbps, roughly three times the clarity of standard FM. The library goes from 1930s 78rpm recordings to albums released this year. There are no ads, no chat shows, no interruptions. Just traditional Irish music, all day, every day, available to anyone with an internet connection.
Listeners tune in from over 100 countries. A fiddler in Australia uses the station to learn tunes. A family in Québec discovered it one evening and now listens every night. An emigrant in Hamburg says it “always lifts the spirit.” A bodhrán player somewhere says he finds it “inspirational and educational.”
Douglas Hyde opened 2RN a hundred years ago hoping radio would be a unifying force for the Irish people. He was thinking of the people on the island. He couldn’t have imagined that one day an Irish radio station would unite Irish people — and people who love Irish music, regardless of their background — across every continent.
That’s what the internet made possible. That’s what Radio Siamsa does.
Listen now — see our guide to how to listen to Radio Siamsa
What’s Next for Irish Radio?
The shift from FM to online isn’t complete, but it’s accelerating. Smart speakers, phone apps and in-car streaming have made online radio as easy to access as turning a dial. Younger listeners increasingly discover stations through apps rather than frequencies. The distinction between “radio” and “streaming” is blurring.
For traditional music, this is unambiguously good news. The music was always too niche for mainstream FM. Online, it has found its natural medium — a global platform where passionate communities can sustain stations that serve their specific interests. The future of the Irish radio station isn’t a transmitter on a hilltop. It’s a stream on a server, reaching anyone who wants to listen, wherever they are.
Read our guide to the best Irish radio stations for traditional music
Read our complete guide to Irish traditional music
Frequently Asked Questions
When did radio start in Ireland?
Regular radio broadcasting in Ireland began on 1 January 1926 with the launch of 2RN from Dublin. Test transmissions had begun in November 1925. The station was Ireland’s first official radio broadcaster and eventually became RTÉ Radio 1.
What was 2RN?
2RN was the first radio broadcasting station in the Irish Free State, launched on New Year’s Day 1926. It broadcast from a studio on Little Denmark Street in Dublin. The name is thought to come from the last three syllables of “Come Back to Erin.” It was succeeded by Radio Athlone and later Radio Éireann, which became RTÉ Radio.
What happened with pirate radio in Ireland?
Ireland had a thriving pirate radio scene, particularly in the 1980s, when an estimated 200 unlicensed stations operated across the country. The most famous were Radio Nova and Sunshine Radio in Dublin. Most pirates shut down voluntarily on New Year’s Eve 1988 ahead of new broadcasting legislation that introduced licensed independent radio.
When did Raidió na Gaeltachta start?
RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta began broadcasting on Easter Sunday 1972, following pressure from Irish-language activists who had established a pirate station, Saor Raidió Chonamara, to demand an Irish-language radio service. It broadcasts from Casla in Connemara.
Is Radio Siamsa on FM?
No. Radio Siamsa is an online-only Irish radio station. It streams at siamsa.ie and through free apps on iOS and Android, and is available on Amazon Alexa. It’s accessible anywhere with an internet connection.
Why did Irish radio move online?
Online broadcasting removes the geographical and regulatory constraints of FM. An online Irish radio station can reach a global audience without a transmitter or frequency licence. For niche formats like traditional Irish music, online is the only viable platform — the audience is passionate but globally scattered, which suits internet streaming perfectly.
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