A brand new digital radio station has been set up that only plays Irish music.
PlayIrish launched last month and hopes to create a new path for Irish music.
We had a chat with founder, Sinead Troy, to get the low down on the project.
We first wanted to know why they decided to start this project and she mentioned that ‘IASCA’s remit is to support our members (the artists of Ireland,) identify issues, and provide solutions.
There is no outlet for the sheer volume of amazing Irish music being released in our little country right now, so PLAYIRISH is a solution to that issue’.
As we know, we have a huge amount of homegrown talent, so why hasn’t something like this been set up before?
‘I honestly don’t know, it seems like such a simple idea! I think everyone fell in love with Spotify and Apple Music, who don’t have offices here, or any one person that looks after Irish music, so we needed to provide a solution to that too.’
We had stations like TXFM who heavily supported Irish music but couldn’t survive, how do you plan to keep PlayIrish alive?
‘PlayIrish Radio has lots of different genres of music, and a space to broadcast shows in the future like Other Voices Radio or FleadhCheoil Radio if they are interested in working with us.
We are not commercially restricted, and can broadcast a great song because it’s a great song, rather than the size of the artist, or the genre.
The Irish Radioplayer APP is not geo blockde so PLAYRISIH Radio can be listened to from Kerry to Connecticut…that’s the difference we can be listended to by the Irish diaspora easily, everyone is on their phones now!’
To people with less knowledge of the music industry, why should they tune in?
Sinead said ‘It’s simple, listening to Irish music creates jobs – everyone knows someone in a band, and this is the way they can help to elevate Irish music both here and internationally.
I would say if you go to gigs regularly, you’ll love PLAYIRISH Radio, if you don’t then you probably won’t’.
We asked if there was going in be interviews with artists and she simply replied with, ‘No, it’s pure music..24/7’.
This is a fantastic development for Irish music as we have a huge array of incredible homegrown talent that needs to be given as many platforms as possible to promote their work.
We will definitely be tuning into PlayIrish.
