The centenary of Irish radio will be celebrated throughout 2026 by RT\u00c9.<\/p>\n
On 1 January 1926, Douglas Hyde, who went on to become Ireland’s first president, delivered the country’s first public radio address in Irish and English at 7.45pm on 2RN, a precursor to Radio \u00c9ireann, Teilif\u00eds \u00c9ireann and latterly RT\u00c9.<\/p>\n
He spoke about establishing a station that would become the voice of the nation, telling listeners that it was time for Ireland to take her place amongst the European nations who already had radio stations.<\/p>\n
The organisation will mark 100 years of public broadcasting in Ireland with a series of special programmes and performances.<\/p>\n
There will be live broadcasts from the GPO across RT\u00c9 Radio One, 2FM, Lyric FM and Raidi\u00f3 na Gaeltachta on 15 January.<\/p>\n
Read More: ‘S\u00e9 seo st\u00e1isi\u00fan 2RN ag triail’: the birth of Irish radio in 1926<\/a><\/p>\n The RT\u00c9 Concert Orchestra will also present a series of special performances around the country in front of live audiences.<\/p>\n A century on from the birth of 2RN, the medium continues to attract record audiences.<\/p>\n There are now 33 commercial radio and 21 community stations broadcasting across Ireland, with almost 3.5 million people tuning in each weekday.<\/p>\n RT\u00c9 Director-General Kevin Bakhurst said: ”While much has changed, the need for strong, independent and trusted public service media, available to everyone, has never been greater.<\/p>\n ”These celebrations will inevitably look back at key events over the last 100 years, but will also focus on how RT\u00c9 will deliver to audiences in the future, as we continue to challenge disinformation, back creative ambition and innovation, support Irish culture, reflect all of the country and its rich diversity, and bring people together for significant national moments that unite the country. ”<\/p>\n We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n From RT\u00c9 Archives, Douglas Hyde, founder of the Gaelic League and later first President of Ireland, officially opens 2RN on 1 January 1926<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The centenary of Irish radio will be celebrated throughout 2026 by RT\u00c9. On 1 January 1926, Douglas Hyde,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":{"0":"post-214665","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}