PlayIrish: The importance of championing emerging Irish artists

On March 31, a brand new radio station was launched in Ireland. Operating under the PlayIrish banner, it offers a unique platform for up and coming artists in this country. In a statement following its announcement, co-founder Sinead Troy (also General Manager of the Irish Association of Songwriters and Composers and Yangaroo Music), said: “Every serious music city or territory has its own small but cool radio station that champions new and exciting music, whether it’s BBC6 Music, KEXP in Seattle, or FluxFm in Germany. PlayIrish will be ours, to champion Irish music at home and internationally.”

With so many talented artists emerging in Ireland in recent years, Sinead suggests that the music industry is “bottle-necking”. A new outlet is needed, she insists, to give new acts of potential vital exposure. “PlayIrish wasn’t my idea specifically,” she relates, “but a bunch of us came together and said, ‘Let’s set this up, let’s showcase the sheer volume of amazing music that’s there’,”

The theory is simple. Operate daily playlists. Include a mix of new Irish artists alongside more established ones. Avoid always going with the familiar tracks. Forget about genres. On the basis of these strategies, PlayIrish aims to capture the full, diverse range of music being made in the country. BBC Introducing provided a template to work off.

“There’s nothing like BBC Introducing at the moment,” she argues, “where you go in at a smaller level and work your way up. There’s so much more Irish music than is being played on the radio.”

Sinead was involved in a study of established Irish radio statements, over a period of a month. She says that just 6% of the music being played were new Irish releases.

“We are uniquely situated between two of the biggest music markets in the world, the UK and the US, and we are highly influenced by them,” she observes. “That’s obviously why you hear so much American and English music on our radios.”

Some might disagree, but she argues that quotas – which are always likely to be controversial – don’t get to the root of the problem. “In places like France, which have quotas,” she says, “there’s a downside that the French music industry will tell you about. Look at the local industry there and dig a little bit deeper and you’ll see that it doesn’t always benefit.”

Either way, Sinead believes that a coordinated industry effort is needed in Ireland. With CD sales having fallen dramatically, there has also been a fall-off in royalty income from both recording and publishing. With so many bands active on the live scene, competition is tougher than ever for ticket sales. In the context, Sinead argues that it’s become more difficult than ever for Irish artists to break out of their home country and make a career.

“There’s a bottleneck for Irish music,” she repeats, “and at some point everyone’s going to stop if we don’t widen that bottleneck. I don’t say this lightly, but I think we’re at crisis point.”

Others involved in the station include ex-Today FM boss Peter McPartlin; programming guru Liam Thompson; and Angela Dorgan. In the long term, PlayIrish hope to reach out successfully to an international audience, who will then discover local Irish talent. Sinead emphasises that PlayIrish isn’t competing with other radio stations here.

“It is about working with and not against them,” she says. “We are not in competition with Today FM, or Cork FM or whatever. We’re trying to emulate apps like KCRW’s Morning Becomes Electric, which has become a lot of people’s go-to app for discovering new music. That’s what we want this to be – a music app for people who want to discover great Irish music.

“From that, it’s about growing a listenership. Then it’s about giving more Irish musicians a chance to leap into FM radio, or to leap into the international territory – or even to get the opportunity to find an agent. It’s about sitting Soulé beside The Gloaming beside Fontaines DC beside Daoirí Farrell beside Mick Flannery. That’s who we are. Why should we be waiting for Spotify or anyone else to do something?

“We should do it ourselves.”