28 Aug Ire­land — Plans afoot for the first com­mu­ni­ty radio on Bere Island

Plans are being final­ized to set up the first com­mu­ni­ty radio on a Cork island (Ire­land), and, also for the first time, to live stream the All-Island Foot­ball Cham­pi­onships, which will be held there. Com­mu­ni­ty radio will be launched on Bere Island before the end of the year and its progress will be mon­i­tored, over a three-year peri­od, by Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Cork (part­ner of the Grass­roots Wave­lenghts project) aca­d­e­mics, to see what ben­e­fit it has for island com­mu­ni­ties. It is being dri­ven by Bere Island Projects Group, which is fund­ed by the Depart­ment of Arts, Her­itage, and the Gaeltacht.

Dur­ing the event orga­nized at the Bere Island Her­itage Cen­tre, project coor­di­na­tor John Walsh inter­viewed Conor Line­han and Lau­ra Maye from Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Cork about the Grass­roots Project, fol­lowed by two “phone-ins”, one with the CRAOL Train­er, Dar­ragh Park­er from Youghal Com­mu­ni­ty Radio (east Cork), who is com­ing next week for two day train­ing ses­sions. Dar­ragh talked about his expe­ri­ence over the last 35 years of Com­mu­ni­ty Radio and what he will be cov­er­ing in the 2 days at end of next week. The oth­er phone-in was from Jim Han­ley with regard to the upcom­ing GAA foot­ball all-island cham­pi­onships to be held on Bere Island in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber 2018.