TALK TIME:Cian Ó Cíobháin Host of Raidió na Gaeltachta 'An Taobh Tuathail', celebrating 10 years on the air. He talks to EOIN BUTLER
First of all congratulations. Ten years is a long time in any job, but for an underground music show on Raidió na Gaeltachta it’s particularly impressive. Thanks. Obviously, I’m delighted. I don’t know if I’d have managed it on another station, to be honest. From the outset, RnaG trusted my judgment and gave me the freedom to do the show the way I wanted. I’ve managed to build up a lot of trust with listeners over the years and RnaG have never butted in.
The show is called An Taobh Tuathail. Yeah, it means the other side, or the left side. I started out writing a music column for Foinse, where I would refer to the B-side of a single as "an taobh tuathail" – so that's where the name came from.
I’m looking at some of your playlists – French house, Finnish psychedelica – and I’m wondering how you ever pitched this show to RnaG?
Well, at the time the station didn’t broadcast after nine o’clock. I was doing continuity and weather at the time. I knew we were getting an extension of hours and that management wanted some youth presence. I managed to convince them I could do this show without playing any song with English lyrics.
Essentially, any old language was fine, so long as a majority of licence payers didn’t understand it?
Yeah, it was a strange one alright. To be honest, the rule didn’t seem to be pro-Irish as much as it was anti-English. It was a post-colonial hangover kind of thing. A lot of people who’d fought for RnaG in the 1970s weren’t happy when it was relaxed. But the management found a way to get around it without rocking the boat too much. Since 2005, the station is called Anocht FM from 9pm to 1am and runs as a separate station from RnaG.
Is there much in the way of Irish language pop music?
Well, there are always bands like Kíla that cross over from trad. Then people like Mundy and Mick Flannery have recorded Irish versions of their songs for Seachtain na Gaeilge CDs. Rónán Mac Aodha Bhuí recently ran an Irish language music competition and there were entries in genres from hip hop to RB. People do compose in Irish.
Was it difficult finding an audience for the show?
I think the audience found me more than anything else. For the first couple of weeks, I had no idea whether anyone other than my friends and family were listening. At the time, a lot of cars would have had manual dials on the radio and the show went out at a very radio-friendly time of the evening. So it was definitely a word-of-mouth thing.
Your publicist showed me some of your e-mails – a listener in Columbia said that it’s a drive time show over there.
Yeah, we get e-mails from all over the world. The show is available to stream on the internet live and for up to a week after its broadcast. Another way people have reached us is through Sky television in the UK. So we’ve gotten e-mails from people in Britain, saying: “Great music, but I don’t really understand the accent?” We have to explain that it’s not an accent – it’s a different language (laughs).
Is there a vocabulary in Irish for discussing things like ambient, dub or reggae?
Some words you have to make up, others you leave as they are and maybe add an “ó” at the end. But, sure, it’s no different in other languages. For example, in France techno is called le techno. One word I came up with that has crossed over was “rian” – meaning “step” or “mark” – for track. I’ve heard other people adopting that usage. As far as possible, everything I say is in Irish. But there will be the occasional genre name that’s in English.
What does it mean to you to do a show like this through Irish?
I’m from west Kerry and would have been surrounded by the Irish language growing up. So for me it’s just incredibly rewarding to be doing something that’s contemporary, possibly cutting edge even, in a language that has existed for thousands of years. I think a lot of the listeners love hearing it, too. It makes the programme even more intimate, more secret.
An Taobh Tuathailis broadcast weekdays at 11pm on Raidió na Gaeltachta