An Taobh Tuathail, the Irish language music show presented by Cian Ó Ciobháin on weekdays on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta, is celebrating its fourteenth birthday this week. From 1999 until 2005, because of a ban imposed by the station, he could not play English-language songs and focussed more on instrumental music. On Wednesday, 1 May, Ó Ciobháin is reinstating the ban, though more broadly on songs with words in any language, and will play a set of purely instrumental music.

‘The internet has been key to the fact that the show still exists on the airwaves,’ Ó Ciobháin told The Journal of Music. ‘We’re reaching a worldwide community, many of them in some of the world’s capitals — Berlin, London, Paris, New York — who continue to tune in either live or retrospectively (through the RTÉ Player) each day.’

‘RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta broadly provides a retreat from the sheen and glossy sounds of contemporary music, as many of the songs played on the station are from older achived recordings,’ said Ó Ciobháin. ‘They’re certainly not produced in top of the range recording studios. The same applies to RTÉ Lyric FM, where compositions can vary from the very quiet to the thrillingly raucous.’

‘Pop songs these days has been ProTooled, Auto-Tuned, compressed and antiseptically scrubbed to within an inch of their lives,’ he said. ‘They have been recorded with sound levels maxed so far into the red part of the dial, so that each song sounds louder than the next. These are abrasive, aggressive blocks of sound, with no room for valleys and peaks, no attempt to be subtle and gently cajole the ears. I’d like to think that we’re providing a genuine sound sanctuary for tired ears at the end of the day.’

An Taobh Tuathail is broadcast from 9pm from Monday to Friday on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta.

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