Community Radio Castlebar last week celebrated thirty years of transmission as CRCfm, a landmark which few would have envisaged back in 1995 when then Minister for Trade and Tourism, Enda Kenny, launched the station in the premises now occupied by Minister Alan Dillon. Even then, community radio was seen as a brave venture – largely unfunded, dependant in great part on a cohort of volunteer presenters and back office workers, and with a set of official constraints which would have challenged the most optimistic.

The first iteration of community radio in the county town had come several years earlier during Song Contest week. RTÉ’s outside broadcasting unit was located at the Travellers’ Friend Hotel to transmit the contest each evening, but also to be used by Mike Murphy for his morning radio show. For the surplus hours in between, the unit was placed at the disposal of a small local committee which was invited to transmit material of local interest within the confines of the town.

The experiment worked well, so much so that a few years later, RTÉ decided to push the boat of community radio in Mayo out a little further. This time, a mobile studio was located in the grounds of Marsh House in Castlebar with a remit to deliver three weeks of daily broadcasting across the county. In tandem with that, four other local studios were set up across the county to feed material into the unit in Castlebar. The four chosen locations were in Ballina, under the watch of Benny........

© The Mayo News