North West Radio (NWR) was a radio station that broadcast to south

County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ga, Contae Dhún na nGall) is a county of Ireland in the province of Ulster and in the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Donegal in the south of the county. It has also been known as County Tyrconn ...

, north

County Leitrim County Leitrim ( ; gle, Contae Liatroma) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Connacht and is part of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the village of Leitrim. Leitrim County Council is the local authority for the ...

and throughout

County Sligo County Sligo ( , gle, Contae Shligigh) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the Border Region and is part of the province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the an ...

from 1990 to 2004. It was a sister station of

MidWest Radio MidWest Radio is a radio station based in County Mayo, Ireland. Officially opened in 1989 (having operated previously as an unlicensed station), its current studios are located on Clare Street, Ballyhaunis. The JNLR/MRBI radio listenership sur ...

(MWR) and was replaced by Ocean FM. The station had studios in

Sligo Town Sligo ( ; ga, Sligeach , meaning 'abounding in shells') is a coastal seaport and the county town of County Sligo, Ireland, within the western province of Connacht. With a population of approximately 20,000 in 2016, it is the largest urban cen ...

and

Donegal Town Donegal ( ; , "fort of the foreigners") is a town in County Donegal, Ireland. The name was also historically spelt 'Dunnagall'. Although Donegal gave its name to the county, now Lifford is the county town. From the 15th until the early 17th ce ...

. Throughout its history, NWR topped listener polls and had won several high profile awards. At the time of the removal of its license it was the most listened to local station in the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern ...

, with a daily listenership figure of 64%. The decision to give the license to Ocean FM was a controversial one and split the

Broadcasting Commission of Ireland The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) ( ga, Údarás Craolacháin na hÉireann) was established on 1 October 2009 effectively replacing the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) ( ga, Coimisiún Craolacháin na hÉireann). The BAI is ...

(BCI) three votes to three, with the chair casting the deciding vote in favour of the new station. The Commission argued that it had done so because the link up between NWR and MWR meant that not enough programmes were being produced by N.W.R. and that the station did little to attract younger listeners. These claims were denied by the CEO of NWR and MWR, Paul Claffey, who said that it amounted to

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

telling people in the north west what kind of station they should listen to. The decision was also unpopular with many of the residents of Counties Sligo and Leitrim, and a group to save the station was established and around 5,000 marched on the Dáil in Dublin demanding a reversal of the awarding of the license away from NWR. Many people in the south of

would have preferred to have received Highland Radio from

Letterkenny Letterkenny ( ga, Leitir Ceanainn , meaning 'hillside of the O'Cannons'), nicknamed 'the Cathedral Town', is the largest and most populous town in County Donegal, a county in Ulster, the northern province in Ireland. Letterkenny lies on the R ...

instead of N.W.R., or Ocean FM, for that matter, from

. North West Radio stopped broadcasting on midnight, 30 September 2004, with " Amhrán na bhFiann" being the last track played. An attempt to gain back the licence in 2014 under the name "Coast FM" proved unsuccessful

References

{{reflist Adult contemporary radio stations in Ireland Country radio stations in Ireland Defunct radio stations in the Republic of Ireland News and talk radio stations in Ireland Radio stations established in 1990 Radio stations disestablished in 2004