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[Shaky Fan]

A new year and a new thread! And before we get down to business a few links and some background information......

The Irish chart is revealed online every Friday afternoon and covers sales between Friday and Thursday. Since the beginning of 2007 the main sales chart has included all physical and download sales as in the UK. Also following the UK's lead streaming data was added with effect from the chart dated w/e 10th July 2014 and from w/e 6th July 2018 video streams were also added. The chart also uses the 3 songs per artist rule that was introduced in the UK following the influx of Ed Sheeran singles in 2017. The main charts are the singles chart (a Top 100), the artist albums chart (a Top 100) and the compilation album chart (a Top 30). These can be found at http://www.irma.ie. A new Homegrown Chart was launched on 7th June 2019 . This highlights the biggest tracks by Irish acts each week based on combined sales across physical, download and streaming and is a Top 20. The chart is featured briefly on the 2FM Chart show with a countdown and a play of the number 1 just ahead of the main top 10. To prevent the chart getting clogged up there is a 1 song per artist rule similar to the one on the main Top 100. A weekly airplay chart is compiled by Neilsen but since the middle of 2008 this has been unavailable to the public.

During 2009 IRMA also started publishing the Indie Album Chart - initially a Top 20 but this was reduced to a Top 10 after a couple of weeks, returning to a Top 20 again in April 2010 which has continued to be published. During 2012 IRMA briefly published a Top 10 Classical albums chart. With effect from 1st January 2017 Chart-Track have been replaced as chart compilers by the Official Charts Company. Initially the Chart-Track site continued to hold the various archive charts but these disappeared in 2018. The OCC site carries the Top 50 singles, Top 50 artist albums and Top 10 compilation albums.

The official Irish chart was first broadcast on RTE Radio on Sunday 4th June 1978 – an hour long “Top Twenty” (also featuring Irish tracks appearing between 21 and 30) beginning at 2.00pm and presented by Jimmy Greeley. A year later, national pop station RTE Radio 2, later renamed 2FM, began - the Irish equivalent of Radio 1 in the UK! – and a two-hour weekly chart show has appeared in its schedules for the vast majority of the four decades since then. Originally aired at 2.00pm on Sundays, in April 2020 the show was extended to three hours, usually between 7pm and 10pm on Fridays - and, after some initial experimentation, the first two hours are now generally used to play most of the official Top 30 singles, then around fifteen of the Top 20 Homegrown hits are played in the last hour.

Nowadays, the show is occasionally reduced in length or removed entirely to accommodate programming regarded as more important (mainly commentary on live sports events) – but it had also disappeared completely for most of 1980 and for several weeks in early 1992, on both occasions due to industrial disputes. Later, in August 2006, it was reduced to one hour, featuring not very much more than the top ten – and then it disappeared completely in January 2010. While there had been many stand-in presenters over nearly thirty years, the regular presenter throughout almost all of that period was Larry Gogan – the only other regulars were Tony Fenton (May 1999 until January 2003) and Rick O’Shea (August 2006 until March 2007).

Apart from a brief shift to starting an hour earlier (from June until September 2019) the show remained in a new regular slot of 8pm - 10pm on Fridays when it unexpectedly returned in March 2014. It was presented until September 2015 by Mark McCabe (the man behind the long running number one single "Maniac 2000”- which actually re-entered the chart in a week when he was the presenter!). He was then temporarily replaced by Alan McQuillan - who had been the regular stand-in, and would continue in this role until his death in January 2019. But the regular presenter since December 2015 has been Blathnaid Treacey - whose claim to fame is that as a child she appeared in the hit Irish soap opera “Glenroe” (Mick Lally, who played her character’s father, reached number one in the Irish charts back in 1990 with a song featured in the show, "The Byroad To Glenroe").

For well over a decade – including the whole of the period during which the official chart couldn’t be heard on 2FM – various regional stations broadcasted "Top 40 Oifigiúil na hÉireann" (“Ireland's Official Top 40”). This weekly programme was presented entirely in the Irish language by Daithi O'Daibhin, and was produced by a company called Digital Audio Productions - which ironically was set up by former 2FM presenter Dusty Rhodes. For several years, Spin 103.8 and Spin Southwest aired a different version of the show, "Hit 30 na hÉireann" which used the same chart and had the same presenter, but only covered the top thirty – however, from 31st August 2014, this show was dropped and these stations also aired "Top 40 Oifigiúil na hÉireann".

In July 2019, at much the same time as 2FM rebranded “The National Chart Show” as “The Official Chart Show”, "Top 40 Oifigiúil na hÉireann" ceased broadcasting. Its replacement, with new presenter Louise Cantillon, reuses the "Hit 30 na hÉireann" title - but it doesn’t use the official Irish chart, Most weeks, all of the “Hit 30” - whatever that might be - are played except for the tracks at number 24 and 14. And, despite what Wikipedia may inaccurately claim, it is currently aired on these stations, at the following times:

Raidio Ri-Ra

Listen at: http://www.rrr.ie/player.asx
Station Website: http://www.rrr.ie
Broadcast every day, 18:00 - 20:00

Beat 102-103

Listen at: http://www.beat102103.com/player_new.php
Station Website: http://www.beat102103.com/
Broadcast at: Sun 08:00 - 09:50 (repeated 22:00 - 00:00)

Spin103.8

Listen at: http://media.spin1038.com/listen_live/popup
Station Website: http://spin1038.com
Broadcast at: Sun 09:00 - 10:55

Spin Southwest (sister station to Spin103.8)

Listen at: http://media.spinsouthwest.com
Station Website: http://media.spinsouthwest.com/listen_live/popup
Broadcast at: Sun 09:00 - 10:55

From the start of 2017 the Top 50 Singles, Top 50 Artist albums, Top 30 compilations and DVD charts have been published on http://www.officialcharts.com. Also worth checking out is http://www.irishcharts.ie which contains a fully searchable singles database going right back to 1962 when the first recognised chart was compiled (though there was a Top 10 published regularly from 1959). It is restricted to Top 30 hits but seems to be updated on a regular basis. This site also contains various other facts and figures and does have a certifications section though this is rather limited in content. Sales info is extremely hard to come by for Ireland and the only details that seem to appear are those mentioned from time to time in the chart-track commentary. No certifications are published in Ireland until the entire list of possible certifications for the previous year been submitted and verified. This list is published only once a year and refers always to trade deliveries made up to the end of the previous calendar year. Therefore, the 2017 certifications were published in 2018 - the 2018 certifications were published in 2019 etc. These were normally published along with the complete year end charts in the Hot Press Yearbook which is published annually. However the most recent editions dropped this section completely, presumably down to costs.

Starting from the begining of January 2017 the OCC has been carrying the Top 50 Singles, Top 50 Artist Albums, Top 10 Compilations and the Top 50 DVD chart. The certifications can be found on the irishcharts website at the following link http://www.irishcharts.ie/awards/index.htm