Latest Site News

[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. The main charts are the singles chart (a Top 100), the artist albums chart (a Top 100), the compilation album chart (a Top 30) and the download-only chart (a Top 20). The first 3 of these can be found at www.irma.ie while www.chart-track.co.uk carries the Top 100 singles, Top 100 Artist albums, Top 30 compilations and Top 20 downloads along with weekly commentaries. 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 also started publishing a Top 10 Classical albums chart. This chart has long since disappeared from the IRMA site but archives going back as far as January 2000 can be found on the Chart-Track website (the chart has reduced from a Top 10 to Top 5 since w/e 2nd October 2014).

Traditionally the Irish chart was broadcast on the national pop station 2FM (the Irish equivalent of Radio 1 in the UK!). From the beginning of 2FM back in May 1979 this was normally in the form of a 2 hour show though the format and days and times regularly changed. However at the start of 2010 the show was axed without explanation. For a while they continued to carry the charts on their website but a revamp of the site saw that feature removed. It looked like they had lost the rights to broadcast the chart as around the same time a new programme appeared on some regional stations. Much to everyone's surprise however the National Chart Show re-appeared on 2FM at the beginning of March 2014 presented by Mark McCabe (the man behind the long running number 1 single "Maniac 2000) and playing the Top 30 singles over the course of 2 hours between 8 and 10pm on Friday evenings - although on some occasions the show is dropped / shortened in favour of live sports commentaries. Mark disappeared from the show during 2015 when he was temporarily replace by Alan McQuillan. At the start of 2016 a new regular presenter appeared - Blathnaid Treacey - whose claim to fame is that as a child she appeared in the hit Irish soap opera Glenroe (her screen father in the show Mick Lally reached number 1 in the Irish charts back in 1990 with "Byroad To Glenroe" which was featured in the show).

The programme which appeared on regional stations was "Top 40 Oifigiúil na hÉireann" (Ireland's Official Top 40). This is a weekly programme presented entirely in the Irish language by Daithi O'Daibhin. It is produced by a company called Digital Audio Productions which ironically was set up by former 2FM presenter Dusty Rhodes. It is syndicated across a handful of stations who seem to broadcast it at different times over the weekend. There is a list of stations carrying the show on wikipedia but this seems to be inaccurate as some of them don't have it listed in their current schedules. What follows is a list of stations which I could find as at 13th January 2016 along with times and links to listen. Spin 103.8 and Spin Southwest originally carried a show called "Hit 30 na hÉireann " which was the same show as "Top 40 Oifigiúil na hÉireann" but as the name suggests it covered only the Top 30. From 31st August 2014 this show was dropped and replaced by "Top 40 Oifigiúil na hÉireann".

Raidio Ri-Ra

Listen at: http://www.rrr.ie/player.asx
Station Website: http://www.rrr.ie
Broadcast at: Fri, Sat, Sun 18:00 - 20:00 Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu 20:00 - 22:00

Beat 102-103

Listen at: http://www.beat102103.com/player_new.php
Station Website: http://www.beat102103.com/
Broadcast at: Sun 07:50 - 09:50 (repeated 22:00 - 00:00)

Red FM

Listen at: http://www.redfm.ie/player/
Station Website: http://www.redfm.ie/
Broadcast at: Sun 08:00 - 10:00

Spin103.8

Listen at: http://media.spin1038.com/listen_live/popup
Station Website: http://spin1038.com
Broadcast at: Sun 18:45 - 20:45

Spin Southwest

Listen at: http://media.spinsouthwest.com
Station Website: http://media.spinsouthwest.com/listen_live/popup
Broadcast at: Sun 18:45 - 20:45

(Spin Southwest is a sister station to Spin103.8)

If anyone has any additions / corrections to the above list please let me know and I will update it.

For full archive charts from January 2000 onwards I would recommend the chart-track website as it contains all the weekly charts since then. The Irma website underwent a major revamp just before Christmas 2014 and each of the charts it carries has a drop down menu allowing the user to view archive charts, though this only goes back to the start of November 2014. The Irma site also contains year end Top 20s since 2001. Also worth checking out is 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 2010 certifications were published in 2011 - the 2011 certifications were published in 2012 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 edition dropped this section completely, presumably down to costs.

The certifications can be found on the irishcharts website at the following link http://www.irishcharts.ie/awards/index.htm


This post has been edited by Shaky Fan: Feb 9 2016, 06:17 PM