By Conor Brummell
@ConorBrummell
You heard that right- Flirt Fm turns 25 on Monday the 28th of September.
The NUI Galway campus and community radio station has faced a tough year- among other things, the Coronavirus pandemic has meant that the Flirt Fm team has been unable to access their studios since the nationwide lockdown in March.
Nevertheless, the station will be hosting a 25-hour broadcast in recognition of its 25th birthday celebrations. The broadcast will see both current volunteers and Flirt Fm alumni taking to the airwaves on Monday to quiz, chat, reminisce and do what Flirt Fm does best: play cracking tunes, and have the absolute craic.
This will be the first time that Flirt Fm has taken to the airwaves live since March, meaning things are going to get interesting.
Paula Healy, Flirt Fm station manager, spoke to SIN.ie about the festivities: “Instead of creating one link where people get all disjointed during handovers, I’m going to just create a 24-hour zoom party link where people can jump in and out when their time comes. It’s going to be chaotic- but it is going to be a fun chaotic.”
For their 20th anniversary, the station held a silent disco, dinner, photo exhibition and afternoon of broadcasting with station alumni.
For their 25th birthday, due to social distancing restrictions, Flirt Fm volunteers, past and present from all over the world will be broadcasting live from Galway to Vietnam, from Seattle, to well, Galway again.
The line-up has been announced, and proceedings are kicking off at 12pm, the exact time when Flirt Fm first began broadcasting 25 years ago.
A documentary put together by Paula and Eoghan Holland, Head of News at the station, will lead the way into the marathon broadcast.
As well as this, Andrew O’Baoill, lecturer in the colleges English Department and the station’s first-ever manager will be taking to the waves at 1am.
Louise Clarke and Kayte O’Malley, both currently broadcasting with iRadio, will be taking slots as former Flirt Fm presenters.
Other highlights include a quiz set by John Nolan at 7pm, pitting three current volunteers against past volunteers to see who knows more about the University, the station, and the city.
‘Psychedelic Wasteland’ with Kevin Hanley will be hitting the airwaves at 11pm on Monday, as well as ‘Chats and Entertainment’ with Lisa Hamilton at 10am on Tuesday morning.
Tune in to 101.3 or the Flirt Fm website on Monday at 12pm to listen to the marathon broadcast as it happens.
In the meanwhile, for the full line-up, as well as being able to listen to the first five minutes of radio ever broadcast on Flirt Fm, you can click here.
A full interview with station manager Paula Healy will appear in the first issue of SIN, out on the 6th of October.
