Happy St.Pats Day and Irish/Celtic music on the radio

[Greg Buben]

Every St. Pats Day I play old tapes of when I was a volunteer at what was the "real community station" WEHB that later
became WBYW. One of the many ethnic formats that we had was Irish/Celtic music. Although our power was low, it was
all volunteer, and mono during most of its existence up until about 1990 there was Irish/ Celtic music that aired weekly.
The volunteer radio hosts that played it were "The Rebel" Danny O'Donnell, Denny "Donoka" Scully. Terry "Kiernan" Taylor,
and Annie Nice. Whenever it was on or near St. Pats Day there were lots of requests from people and for such a low
powered station that was impressive. It's too bad shows like that don't have local access. Such national shows as
"The Thisle and The Shamrock aired on Blue Lake Public Radio just can't replace locally produced shows. I know that
WMUK from WMU in Kalamazoo has an hour of it on Sunday afternoons and that the culture shock station WYCE will
mix some in their "eclectic" format but again that's not enough. Inspite of what 89.9 FM lacked the variety of formats
was impressive as was WYCE from 1983 to 1988. Irish/ Celtic music is a good example of what there should be more
of on non commercial radio.

[TC Talks]

WNMC is torturing listeners with Celtic music this week. I miss Mardi Gras

[Calvert DeForest]

WKAR-FM used to air a Celtic music show on Sunday night which was always a good listen. One of my seasonal favorites is the Celtic Christmas Podcasts. They release new shows in November and December. It's beautifully stirring music.