With only three in a hundred viewers tuning in, there’s something seriously flawed with TG4

IT WAS dark outside, on that night of the year once celebrated in ancient Ireland as the Celtic festival of Samhain. Inside the brightly-lit Connemara Coast Hotel, 500 guests gathered to enjoy a reception hosted by RTÉ.

We were there 10 years ago, on Hallowe’en 1996, to celebrate the launch of a new television station. It was one for which campaigners like Bob Quinn had fought long and hard.

As fireworks lit the sky over Galway Bay, Teilifís na Gaeilge (‘TnaG’) went on air from its studios down the road in Baile na hAbhann. The first programme broadcast that night, on what later became TG4, was a one-hour extravaganza of music and dance.