A television station conceived on a Galway hooker, during a 700-mile sea journey to and from the Faroe Islands, marked its 20th birthday in Galway on Halloween night.
President Michael D Higgins, the former arts minister credited with founding the Irish-language station, was guest of honour at TG4XX Beo – a concert broadcast live from the National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG) quadrangle.
The studios in Baile na hAbhann, south Connemara, went on-air on October 31, 1996 – with just two hours of daily programming, relatively little funding and a lot of scepticism.
Some nine years before, in October 1987, campaigners for a dedicated television station in Irish had relayed a broadcast from Rosmuc community hall.
Writing in The Irish Times, Michael Finlan said that Gay Byrne's Late Late Show ratings on RTÉ took a "sudden nose dive" in the Connemara Gaeltacht that weekend.
His report caught the attention of the then taoiseach Charles J Haughey.
Illegal transmitter
The illegal transmitter for Teilifís na Gaeltachta, as the temporary station was called, had been hidden in heather on Cnoc Mordáin in south Connemara.
A celebratory bonfire was lit on the same hill on Monday night by film producer Seán Ó Cualáin, who was a nine-year-old dancer on the original Rosmuc broadcast.
Journalist Seosamh Ó Cuaig credited language activist Donncha Ó hÉallaithe with a key role in that campaign.
Mr Ó hÉallaithe sailed by hooker to the Faroe Islands to find out more about the islands’ broadcasting policy for its own language.
Mr Higgins has described the founding of TG4 as one of his greatest achievements as arts minister, along with repealing section 31 of the Broadcasting Act which had banned interviews with political associates of paramilitary organisations .
For his pains, the former Labour Party TD in Galway West received less than a handful of votes in Baile na hAbhann's nearest polling station at An Tulach in the 1997 general election.
In his address in Irish last night, Mr Higgins paid tribute to the “creativity” “dedication”, “enthusiasm” and “talent” of the many people who had worked for the award-winning station with the motto “Súil eile” , as in “another eye”.
“The station continues to go from strength to strength, with the highest audience ever earned earlier this year,” he said, and is now “loved and respected” by a “community around the island and around the world”.
“Undoubtedly, the most important goal of establishing TG4 was to provide a link between the scattered communities using the language,” Mr Higgins said.
Referring to the “many challenges ahead” that the first language faced, he described TG4 as “the most significant sign of our self-esteem as a nation”.
