Media centre progressing for Lough Derg area

A meeting to form Lough Derg’s first community media centre was held on Monday in Mountshannon and has resulted in some promising developments.

The proposal has been ­collaborated by a group of interested people in the East Clare area and the idea is to form a non-profit community-based public media centre for all ages, which would serve the whole Lough Derg area.
The meeting itself was well attended and a number of ideas for the project were mooted.
Speaking about the vision of this group, Molly Lynch O’Mara explained that, if successful, the media centre would offer services such as providing a community radio for the Lough Derg area.
They also propose offering video production and online streaming along with web design and internet security workshops, media workshops and other training courses.
“The meeting’s intention was to announce our project and intentions and is the first stage towards obtaining a broadcast license. I am from Minnesota in the US. I love radio and there are a lot of public and local radio stations in America. It’s my passion and I like the public radio format.
“We have so many talented people in the Lough Derg area with lots of great ideas so this is about trying to bring them together,” she said.
“We are only in the forming stages so what we would like to do is interview people in the area and see what people would like to have on a public radio station and what do people want from it. We already have a lot of media equipment so we hope to use that.
“Everyone is really excited about it and people have lots of ideas for it and I think if we build it, people will then come.
“It would be great to link up with public radio in America and link in with the ­Irish-American market, which would be a natural link-in,” Molly said.
The group is currently looking for a premises to base itself from and would like to set up in Mountshannon.
They aim to launch their idea at the forthcoming Iniscealtra Festival of Arts next ­weekend and plans are underway to run a live radio broadcast of events at the festival.
More information about the centre is available by logging onto www.loughdergmediacentre.org.
Molly would welcome any questions, ideas or feedback on 086 8980356.