Ian Coogan / Presenter

Ian Coogan presents The Sound of the 70’s each Thursday at 6.00 pm on Dundalk FM 97.7, a programme dedicated to one of the most extraordinarily diverse and creatively fertile decades in popular music history.

The 1970s gave the world glam rock, punk, disco, soul, funk, progressive rock, soft rock, reggae’s international breakthrough, and the singer-songwriter movement. No other decade produced as many distinct and mutually contradictory musical revolutions in such a compressed period of time, and The Sound of the 70’s navigates that range with knowledge and enthusiasm.

Ian’s connection to Dundalk FM stretches back to the very early days of community broadcasting in the town. He was part of the original Dundalk Weekend Radio DWR107 FM, the temporary community station that preceded Dundalk FM, broadcasting out of early studios alongside Phil Tipping, John Cotter, Rick the Roadie, Jim Ryan, Paul Mefor, and Anthony Bond. That founding generation built the foundation on which Dundalk FM’s full licence broadcasting was constructed, and Ian is one of the people who was there at the beginning.

His decades of involvement in community radio in Dundalk give him a deep understanding of what the station is for and what it can do at its best. The Sound of the 70’s reflects that understanding: it is a show made with care and knowledge by someone who has been doing this for a long time because he loves it.