Our New Website Is Live: Dundalk FM Launches a New Chapter for the Community

We’re delighted to share some news with our listeners, volunteers, presenters and everyone who supports community radio in County Louth: Dundalk FM has a brand new website, and it’s live right now at dundalkfm.ie.

Community radio has always been about more than just what goes out over the airwaves. It’s about staying connected to the people we serve, morning, noon and night, whether that’s through Good Morning Dundalk at breakfast time or Classics with Colette as the evening winds down. These days, that connection doesn’t stop at 97.7FM. A huge number of you find us online first, whether you’re checking the schedule before a show starts, catching up on local news, or tuning in to the live stream from your phone on the school run. A modern, easy-to-use website has become just as much a part of how we serve Dundalk and the surrounding area as our broadcasts themselves, and we felt it was time ours reflected that.

Why It Was Time for a New Website

Like anything that’s been around a while, our old website had served us well, but the way people use the internet has moved on quite a bit. More of you are browsing on phones than ever before. You want to find a programme, a presenter, or a way to get in touch without having to hunt through menus. And behind the scenes, our own team needed something simpler to update, so that news, schedules and station announcements could go up quickly rather than getting stuck in a queue.

So we set ourselves a fairly simple brief: make the website easier to navigate, quicker to load, friendlier on mobile phones, clearer to look at, and more accessible for everyone, including listeners who use screen readers or other assistive technology. We also wanted programme discovery to be genuinely simple, so that anyone new to Dundalk FM could land on the site and understand within seconds what we do, who’s on air, and how to listen. This wasn’t about starting from scratch or leaving the old site behind with any regret. It was the next natural step for a station that’s been growing steadily and wanted its website to grow alongside it.

As part of this project, we worked with Astory Media, a Dundalk-based digital agency, to help us plan and build the new site properly, rather than patching things up piecemeal. More on that a little further down.

What Visitors Will Notice

A Cleaner, More Modern Design

The first thing you’ll spot is that the site simply looks tidier. Pages are less cluttered, text is easier to read, and there’s more breathing room around photos and headlines. We wanted the design to feel calm and welcoming, much like tuning into the station itself, rather than something you have to work hard to make sense of.

Built for Mobile

A large share of our audience now listens and browses from a phone, whether that’s someone catching Town Talk on their commute or a parent checking what time Drivetime starts. The new site has been built with mobile visitors in mind from the outset, so pages resize properly, buttons are easier to tap, and the listen-live player works smoothly whether you’re on a phone, tablet or laptop.

Finding Programmes Is Much Simpler

We know one of the main reasons people visit is to find out what’s on. The new site makes it far easier to browse the full programme schedule, see who’s presenting each show, discover our specialist music programmes, and find community-focused shows that cover local issues and events. Station information, like how to contact us or get involved, is also much easier to locate than before.

A Faster Website

Nobody enjoys waiting for a page to load, especially if you’re just trying to check today’s schedule before you head out the door. A faster website means less waiting, smoother browsing on slower mobile connections, and a generally more pleasant experience for anyone popping in for a quick look.

Better Accessibility for Everyone

We’ve paid close attention to accessibility throughout this project, from clearer typography and stronger colour contrast to more straightforward navigation. Community radio is for everyone, and we wanted our website to reflect that same principle, so it’s easier to use whether you’re a longtime listener or visiting Dundalk FM online for the first time.

Supporting the Local Community

At its heart, Dundalk FM has always been about the community, first, last and always. That hasn’t changed with this new website; if anything, it’s easier now to stay close to what matters. You’ll be able to keep up with local news, find out about community events happening across Dundalk and County Louth, get to know our presenters a little better, discover new music, catch up on interviews, and learn more about the local organisations we work alongside.

For anyone thinking about volunteering, whether behind the scenes or on air, the new site makes it simpler to find out how to get involved. Community radio only works because people give their time to it, and we wanted that route in to be clear and welcoming rather than buried away.

Our Official Launch

We marked the launch with a gathering at the Dundalk Media Centre, and it was, honestly, a lovely evening. Presenters, volunteers, committee members and supporters who’ve been part of Dundalk FM’s story over the years came together to celebrate, along with plenty of familiar faces from the local community.

The undoubted highlight of the night was a performance from renowned Irish fiddle player Gerry O’Connor, who played a set of traditional music before officially introducing the launch of the new website. It felt like exactly the right way to mark the occasion: a celebration of where Dundalk FM has come from as much as where it’s heading, with traditional music and local voices sitting comfortably alongside a very modern milestone for the station.

Working with Astory Media

Throughout this project, we worked closely with Astory Media, a marketing and web design agency based here in Dundalk. From our first conversations about what the new site needed to do, through to the design, development and final testing, Astory Media took the time to understand Dundalk FM as a station, not just as a technical brief to be delivered.

That mattered to us. We wanted a website that still felt like Dundalk FM, warm, local and community-focused, but built on solid, modern foundations that would serve us well for years to come. Astory Media helped turn our ideas, and quite a lot of feedback from our own team, into a site that we’re genuinely proud to share. We’d encourage any local business thinking about their own website to have a look at what Astory Media do.

Looking Ahead

This launch is very much a starting point rather than a finish line. Over the coming months, you can expect more local news, community stories, deeper presenter profiles, station updates, and better coverage of events happening across Dundalk and County Louth. We’ll keep adding features as we go, based on what you tell us is useful, so do keep an eye on the site and check back regularly. There’s more to come.

Thank You

None of this happens without a lot of people pulling in the same direction. Thank you to our volunteers, who give their time so generously to keep Dundalk FM on air and moving forward. Thank you to our presenters, who bring warmth, knowledge and personality to every show. Thank you to our listeners, for tuning in day after day and for being patient with us while this project came together. And thank you to Astory Media for their care and craft in delivering this website for us.

We’d love for you to have a proper look around the new site. Check the Programme Schedule to see what’s on, get to know our Presenters, read more About Dundalk FM, find out how to Volunteer, get in Contact, press play on Listen Live, or catch up on the latest News. This website belongs to Dundalk FM’s community every bit as much as the airwaves do, and we hope it feels that way when you visit.