LIKE plans to drain the Shannon or build a hospital in Tallaght, the idea of an Irish language television station has been around for a long time. Jack Lynch first promised it back in 1969. He was told by RTE that it couldn't be done and in any case would cost too much.

During the 1970s and 1980s, language activists were sent to prison every so often for not paying fines imposed for non payment of TV licence fees. The fines were then paid anonymously by officials in the Department of Justice, in order to save the Government embarrassment, and the activists released after cooling their heels for a night or two in Mountjoy.

Little else happened, apart from an occasional burst of rhetoric at election time. Meanwhile, the language went into almost terminal decline in Gaeltacht areas, particularly among school going children who were picking up a powerful message from television and radio and re broadcasting it to their peers.

That message was: Irish is dead, long live English; Irish is Liam O Murchu and old men on Raidio na Gaeltachta; English is Abba, Bay City Rollers, Mission Impossible and just about everything else that is new or exciting.

This spurred a few activists in Connemara to build a small transmitter, and in October 1987 "Teilifis na Gaeltachta" was born. Broadcasting live from a caravan during a weekend festival, the pirate station had a 15 mile radius and lasted long enough to make its' point: a local, community based television service was not an impossible dream.

The then Taoiseach, Charles Haughey was impressed by the Connemara pirates and asked Udaras na Gaeltachta to undertake a feasibility study. It was the first chink of light at the end of the tunnel and the start of a national campaign called Feachtas Naisiunta Teilifise.

The Feachtas quickly won all party support for its demands, and the support of actors, writers and a barrister called Mary Robinson. It sought a national service based in the Gaeltacht and succeeded in getting commitments written into various election manifestos.

The first Minister to run with the idea seriously was Maire Geoghegan Quinn, who deserves much of the credit (or blame) for what is now happening. As Minister for Transport, Tourism and Communications, she appointed a broadcasting adviser in 1992 with a brief to investigate the possibility of a TV station in Irish.

When Michael D. Higgins became Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht in January 1993, he re appointed the same adviser, RTE's fonder Nuacht editor, Pidhraic O Ciardha. Much of the groundwork was already done and in November that year, to everyone's surprise, the Government announced that it would implement its promise to set up TnaG.