IMRO Chats

IMRO Chats is a monthly podcast series exploring the topics, challenges and opportunities shaping Ireland’s music industry.
In this month’s episode, IMRO Chats focuses on SXSW, the annual music, film and tech festival in Austin, Texas, revealing how the event provides opportunities and support for Irish artists to perform abroad.
Featuring insights from industry professionals, policymakers and artists including Angela Dorgan from First Music Contact, Minister of State Robert Troy and Dan Malone of Dublin band Yard, the discussion showcases the pathways the festival creates, how Irish acts are supported, and what emerging artists need to succeed internationally.

IMRO Chats is a monthly podcast series exploring the topics, challenges and opportunities shaping Ireland’s music industry.
In this month’s episode of IMRO Chats, we explore the proposed Culture Card for Ireland and what it could mean for increasing access to music and culture.​
Featuring voices from young people, industry professionals and policymakers, we examine how the scheme could work and what impact it might have on the future of Ireland’s music community.​

In this month’s episode of IMRO Chats, we explore the proposed Culture Card for Ireland and what it could mean for increasing access to music and culture.​
Featuring voices from young people, industry professionals and policymakers, we examine how the scheme could work and what impact it might have on the future of Ireland’s music community.​

On today’s episode we are previewing the Borderline Festival 2026.
Now in its third year, the festival showcasing emerging alternative acts from Ireland and beyond, will be taking place from the 19th to the 21st February in The Workman’s Club and the Project Arts Centre in Dublin.
Ahead of the festival, Danny Carroll spoke to founder and organiser Simon Merriman, the international booking agent Jule Konrad and the musician Alan Duggan Borges, who will be showcasing his new project The Null Club as part of this year’s festival.
For a bit of context and background we begin with Simon, who curates the festival and also organises many many gigs across Ireland, as part of Singular Artists.
You can learn more about Borderline here - https://www.borderlinefestival.com

In this episode we have a live recording from the inaugural IMRO 360 Series – a new annual event discussing issues and topics of importance to the Irish music industry. The title of the inaugural discussion was ‘AI, Copyright and the future of music’.
Hosted by Jess Kelly (technology correspondent with Newstalk), the event featured a panel of industry experts providing insights and opinions on the development of AI generated music, the copyright issues faced by the music industry and what the future may look like as we adapt to these changes in technology.
Featured on the panel are:
Adriana Pérez-Gill, Senior Legal Advisor, International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP)
Barry Scannell, Legal Director, William Fry LLP & Member of the Government of Ireland’s AI Advisory Council
Eleanor McEvoy, Singer, Songwriter, Musician & Chair of IMRO
Jackie Alway, OBE, Int'l Legal & Industry Affairs Universal Music Publishing International & MPAI Board Member          
Adriana Moscoso de Prado, General Manager, European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers (GESAC)
Dan Archer, CEO and co-founder of Copyright Delta, which specializes in safeguarding copyrighted material.
The panel was introduced by the CEO of IMRO, Victor Finn.