There are certain things which are guaranteed to bring me out in hives. Shellfish, for one. Raw onions in a dish, for another.

Also, when bands and those who work with bands go on about the lack of Irish bands on Irish radio. This is one of those debates which goes absolutely nowhere because the people who have the power to change this situation don’t have the will to do so. As with the issue of bands not getting paid mad cash for Spotify streams (don’t sign those record deals then) or bands agreeing to play festivals without confirming a fee, the squabbling goes on.

Of course, there is a solution and that solution can be found in Seattle, at its radio station KEXP. The non-profit music station, which has its roots in college radio, is one of many US stations that have shown that non-commercial music radio can be a viable proposition.

According to a New York Times report this week, half of the station’s annual $6 million (€5.6m) operating costs comes from audience donations and subscriptions, with the rest from grants and corporate supporters.

Growing clout

While the station doesn’t have big audience reach by comparison with commercial music stations – 206,000 listeners a week, three times its audience 15 years ago – it does have considerable and growing clout thanks to its involvement with festivals such as Iceland Airwaves.

Just as there is an audience for cutting-edge music stations such as like KEXP and Santa Monica’s KCRW, there is also an audience for a station that plays Irish music.

The question, though, is whether this audience is willing to pay for such a thing. We might soon have to face an unpalatable truth.

Of course, many will argue that the existing stations should be forced to play more Irish music and talk about quotas and the like. They’ll also throw out the TV licence argument but let’s be honest here: if you want a radio station that plays Irish music, or any sort of alternative music, you have to start and fund your own.

You could roll the station out online or, if you’re the old-fashioned type, you could use the existing Broadcasting Authority of Ireland licensing rules to argue for a station to serve a community of Irish music fans. It will be difficult and stressful and onerous, but it can be done.

But as noted above, it may show that the perceived wisdom around the popularity of Irish music and the need for a station to play more has little or no basis in reality.

After all, if there really was mad public demand for more Irish music on the airwaves, surely one of the existing radio stations in a cluttered, competitive market would have gone for it?