Overlooked by much current scholarship on ever-evolving technology and migration, radio continues to foster community and connection among the Irish diaspora. Broadcasting Ireland’s indigenous Gaelic sports uniquely attracts both domestic and diasporic audiences but this research explores how sports radio shapes belonging for Irish listeners abroad. We found that Irish sporting organisations are deeply embedded in local communities, fostering strong cultural bonds that the diaspora carries overseas and yearns for from their new homes.

Drawing on interviews with Irish based in the UK and USA, alongside a conversation with a renowned sports radio broadcaster, the study reveals that sports radio sustains a vital link to Ireland for many of its listeners. With a lens borrowed from feminist memory studies, we demonstrate the nature of collective memory and nostalgia for communal listening in the past shape current experiences. Although sports radio once offered shared listening experiences, unpacking memories of sports radio, it became clear that listening practices have never been fully inclusive and have drastically changed from communal in the past to more individualised today. Soundscapes were predominantly carried by male Irish voices and listening settings were often recalled with Irish women at the margins as facilitators rather than full participants. Today, communal listening is rare, and respondents expressed nostalgia for radio’s ‘better pasts’—symbolising broader diasporic community loss in a hyper-individualised world. However, through digitalisation and global reach radio increasingly directs belonging towards Ireland and fosters togetherness among the diaspora.