Nialler9

Nialler9 is an Irish music site and online music magazine founded in 2005 by DJ and writer Niall Byrne. The site is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. It has been referred to as "the grandaddy of Irish music blogs" by the Sunday Times.

History

Founder Niall Byrne started the website as a portfolio after finishing a course in multimedia design from the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology. The site won five consecutive awards at the Irish Blog Awards in the category of Best Music Blog (2007–2011), and has also won the Irish Web Awards Best Music Site category on three occasions (2009, 2013, and 2014). It was voted the 5th Best Music Blog in the World in a poll of music blogging peers in 2010.

Byrne also hosted a radio show under the Nialler9 name on TXFM before the station's closure in 2016. Byrne has written about music for publications including The Irish Times, the Irish Independent, The Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine and Red Bull.

Byrne co-hosts the Nialler9 Podcast, covering new music, albums, artist deep dives and interviews. The podcast passed 300 episodes in 2026.

The site has published annual end-of-year best-of lists covering albums and songs from Ireland and internationally since its founding. In 2017, Byrne compiled a playlist of 999 songs drawn from Nialler9's history between 2005 and 2017, amounting to over 74 hours of music. The site's annual lists of best new Irish acts provided early coverage of artists who went on to achieve wider recognition. These include Fontaines D.C., Villagers, Adebisi Shank, Fight Like Apes, Super Extra Bonus Party, Rejjie Snow, Lankum, Kojaque, Denise Chaila, Gilla Band, Saint Sister, For Those I Love, CMAT, The Mary Wallopers, Just Mustard and Rusangano Family, Le Galaxie, Talos, Ships, Curtisy, God Knows, and Niamh Regan, among others.

Byrne is a DJ and co-founder of Lumo Club, a monthly club night in Dublin. He has promoted and produced events under the Nialler9 name including the Indie Sleaze Disco Club night and monthly listening parties, and has curated events at SXSW in Austin, Texas, and Camden Crawl in London, as well as for Musictown, the Dublin Theatre Festival, Cork's Sounds From A Safe Harbour festival, and Culture Night Dublin.

Byrne has also worked as a music supervisor and sync licensing consultant, curating music for digital media, advertising, television, films, and in-flight entertainment with an emphasis on emerging Irish music.

Byrne has served on the judging panel for the Choice Music Prize, the annual Irish album of the year award, on multiple occasions including in 2008, 2014, and 2024.

Album of the Year

Since its founding, Nialler9 has published an annual Album of the Year list.

Irish Album of the Year

Nialler9 has published an annual Best Irish Album of the Year list since 2006. From 2006 to 2015 the winner was determined by a public reader vote; from 2016 onwards the selection has been made by Nialler9.