eir Sport 1
eir Sport 1 was an Irish pay television sports channel that served viewers in Ireland and Northern Ireland until 2021, carrying Gaelic games, rugby, football and a wide range of Irish and international sport. It began life in August 2004 as Setanta's Irish channel, was renamed eir Sport 1 on 5 July 2016 after the telecommunications company eir acquired Setanta Sports, and closed in Northern Ireland on 30 June 2021 and in Ireland on 28 October 2021, when eir withdrew from sports broadcasting altogether. For viewers in Northern Ireland it was available through Sky as part of the eir Sport pack, and its disappearance — with Premier Sports taking over its satellite position — marked the end of a seventeen-year presence in Irish sports television.
Origins as Setanta Ireland
The channel launched in August 2004 as part of the Setanta Sports business, taking the former names Setanta Sports Ireland and then Setanta Ireland. Setanta took its name from the ancient Irish warrior of Ulster legend who played hurling, one of the oldest field sports, and the Irish channel was built around exactly that heritage: domestic Irish sport that larger British broadcasters treated as a niche. In February 2010 the channel was available to all subscribers of the Irish cable provider now known as Virgin Media Ireland as a basic channel, an unusually wide distribution for a pay sports service, reflecting how central its Gaelic games and domestic football coverage had become.
High definition and early milestones
Setanta launched Ireland's first high-definition channel, announced in September 2010 and launched as Setanta HD in February 2011, exclusively on UPC Ireland. The Dublin versus Armagh Gaelic football encounter on 5 February 2011 was Ireland's first broadcast of Gaelic games in high definition — a landmark for sports that are central to Irish life but had historically received modest technical investment. The main channel itself broadcast in 1080i high definition, downscaled to 16:9 576i for its standard definition feed. In June 2013 Setanta signed a long-term agreement with BT Sport to distribute BT's channels within the Republic of Ireland, so the Setanta Sports pack grew to six channels: Setanta Ireland, Setanta 1, BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2, BT Sport Europe and ESPN.
The eir takeover and rebrand
In November 2015 the Irish telecommunications company eir acquired Setanta Sports, including the Setanta Sports Pack. On 5 July 2016 Setanta Ireland was renamed eir Sport 1, and its sister channel became eir Sport 2. The model mirrored that of BT in Britain: a telecoms operator using exclusive sport to attract and retain broadband customers, with the eir Sport services included in the cost of the eir Sport package for eir broadband customers and also available through Sky Ireland, eir TV and Vodafone TV. From July 2016 eir broadband customers received the pack, including BT Sport, as part of that strategy.
Football coverage
Football was a pillar of the schedule. In Ireland the channel broadcast the League of Ireland and the SSE Airtricity League, the Setanta Sports Cup, FA Cup ties, and European competition including the Europa League and Champions League during the period of its BT Sport distribution. It acquired the Premier League highlights rights for the Republic of Ireland in August 2013, taking over from RTÉ, and launched Premier League Central, a Saturday and Sunday night highlights programme hosted by Connor Morris; those rights were lost to Sky Sports Ireland from the 2016-17 season. In 2012 Setanta had held the Irish rights to all of Liverpool's home games live in the UEFA Europa League group stage, and the channel also covered Republic of Ireland Under-21 home qualifiers. For a brief period from June 2011 it even experimented with music programming and Irish films in its line-up.
Gaelic games at the heart of the channel
If football brought breadth, Gaelic games brought identity. Eir Sport 1 broadcast the Allianz Leagues in Gaelic football and hurling, the GAA competitions that fill the Irish sporting winter and spring, alongside live horse racing and golf programming including The Masters and The Open Championship. Its analysts became familiar figures in Irish living rooms; ahead of the 2019 All-Ireland Football Final replay between Kerry and Dublin, former Kerry star Marc Ó Sé and former Dublin star Alan Brogan were among the eir sport pundits in demand across Irish media. The channel's final months of operation were deliberately scheduled around its remaining Gaelic commitments: staff were told it would continue coverage of the Allianz Leagues before closing.
Rugby: the PRO14 and the World Cup
Rugby union gave the channel its biggest rights coup. In May 2018 it was announced that eir Sport would broadcast all 152 games in the PRO14 rugby union competition from the 2018-19 season, under a three-year deal, with TG4 retaining some rights but eir holding exclusivity for the Leinster-Munster derby matches. For the 2019 Rugby World Cup, eir Sport was the main Irish broadcaster and official partner showing all 48 games, assembling a panel that included Tommy Bowe, Mike Phillips, Jerry Flannery, James Lowe and Gordon D'Arcy. Rugby league, Australian rules football, cricket, boxing, golf and NHL ice hockey also featured in a schedule deliberately built to offer sports from several countries alongside its Irish core.
Carriage disputes and the Virgin Media deal
The channel's later years were marked by platform politics. From August 2016 Virgin Media Ireland no longer carried the eir Sport and BT Sport channels. Then, on 15 August 2019, eir Sport and Virgin Media Sport agreed a reciprocal deal to show Virgin Media Sport on eir Vision and eir Sport 1 on Virgin Media Ireland — a truce welcomed as great news for customers, giving Virgin viewers the Rugby World Cup and PRO14 and giving eir customers Champions League football. The peace lasted barely a year: on 13 August 2020 eir Sport 1 was removed from Virgin Media Ireland after eir refused to pay the contracted distribution licence fee.
Closure
Eir announced on 19 May 2021 that all of its sports channels would close before the end of the year, following an in-depth review; the company said the pandemic had made the business model no longer viable, and it chose to focus on its core broadband and mobile business rather than renew rights — the GAA and PRO14 had been prepared for the decision, with no negotiation taking place on renewals. The shutdown was staggered: eir Sport 1 closed in Northern Ireland on 30 June 2021, along with the eir TV-only X1 and X2 channels; eir Sport 2 closed on 20 July 2021; and eir Sport 1 finally closed in Ireland on 28 October 2021, ending the eir Sport experiment after five years under that name and seventeen years since the Setanta Ireland launch. Premier Sports replaced it, acquiring its Sky slot and triggering a reshuffle in which La Liga TV and BoxNation also moved numbers in late October 2021.
Significance for Northern Ireland viewers
For the purposes of a UK directory, eir Sport 1's Northern Ireland presence matters: it was one of the Irish channels that formed part of everyday viewing in Belfast and across Northern Ireland through Sky, in the eir Sport pack on channels 421 and 422 alongside eir Sport 2. Its 30 June 2021 Northern Ireland closure came four months before its Irish closedown, an early sign that the service was being wound down region by region as rights expired.
Legacy
eir Sport 1's legacy is that of the channel that took Irish domestic sport seriously in high definition: first Gaelic games in HD, every PRO14 match, every Rugby World Cup game for Irish viewers, and Saturday night Premier League highlights taken from the national broadcaster. Its rise and fall also chart the telecoms era of sports rights, in which broadband companies bought channels to defend subscriptions — and, in eir's case, concluded in 2021 that the game was no longer worth the cost, leaving its rights, its slot and its audience to rivals such as Premier Sports.
