placenamesCostelloe
Casla
Casla’s market and its role as Raidió na Gaeltachta’s headquarters connect local exchange with a much wider Irish-speaking community.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- Casla · Irish · main form · validated name
- Costelloe · English · main form
Place & story
Market day in 1965
RTÉ’s Newsbeat recorded a market day in Casla for a programme broadcast on 16 August 1965. The archive account describes people arriving from miles around, many travelling by bicycle. Livestock, vegetables, household goods and men’s suits were among the goods offered. The variety shows a gathering that met several kinds of rural need, bringing food, farming and everyday purchases together in one small village. [2]
The new radio service
Raidió na Gaeltachta began broadcasting on Easter Sunday, 2 April 1972, at three o’clock in the afternoon. A recorded message from President Éamon de Valera welcomed the service. Casla became its headquarters, and the RTÉ archive preserves photographs of the new premises and studios from that year. Broadcasters pictured there include Aingeal Ní Chonchubhair and Máirtín Ó Fátharta, placing identifiable people within the village’s new broadcasting institution. [3]
A local base for a wider audience
The Oireachtas Library’s account of RTÉ’s first annual report for the service places Casla alongside studios in Baile na nGall and Doirí Beaga. Initial transmissions reached the Gaeltacht regions, with technical work under way to extend reception more widely. The service followed sustained campaigning by the Gaeltacht Civil Rights Movement and others in the late 1960s. Its headquarters gave this Connemara village a central role in an institution serving Irish speakers across several regions. [4]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Costelloe. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Fair Day in Casla1965: Newsbeat archive account · RTÉ Archives
- New Radio Service in Irish1972: opening and photographic catalogue · RTÉ Archives
- April2022 display: Raidió na Gaeltachta annual report1973 · Oireachtas Library
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.