Draft:Rí-Rá magazine (rí-rá)

rí-rá magazine was first published in London in March 1997 by Michéal Coughlan and Sean Scally (ri-ra magazine Ltd.). The magazine was broadly aimed at young Irish, second and third-generation Irish living in London.

rí-rá was a free monthly magazine distributed through Irish pubs, clubs, cultural venues and street bins across London. The magazine was first published out of its Caledonian Road office in North London. After the first six to eight issues the magazine began to gain traction and garner interest among the younger Irish community and grow in popularity.

rí-rá was mainly culture-focused with a strong emphasis on music, literature, theatre, and film of Irish interest as well as interviews and other related features.

rí-rá began to attract contributors from young Irish writers, music and culture enthusiasts.

In 1999 the magazine was bought by Smurfit Communications, the then owners of The Irish Post newspaper in Britain. Both Michéal Coughlan and Sean Scally joined the company to run the magazine from their new offices at Hammersmith.

Michéal became the full-time Editor and Sean took over as the Sales and Marketing Manager. The move saw rí-rá increase in size and circulation across London as well as increasing in popularity and visibility.

The magazine featured and interviewed many of the Irish and UK-Irish luminaires of the day among them - Liam Neeson, Sean Hughes (RIP), ASH, Roisin Murphy, Neil Hannon, Neil Jordan, Shane MacGowan, Tommy Tiernan, Altan, Aslan, Gemma Hayes, The Thrills, Cathy Davey, Joseph O'Connor, Kíla, Andrea Corr and many, many more...

During its near seven years, countless albums, books, films, and plays by Irish and British-Irish artists were reviewed in rí-rá across all genres.

Among the magazine's many contributors down the years were Catherine Jackson (nee Molloy), Johnathan Lennie (Time Out London), Ruari Nevin, Roddy McDevitt, Niall McDevitt, John Crowley (First Draft News), Niall O'Keeffe (Dashboard Editor, Cirium), Declan McGuiness, Amanda Diamond (Head of Content GDS), Robert Dineen (Daily and Sunday Telegraph), Barry Glendenning (The Guardian), Ronan McGreevy (Irish Times), Ian McCullough (Australian Associated Press) and many more.

In December 2000 Sean Scally left London to take up a position with Enable Ireland in Co. Kerry and Shane O'Neill was appointed the Marketing Manager of rí-rá and the Irish Post.

In March 2003, (Thomas Crosbie Holdings) then publishers of the Irish Examiner newspaper in Ireland bought The Irish Post and rí-rá.

In 2004 the Irish Post CEO decided to absorb rí-rá into the weekly Irish Post newspaper in place of The Craic, which has been the paper's Culture section for many years.

Michéal Coughlan returned to Ireland in December 2004.