It is now possible to keep in touch with television programmes, news and current affairs from Wales, Scotland and Ireland right here, in the south-east of England. Unfortunately, Ireland’s RTE, TV3 and TG4 channels are “not freely” available but the stations from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are.

News and current affairs programming is available via the Internet from a variety of sources such as RTE, BBC, Scottish/Grampian TV (Scotland Channel 3 licensee), UTV (Northern Ireland Channel 3 licensee) and S4C (the Welsh language channel).

Scottish, Grampian and Ulster Television are now also available via digital satellite.

If you do not have Sky Digital there are currently two options. First is a twelve month subscription with Sky or the FreeSatFromSky option with no subscription. Sky provide a free digibox with subscription and free installation and the basic subscription is £15 per month. Most of Sky’s Subscription Offers include several months half-price subscription too. You can sign up to Sky at our Shop.

In contrast, the FreeSat option is for a one-off payment of £150 which which does not include any subscription channels and an upfront payment. The Sky Subscription option will, in many cases, cost the same as the FreeSat option and the contract can be terminated after 12 months. In addition, if you subscribe online via this website the Celtic and Irish Cultural Society will receive a significant payment which we can use to fund our activities. Visit our Shop to sign up - should you require further information, feel free to email david.nolan@celtic-irish.co.uk.

Since 2002, the BBC and S4C have been available free-to-air (that is without a subscription or viewing card) by satellite. At the end of 2005, ITV followed suit. As a result, regional channels from Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the South West are available to view, via satellite in the south-east of England. We can also benefit from Celtic League and Heineken Cup Rugby on S4C in Welsh or in many cases in English on BBC2W.

The relevant regional BBC and S4C channels are all available via the Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) with the following channel numbers:

135 S4C DIGIDOL
971 BBC ONE SCOTLAND
972 BBC ONE WALES
973 BBC ONE NORTHERN IRELAND
987 BBC ONE SOUTH WEST
990 BBC 2 SCOTLAND
991 BBC 2 WALES (BBC2W)
992 BBC 2 NORTHERN IRELAND

The ITV channels are not presently available via the EPG but need to be manually tuned.