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). 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. == Album of the Year ==