Poster presented at the International Workshop on Solar, Heliospheric and Magnetospheric Radioastronomy, November 6-10 2017.The Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) [1] is a phased array of 24 core stations and 16 remote stations in the Netherlands, and 12 international stations. Eachinternational station is composed of 96 low band antennas (LBAs) operating at 10-90 MHz and 96 high-band antennas tiles (HBAs) operating at 110-240 MHz. Insummer 2017, Ireland joined the International LOFAR Telescope (ILT), with the construction of the Irish LOFAR station at Birr Castle in the Irish midlands (I-LOFAR;www.lofar.ie). Here, we report the key steps in the construction of I-LOFAR, along with the site and station characteristics, and some of the challenges encountered.I-LOFAR increases the ILT's east-west baseline to ~1,950 km, making it possible to achieve sub-arcsecond resolution at ~200 MHz. First light observations indicate alow level of radio frequency interference (RFI) at the I-LOFAR site, making the station an important addition to the ILT. Finally, we present first-light all-sky maps andoutline plans for the future operation of the array.
