Fiona Ritchie

Fiona Karen Ritchie MBE (born 1960) is a Scottish radio broadcaster of The Thistle & Shamrock, a weekly, Celtic music program for 40 years on National Public Radio (NPR). She curates ThistleRadio, a 24/7 web-based Celtic music channel. She was the co-author of The New York Times Best Seller Wayfaring Strangers.

The Celtic radio program has won awards since its inception in 1981 featuring Ritchie's "soft Scots" dialect.

Early years Ritchie was born and raised in Scotland, where she went to the University of Stirling. While at university, she was invited to spend a semester in North Carolina, which was when she first heard NPR. After graduating, she returned to North Carolina and, she was hired by WFAE FM, the NPR station in Charlotte, to oversee fundraising and promotion.

In 1981 Ritchie began a weekly hour of Celtic music. The Thistle & Shamrock was picked up for national broadcast within two years. The book was co-authored by Doug Orr with a foreword by Dolly Parton.

The Thistle and Shamrock ended in September 2024.

Awards and honours Ritchie's has six World Medals from the New York Festivals International Competition for Radio Programming, and a Flora Macdonald Award from St. Andrews University (North Carolina), which also conferred upon her the degree of honorary doctorate. Hundreds of Thistle & Shamrock tapes and vinyl albums are in the Scottish Heritage Center at St. Andrews University (North Carolina). Ritchie served on the Advisory Board of the Swannanoa Gathering folk arts workshops at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina.

In 2003 the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage honoured her for "creating an on-air community, serving as a musical ambassador...”

Ritchie was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting and traditional Scottish music. In 2016 she received the Hamish Henderson Award for Services to Traditional Music. Upon receiving this honour, Ritchie was also inducted into Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame.

Ritchie's ThistleRadio music channel on SomaFM was awarded Best Music Show: Country/Folk/Blues in the 2017 Online Radio Awards presented by the British streaming service Mixcloud. In 2018, Folk Alliance International inducted Ritchie into their Folk DJ Hall of Fame.