Why did Irish Pirate Radio Flourish in the 80s? What were the 1926 WTA Loopholes?

 

The Aurelia

During what was known as the golden era of Irish pirate radio in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, the raiding of pirate radio stations in Ireland almost stopped. Up to 1977, if you operated an illegal radio station you would be subject to a raid by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs backed up by Gardai and charged under the 1926 Wireless Telegraphy Act. This was invariably followed by a court appearance and a fine but it all changed in 1977. The 1926 law was drafted just as radio broadcasting was in its infancy and setting up a radio station was a complicated, expensive engineering feat but as technology changed and getting on the air became cheaper, in a nation of a monopoly one station state broadcaster, RTE, pirate radio had the fertilizer to flourish and flourish they did. But why was the 1926 Act unfit for purpose as pirate radio moved from late night, weekend hobby pirate radio to the super pirates of the 1980s like Nova, Sunshine and ERI generating millions of pounds in revenue. The reason, a ship but not in the sense of offshore pirate broadcasting such as Radio Caroline or Radio North Sea International.

 

It was built and launched from a Polish shipyard in 1974 and was destroyed by fire while being refitted at Lisbon in August 1979, but in those five years the two-thousand-ton factory fishing ship ‘Aurelia’ left its mark on maritime, legal and broadcasting history on two continents. It was a registered vessel owned by the Burgas based Oceanic Fishery Company in Bulgaria. It initially fished off the British coast and was boarded a number of times by British naval fishery protection vessels including HMS Chowton in October 1974. But it’s first major brush with the law was on September 27th, 1976, when under the captaincy of Jordan Kostan, from Valkanou, Bulgaria, she was detained off the Cork coast by the Irish Naval vessel L.E. Grainne under Commander Peter Kavanagh for illegally fishing inside the Irish territorial twelve-mile limit. She was escorted into Cork harbour, and the captain was arrested and charged. He was fined the maximum under the then legislation of one hundred pounds, but his gear and catch were seized and confiscated and valued at £102,000 by Mr. Justice Carroll, the largest seizure from a fishing vessel in the history of the State. To complicate matters when the seized fish was being off loaded at the request of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries a strike took place at the port. The Evening Echo reported,

‘The work stoppage began last Friday when the dockers, some forty of them, walked off the Aurelia where they had been unloading confiscated frozen fish since the previous Wednesday. The dispute arose over an alleged claim for "hardship money" because of the fact that the fish had to be unloaded from cold rooms.’

A day later the strike was settled and the fish valued at over fifty thousand pounds was off loaded and taken to Kerry.

 

But the captain decided to appeal the lower court judgement to the High Court and in a judgement by Justice McWilliams in March 1978, the forfeiture of the gear and catch was deemed unconstitutional as the value of the seizure exceeded the maximum £100 fine. This judgement was applied to subsequent fishing trawler seizures especially those of Spanish trawlers in the late seventies until the law was tightened.

 

The unforeseen knock on effect of Justice McWilliam’s decision was that it would be applied to the 1926 Wireless Telegraphy Act when a case against the pirate radio station Radio Dublin and its then operators Eamonn Cooke and Don Moore was brought. Following a raid on the station in August 1976, the subsequent court case discovered two loopholes in the antiquated law. Firstly, it was shown in court that the broadcasting equipment seized by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs and the Gardai could have been used for something other than broadcasting such as DJ training and secondly the precedent set by the ‘Aurelia’ was applied and as the value of the equipment seized from the Cabra based station exceeded the maximum fine of £50, the seized equipment had to be returned to the operators. This was later applied to the super pirates in 1983 when Radio Nova and Sunshine Radio, who were making millions from advertising. When they were raided, the maximum fine, still just £50, was levied but they had all their seized equipment returned on the conclusion of the case.

The ‘Aurelia’ returned to Cork and collected its confiscated gear and they were reimbursed by the Department for the catch seized. Rather than risk fishing off the Irish coast, the vessel, now under Captain Ivan Presnakov (1932–2003), headed across the Atlantic and together with another Bulgarian vessel the Ofelia and two Russian fish factory ships began fishing off the Argentinian coast.

 

The Argentinians were even less pleased than the Irish that their fishing grounds were being illegally raided. On October 1st 1977, three Argentinian naval destroyers intercepted the Aurelia and the three other vessels. The Navy fired at the two Bulgarian vessels when they refused to heave to and be boarded. The ‘Aurelia’ was hit three times and one crew member, Nestor Tulev, was seriously wounded and several others injured. Tulev was airlifted by helicopter to a nearby aircraft carrier where he underwent emergency surgery. During the boarding, a small naval boat overturned and three Argentine sailors, Carlos Gonzalez, Ponciano Gonzalez and Jose Burak were drowned. The Ofelia and the two Soviet trawlers, the Franz Hals and the Prokopevsk, arrived in Puerto Madryn on 2 October escorted by the Argentine Navy. The ‘Aurelia’ was so badly damaged that it had to be towed to Puerto Madryn. At the height of a cold war, the US State Department secretly reported their concerns that the Russian Bulgarian infraction of Argentine sovereignty was part of a communist plot to destabilise Argentina which at the time was suffering the brutal military junta of Jorge Videla, who had deposed Isabel Peron.

 

Once the ‘Aurelia’ was released by the Argentinians, it travelled back across the Atlantic but it had been so badly damaged from the Naval gunfire, it required a refit. It was in a Lisbon shipyard when it was badly damaged by fire. It was then towed back to Bulgaria where she was broken up. Two small islands in the Antarctica are named after the Argentinian incident, Aurelia Island and Presnakov Island.

 

And as a result, the 1926 Irish Wireless Telegraphy Act was surpassed and impotent. When Dublin pirate Radio Nova was raided in December 1983 after opening a pirate television station, owner and operator Chris Cary was fined the maximum under that law €50, equivalent to 3 seconds of advertising on Radio Nova, who by 1983 enjoyed a 70% listener rating on the Dublin airwaves. The Evening Press reported after Nova’s court appeared following a May 1983 raid,

“Mr. Stewart said that while the legislation provided for the forfeiture of this equipment, and a maximum fine of £50, on conviction, he had been informed that the State was not seeking such a forfeiture. Justice Wine said that Nova had saved the State considerable expense and time in pleading guilty to the charge. He was glad to see that the Minister was not seeking forfeiture of the equipment, so he would just fine the company £25.”

 

When Robbie Robinson , owner of Sunshine Radio appeared in court also following the May 1983 raids, the newspapers reported,

“Sunshine Radio, one of the Dublin pirate stations, is to have £50,000 worth of equipment which was seized during a Garda raid last May, returned to them, the District Court was told today. The station, which operates from the Sands Hotel, Portmarnock was fine £20, after pleading guilty to a summons for illegal broadcasting brought against them by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. Justice Hubert Wine ordered that the broadcasting equipment be returned to the stations boss, Mr. Robbie Robinson.”

It was stated in the Dail that,

On 18 October 1983, in Dublin District Court No. 2, District Justice Wine made a restoration order with regard to the broadcasting equipment which was returned after a fine of £20 had been paid. Justice Wine dismissed Sunshine Radio, saying that he favoured competition in broadcasting and hoped that the situation would soon be cleared up.

Former Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, Padraig Faulkner told his Dail colleague in 1985,

“When I was Minister for Posts and Telegraphs raids were carried out on pirate stations. Some stations were shut down and equipment seized. The Department found itself beset by all kinds of legal entanglements as a result. It was clear that effective action could not be taken as the law stood. One case that comes to mind relates to a judgement which cleared the defendants on the basis that, as the actual transmitter was not present when the raid took place, it was held that the remaining equipment could be used for purposes other than illegal broadcasting. The case was dismissed. In another case the Department seized equipment but later had to hand it back because of a technicality. In the latter case the public could not understand why the equipment had to be returned and there was much adverse comment in respect of that incident. It was because of a wide variety of matters resulting in decisions by the courts, the reasons for which the public could not appreciate, that there was a danger in the public mind that the law was being brought into disrepute. It became clear that new legislation was needed to deal with the matter and so the Broadcasting and Wireless Telegraphy Bill, 1979 was prepared and circulated to Deputies by me.”

A new Wireless Telegraphy Act was introduced in 1988 increasing significantly the penalties for illegal broadcasting and legalised independent commercial and community radio licensing was introduced bringing independemt radio on the air in 1989.

The First Irish Television Channel 1951

 

"How are we going to keep them on the farm after they've seen Paree?

We are all aware that RTE television began on December 31^st, 1961, with a gala evening broadcast live from the Gresham Hotel. The show was hosted by Eamon Andrews and featured a less than enthusiastic introduction from President Eamon DeValera. However, RTE was not the first television channel on the island as BBC NI TV went on air in July 1953, in time for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II while the commercial Ulster Television first broadcast in October 1959. But before any of these, artists such as Barbara Mullen, celebrated pianist Charles Lynch, artist Sean Keating and the Comerford Irish dancing trio, crammed themselves into a small television studio in April 1951 and broadcast live, the first television station and programme to be broadcast from and to the Republic of Ireland.

 

It was horse show week, and as with 1923 when the RDS was at the centre of the first Government sanctioned radio station 2BP, they Ballsbridge venue was to host the first ever live television programmes created for an Irish viewing audience. As one newspaper headline termed it ‘Irish Television Was Born Last Night’.

 

Pye, with their Irish headquarters located in Dundrum, flew in seven and a half tons of equipment worth £30,000 including transmitter, aerial and cameras via Aer Lingus to Dublin Airport. The transmitter was installed in the grounds of the RDS and an aerial erected. A studio was constructed in the tea rooms at the rear of the grandstand, and the channel was ready to air.

A marquee was erected in the grounds and television sets installed where visitors could watch live the show jumping from the main arena. But if anyone rich enough to own a set in the greater Dublin area, reception would have been excellent. The main reception for the first broadcast was held before an invited crowd of 200 at the Gresham Hotel on O’Connell Street where twenty TV sets were set up for everyone to get a view of Irish television. Broadcasts continued throughout the five days of the Spring Show week. Commencing on May 1^st telecasts took place between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. from the studio, and after that the cameras would move to the horse jumping arena, with the events being televised with a running commentary provided. Sets were available to watch on in the special tent and in the members dining hall.

 

The opening broadcast was a 45-minute show with Ria Mooney acting as producer and director. The shows for the rest of the week were produced by Roy Croft. Ria was a stage and screen actress, artistic director of the Abbey Theatre from 1948 to 1963, and later director of the Gaiety School of Acting. She was the first female producer at the Abbey Theatre. She also was instrumental in setting up the RTE Players in 1947.

The Irish Independent reported,

The show was first-class and of a very high professional standard. It was compered by Barbara Mullen, who did not have much time to arrange with Hia Mooney all the rehearsals for the production. First of all, Miss Mullen welcomed all the viewers, and then the camera moved to Charles Lynch, the celebrated pianist, a T.V. veteran since 1937, who did wonders with a piano. Miss Mullen charmed for a while again and then there was shown a film of the operations of the B.B.C.'s television service behind the scenes. This was followed by the famous Comerford Trio of ' Irish dancers, -who performed to the accompaniment of violins and Uilleann pipes. Next Miss Mullen moved across the set to Mr. John Keating, President of the Royal Irish Academy, who was busy with a canvas, and had a friendly chat with the famous artist. Thomas Studley of Radio Eireann then gave some wonderful samples of impersonation of some distinguished persons. Angela O'Connor, of the Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society, seemed to enjoy her first television performance as she sang " La Belle Parisienne." The real merit of television was displayed in the scene from Donagh MacDonagh's " Happy as Larry " in which Liam Foley and Ita Little performed to such great advantage. The whole show was a credit to everyone connected with it. and though only an experiment it was a splendid pointer to what could be done should a start be made on television in this country.

 

Roy Croft was a stalwart of Radio Eireann. He was born Harry Roycroft in 1922 and was a natural entertainer. He began to compere and organise variety shows and this led to Roy replacing Eamon Andrews at the Theatre Royal as the host of ‘Double of Nothing’. This exposure thanks to Andrews’s departure to London, gained recognition at Radio Eireann. Roy originated Beginners Please, Ireland's first broadcast talent show. In the days when radio was under the direct control of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, there was a reluctance to allow the public near a microphone, but Roy persuaded the station to take a chance. It was an unqualified success, and Roy took the show around Ireland with a system of regional heats. His catchphrase, "the beginners of tonight may be our stars of tomorrow". The show opened the door for some of the best-known Irish entertainers including the first on air performances by Joe Dolan, Val Doonican, Paddy Crosbie of ‘School Around the Corner’ fame and The Harmonichords, who later renamed themselves as The Bachelors. In 1961, Roy compered a talent show in Cork as they sought new talent for the upcoming launch of RTE’s television service. The winner of that competition was a thirteen-year-old Rory Gallagher. In 1978 Roy was the chairman of the judging panel in Limerick when a young Dublin rock band won first prize, U2.

 

In the 1960’s when Roy married his wife encouraged him to get a ‘proper job’ and Roy left Radio Eireann and joined Guinness’s as a promotions manager and remained with the brewery until his retirement. He passed away in 2013.

Thomas Studley according to the Equity website

Prior to joining Radio Éireann, Tom had already established himself as a stage actor, featuring in many Abbey Theatre plays. The constrictions of radio work limited his later appearances there, to “King of the Barna Men” in 1967, “Aaron Thy Brother” in the 1968 Dublin Theatre Festival and “The Drums of Father Ned” in 1985.

An extremely good mimic, Tom made memorable broadcasts as Sean O’Casey and Bernard Shaw, and on retirement, had amassed an amazing total of more than 1,000 radio performances.

Studley died in September 2014.

The instrumentalists The Comerford Trio were a Dublin Ceilidh band with an award winning a dancing troupe from the 1930s under Lily Comerford. The musicians were Marie McCrystal (Fiddle), Christina Sheridan (piccolo) and Mrs Davenport (piano).

                                                  

Barbara Mullen was an American-born actress well known in Britain later for playing the part of Janet McPherson, the in Dr. Finlay’s Casebook on television. 

Mullen's parents were Pat and Bridget. Her father was from a fishing family on Inishmore island off the coast of Galway. He met his first wife, Bridget in South Boston, Massachusetts, where she had emigrated from Galway with her late husband, Patrick Crowe. Mullen was born in Boston. She made her stage debut as a dancer at the age of three. When her father returned to Aran, later contributing to the making of Man of Aran, the classic documentary film by Robert Flaherty, while her mother stayed in the U.S. to bring up their 8 children. Barbara would later marry John Taylor who was the cameraman on the Man of Aran. Mullen sang and danced in various theatres all over the U.S. and then moved to the UK in 1934 and began appearing on BBC radio including The Irish Half Hour. 

Barbara Mullen

The Irish Half Hour was a BBC wartime radio show that began on Tuesday November 11th 1941. It featured artist was the great Irish singer Count John McCormack who had been living in London at the time. The first show featured mostly music from McCormack and the BBC Orchestra, conducted by Leslie Woodgate. That show was compered by future celebrity author Leonard Strong, whose parents were Irish.

 

The following week November 22nd, it was a different type of show now featuring Jimmy O’Dea as his famous incarnation as Biddy Mulligan, the Pride of the Coombe and sketches and skits featuring the fictional rural Irish town of Ballygobackward. O’Dea ignored the threat of German U-Boats in the Irish Sea to travel back and forth to the UK to record the shows in Bristol. In total up to the final episode on December 3rd, 1943, which was unusually pre-recorded to accommodate O’Dea’s panto rehearsal at the Gaiety. In total eighty episodes were aired. The Radio Times advertised,

‘The Irish Half Hour with Jimmy O’Dea and Barbara Mullen specially recorded for Irish men and women in the Forces. Compere, Joe Linnane. Singer, Robert Irwin. Writer, Harry O'Donovan.’

 

The show was aired on the BBC Forces service although some Irish regional newspapers were referring to it was the BBC Alternative Service avoiding the militaristic term of ‘forces’.

According to the RDS report,

Four hundred people at a time were able to view demonstrations of television in a portion of the Band Lawn specially arranged for the purpose. These demonstrations were given by Messrs. Pye (Ireland) Ltd. A studio was fitted, up in the tea gardens at the back of the grandstand and stage shows, Jumping Competitions, Grand Parades and other features of the Show were televised daily. In addition to the television receiving sets installed on the Band Lawn, a number of sets were placed in the. Members' Hall for the use of Members. On the Saturday previous to the Show Messrs. Pye (Ireland) Ltd. gave a reception and dinner in the Gresham Hotel and a special show televised from the studio in Ball's Bridge was seen by about three hundred guests, including the President of the Society and some members of the Council: For the purpose of giving this first public demonstration of television in Dublin, £30,000 worth of equipment was flown from London to Dublin by Pye (Ireland) Ltd. These demonstrations proved a great attraction and the Committee appreciate the excellent manner in which, they were carried through.

The studios were described in the Irish Independent,

I turned the knob and stepped into that modem Aladdin's Cave, a Television Studio. On my left were the artists dressing rooms they have been spared make-up for the Ballsbridge telecasts and on my right the works.

They were the size and shape of three tall steel filing cabinets, except that they were all insides and no outsides. tall blocks of valves and terminals and condensers of a complication that is baffling to a man like me. The first, which ended on top like a film projector, proved to be a film projector, but of the special type which, is known as a " scanner." The next "cabinet" was surmounted by a television screen, and I guessed it was a " monitor ".  The third and last was the transmitter, which is not to be tackled by anyone who feels ill at ease with three-point plugs and fuse-boxes.

From the transmitter, I went through a door into the studio proper and ended up with the television camera. The studio was in odd contrast, the beam microphones, the tremendous battery of powerful lights, and the cameras that occupy it. For the working end of the studio proper had those grey backgrounds with dim black outlines which were once the background of the professional photographer the sort of photographer who took you holding your bowler over your heart while your other hand rested on an antique pillar. Dominating the scene in which the microphones have to be kept out of the picture, is the camera which looks something like a gigantic square-barrelled Lewis gun mounted on a wheeled trolley on which the cameraman sits. Then you stand before the camera, you see a glass eye and when the little red lamp beside it lights you are being heard and seen by the world, for fifty miles around. But what goes on inside it well. I’m afraid photo-electric silvercaseum cells, electron gun assemblies Frame time bases and cathode ray tubes, and all the rest are Greek to me.

 

A corner under the great awning over " the Band Lawn, has been screened off and as far as possible "blacked out ", to hold the sets, on whose bright screens you may enjoy the singing of Peggy Dell and Cecil Nash, the humour of compere Roy Croft, the magic of Albert Le Bas, and many another of our Irish artists, or even see the Jumping In the Enclosure without the bother of looking for a seat on the  stands.

Roy Croft

According to Le Bas’s biography ‘Oofle Dust’,

‘Oofle Dust’ is the story of Albert le Bas, the softly spoken Irishman who was acknowledged as one of the world's most outstanding magicians. A man at the apex of the ancient and honoured craft of magic. A dream that took him from local carnivals in Ireland during the 1940s to the hallowed stage of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, the BBC studios, West End theatres in London, sparkling venues across Europe and the USA, as well as appearances before royalty.’

 

It is the story of variety and entertainment in Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s. From opening Ireland's first shop for wizards and magicians, performing on Ireland's first television broadcast to becoming the mainstay of the hugely successful Jurys Cabaret, Albert shared his dream with Betty, the love of his life. A life strewn with roses. Until the thorns appeared.

Albert Le Bas

Thanks to the Pye television demonstrations, it was one of the busiest Spring Show with over 63,000 attending. Despite the enormous press attention given to the birth of Irish television, Pye did take out advertisements suggesting citizens did not purchase sets as this was only an experiment and BBC transmitter signals were difficult to receive in Ireland. Pye’s efforts were rewarded a decade later when the company won the contract to provide the transmitter network for the new TV service, RTE.

New Book Out Now

 

ON SALE NOW VIA AMAZON OR ALAN HANNA BOOKS, RATHMINES

100 Years Ago, 2RN broadcast its first test transmission.

 

At 6.45pm on this day 100 years ago, Saturday November 14^th the first test transmissions begin

‘Hallo hallo hallo, aye aye aye, hallo hallo hallo’ were the first words spoken by Seamus O’hAodha (Seamus Hughes). This was followed by,

‘Se seo staisiun 2RN Baile Atha Cliath ag triail’ (This is 2RN Dublin Testing)

By 7.45pm, according to an article on the front page of the Sunday Independent, a large crowd had gathered at Hogan’s wireless shop on Henry Street to hear the first transmissions.

Irish Radio History Timeline

 

Douglas Hyde Opens 2RN

 

The 50th Anniversary of RTE's Radio Liberties

2025 will mark the fiftieth anniversary of one of Ireland's unique radio experiments. This is the story of RTE's Radio Liberties 

Almost fifty years ago RTE launched a new experiment in local radio broadcasting that while it brought local communities their own pop up radio station, unwittingly RTE created a monster as these local communities saw the benefit of having their own radio station and soon after the RTE’s mobile van departed, in that town, village or community, a pirate station opened to replace it. By the mid-eighties while RTE were still travelling the highways and byways of Ireland with their small radio station, a pirate radio boom swept the country with as many as one hundred and fifty illegal stations on air each weekend across the nation. In 1975 the Dublin inner city locality of The Liberties was the location of the first in this unique decade long experiment from the national broadcaster. For the duration of the local arts festival, RTE would bring their new mobile radio van which not only contained a studio but also a small low powered transmitter. While the technical elements would be overseen by RTE, all the programming from research to production and presentation would be conducted by a committee of locals. The on-air presenters too would be local voices often inexperienced but many were caught by the radio bug. The concept was originally credited to the then Director General of RTE George Waters. For many years the man tasked with being the go between with RTE and the committee was Paddy O’Neill. Paddy was born near Skibbereen in County Cork and after a brief career as a national schoolteacher he became involved in the Abbey theatre from where in 1951 he joined Radio Eireann. At the station he became a producer, one of his most influential roles as producer was for the popular Din Joe’s ‘Take the Floor’.

Paddy was also a greyhound enthusiastic both racing them and being involved in the organising of races. Under the alias ‘Paddy O’Brien’ he became Radio Eireann’s greyhound racing commentator later taking up the role of Chairman of Bord na gCon in 1983.

                                                       

At 10am on Friday May 9th 1975, Radio Liberties came on the air on 96.6mhz FM (or still described in 1975 as VHF) and would stay on for the next ten days. The transmitter had a two mile radius. They would broadcast twice a day, in the morning from 10am – 12.30pm and in the afternoon from 3pm – 5pm. The RTE van was based across the road from the church on the High Street and two of the main presenters were Harry McGurk and Eileen Reid, a well-known Showband singer. Interviews with locals were conducted by legal secretary Maura Ryan and house painter Tony Clabby. The station was a tremendous local success. While initially the van carried only a FM transmitter by 1977 they had also added a medium wave transmitter on 202metres.

The RTE van with BBC logo being used for Radio Rhonda

The RTE van would visit one hundred and forty venues staying for between three days and one week until their final outing in October 1987 when the RTE Community radio station visited Dun Laoghaire as Radio Phobail Dun Laoghaire.

 

According to the Nenagh Guardian,

‘Radio Liberties opened at 10 a.m. last Friday morning. It came on the air from nothing more sophisticated than a white caravan, parked on a street corner between decaying buildings and obstructive blocks of flats, with a slight Liffey aroma in the background. It was a complete definition of the word Local’.

 

The then recently appointed new RTE Director General Oliver Maloney invited members of the national press to Montrose for a free lunch and they were then bussed into High Street to see the mobile station in action. Apart from the national newspaper reports, other media coverage came from another Dublin media broadcasting experiment when a crew from Ballyfermot Community Television arrived in the Liberties to conduct interviews with those who were on the air in the mobile van on the High Street.

 

The following year RTE were back in the Liberties. RTE Community Radio Liberties went on air on Saturday May 15th and would continue until May 23rd. This year the broadcasting hours were 3pm – 5pm and 7pm to 10.30pm. What was unusual about this visit was that on the day of their first broadcast and despite being technically operated by RTE, Radio Liberties was the only legal station on the air in Dublin. A strike by thirty carpenters who worked for the State broadcaster meant that the rest of the stations staff refused to pass the pickets and RTE was closed. As the strike continued to black out RTE Radio and Television, Radio Liberties was gaining a wider audience as their low powered FM transmissions were being relayed on the main Dublin medium wave frequency. The strike would last thirteen days before a settlement was reached.

 

This would not be the last time RTE’s Community Radio service would visit the Liberties as their final visit was in April 1981 but they would travel across Ireland to towns and villages and city suburbs to provide the impetus for local community radio and unwittingly creating that golden era of pirate radio in the 1980’s. The Liberties would have their own pirate radio station in the late eighties Liberties Local Community Radio (LLCR).