The following is an except from a 2019 lecture I delivered on Northern Ireland pirate radio 1969-1975.
This is a lecture on the
Northern Ireland pirate radio stations 1969-1975. My name is Eddie Bohan and I
am a broadcast historian involved in the Irish Pirate Radio Archive and I have
published two books ‘Rebel Radio, The Easter Rising Broadcasts’ and ‘A Century
of Irish Radio 1900-2000’. This lecture is accompanied by a PowerPoint
presentation and I will make the slides available on the University website.
SLIDE
By the late 1960s the
demand by the Catholic/Nationalist community within the six counties of
Northern Ireland for electoral, employment, housing and social equality with
their Protestant/Loyalist neighbours brought protests out onto the streets of
the major cities of Belfast and Derry/Londonderry.
In October 1968 a Civil
Rights march through Derry was attacked by the police who were seen by many
Catholics to be doing the dirty work of the Unionist led Northern Ireland
Government based at Stormont. Marches in Belfast ended in rioting and police
baton charges. Between August 12th – 17th 1969 serious rioting took place
across the province which was both political and sectarian. The Northern
Ireland Prime Minister Terence O’Neill who had been attempting to appease the
communities was replaced by James Chichester Clark and on August 14th he requested
assistance from the British Government in London and British troops were
deployed on the streets of Northern Ireland in support of the police force the
Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) for the first time. Catholic homes and business
were targeted and burned down forcing Catholics to flee many towards the border
where the Irish Government of Jack Lynch had set up field hospitals and refugee
camps. The IRA who had been dormant since 1962 re-emerged and Loyalist
paramilitaries encouraged by the incendiary rhetoric of Reverend Ian Paisley
attacked each other and both in turn attacked the British Army.
The result of the
instability and the violent discrimination was the creation of no-go areas in
Belfast and Derry with the famous white gable wall in Derry proclaiming that
‘You Are Entering Free Derry’ with the Catholic areas barricaded offering a
sense of both isolation and independence. The two major cities were polarized
into Catholic and Protestant areas with each barricading themselves from attack
by the opposite community and by the police and army. The situation was tense
and fluid and information was hard to come by.
News was often nothing
more rumour and conjecture, falsehoods creating fear and misinformation causing
tension across the island of Ireland. For most people access the news was via
newspapers and the radio and television. Newspapers were often slanted towards
one side of the other and when the rioting began newspaper production and
deliveries were badly disrupted. Locals turned to the radio for updates, often
simply to discover if it was safe for them to leave their homes to venture to
the shops to buy much needed supplies.
Their reputed
listenership was in excess of 70% and they were often the sole outlet for news.
They gave voice to the oppressed, they challenged the Government’s official
positions, they provided morale boosts, they rallied their foot soldiers into
action. They were the pirate radio stations of Northern Ireland 1969 – 1975. Who
were they? What was the impact on their communities and the course of the
Troubles? Why was there a vacuum that required their existence? How extensive
were their operations and how did the Government attempt to tackle the issue?
As the ‘Troubles’ began
in 1969, The BBC Northern Ireland controller Waldo Maguire said that the ‘BBC
should modify the presentation of news in a way to avoid extreme provocation’.
The news from the BBC would appear to have been sanitized from the very early
stages of the Troubles. In an editorial
in the Nationalist Newspaper on August 29th 1969 it said ‘inaccurate reporting
has made the BBC at times akin to a purveyor of British propaganda’. Access to
news was limited. Northern Ireland was served by BBC Radio Ulster and BBC
Television Northern Ireland who operated an opt out facility for short news
bulletins after the main BBC News programmes and some limited programme
production from within the province. The commercial IBA[1] franchise was
Ulster Television and it too provided limited programming from within the
province relaying the main ITV networked programming instead. BBC Radio and TV
NI provided eight news bulletins for the entire day each totalling five minutes
in duration and UTV added two more often overlapping with their BBC
counterparts. For those able to receive RTE Radio and Television from south of
the border had access to 25 news bulletins each day[2]. By the end of
1969 as the violence escalated RTE opened a news office in Belfast. There was a
void for up to the minute news and news that was aimed not generically but at
specific communities and this void was about to be filled by illegal,
clandestine pirate radio stations that would have a major impact on the direction
of the Troubles over the following years.
Between 1969 and 1975
when sectarianism was at its ugliest and deadliest, local communities of
Protestants and Catholics relied on their local pirate radio station to provide
news and occasional entertainment. The stations also reinforced the feelings in
both communities that they were under attack from the opposite side. These
stations broadcast mainly in Belfast and Derry. Their diet of propaganda caused
incitement to violence and the authorities battled to get them closed down. These
stations were illegal and broadcast as pirates, but they were more specifically
clandestine stations as were political pirate radio stations. Clandestine
stations are classified as either black or grey. Grey radio refers to stations
operated by dissident groups within a country. Black stations are broadcast by
one side disguised as broadcasts by the other.
Almost as soon as the
barricades went up along the Shankill Road and the Falls Road, two pirate
stations were broadcasting to their respective communities. The Irish
Independent reported on August 26th
‘While there is a lull in
the rioting, a propaganda battle is raging in Belfast. Broadcasting from behind
the barricades in the Falls area ‘Radio Free Belfast’ is sending out a stream
of anti-Government propaganda interspersed with patriotic songs and pop record
requests. ‘Radio Free Ulster is conducting an equally vigorous campaign for the
other side from the Shankill area. Both stations operate on very similar
wavelengths and at time deliberately make attempts to interfere with one
another, by cutting in during transmission.'
SLIDE
Radio Free Belfast was
located above the Long Bar on the Falls Road utilising a homemade medium wave
transmitter began broadcasting on 244m before jamming forced it to move to 300m.
In a memorandum prepared by An Garda Síochána for the Department of Justice on
events in Northern Ireland on 5 September 1969 it reported.
‘Radio Free Belfast, The
Radio of Revolution, was on the air on Friday night; it had been operating for
two or three days previous to this. This is a pirate radio station operating on
240 to 245 meters on the Medium Wave Band. The radio is on the air twenty-four
hours a day. It has been set up by the Peoples' Democracy and the Belfast
Citizen's Defence Committee. The transmitter is situated in the Catholic, Falls
Road area and has a radius of about 4 to 5 miles. At times it is blotted out
for long periods. The announcer said that it was set up to boost the morale of
the men manning the barricades and urged them to make the barricades higher and
thicker.
It plays requests for
these men and appeals for food and necessities. Radio Free Belfast makes four
demands off the Stormont Government
(1): To release the men
interned in Crumlin Road Prison and revoke the Special Powers Act.
(2) To disarm and disband the 'B' Specials.
(3) Disarm the R.U.C. and
sack its Senior Officers.
(4) Suspend the Stormont
Government.
The radio dwells mostly
on the interned political prisoners and states that there are about 30 in
Crumlin Road Prison. The requests played are a mixture of 'Pops' and 'Patriotic
Songs', i.e. 'Sean South', 'Boys of Wexford, etc. The radio also transmits
messages such as the numbers of privately owned police car's operating in the
area with the names of the police officers in same. It gives details of
property lost and found and transmits messages to parents and relatives of
refugees in the South. It is manned by an English Disc Jockey at night and by
men with Northern accents in the daytime.
On Saturday evening,
23/8/1969, there was a message read over Radio Free Belfast from the National
Solidarity Committee, Gardiner Place, Dublin. It called on persons from all
walks of life in the 'Free State' to force the 26 County Government to take
further action in regard to the problems in the Six Counties. There are two
other pirate radios operating in the Belfast area at the moment. There are
"Radio Peace" and "Radio Ulster". They are believed to be
in operation in the Protestant Shankill area and are very amateurish in
comparison with Radio Free Belfast.’
PLAY CLIP
In a further ‘secret’
document in September 1969 from the Department of Justice to the Taoiseach Jack
Lynch it stated that,
"The Long
Bank", 59 Leeson Street, where Radio Free Belfast was in operation, is a
Licensed Premises. The Station which was manned by a staff of eight (8) - six
(6) men and two (2) girls - is used ' to announce any developments to the
residents in the locality. Between announcements record requests are played for
those persons manning the barricades. This station was on the air for twenty-one
(21) hours of the 24. It goes off the air from 9am to 12 noon. daily, to give
the equipment an opportunity of cooling. There is a notice to this effect on
the 'wall of the studio.'
It also band scanned the
Belfast airwaves revealing the following station information
NAME FACTION LOCATION
(1) Voice of Ulster Protestant Barnsley
Park, Shankill Road.
(2) Radio Orange do do
(3) Radio Shankill do "The
Hammer" Shankill Road.
(4) Radio Sundown do
do
(5) Radio Free Belfast Catholic "The
Long Bank" 59 Leeson street.
(6) Radio Peace, Neutral
Springfield Park off Springfield Road.
John McGuffin was one of
the main men behind the station said that the station broadcast ‘from behind
the barricades’. The station would later move frequency due to British Army
jamming to 300m.
Radio Free Belfast delivered
a message to their loyal listeners
“The Protestant workers
are the poor dupes of the junta of effete aristocrats and hard-faced
capitalists that have for fifty years divided our country and have divided the
working class on a sectarian basis.'
On the opposite side was Radio
Free Ulster (often referring to itself simply as Radio Ulster) on 242m MW also
began broadcasting in August 1969 with DJ’s named Lord Orange, Roarin’ Meg, Sad
Sam, Cameronian Kid and Orange Lil. They galvanised the stereotypes of the
Catholic community that the loyalist paramilitaries were promoting. Radio Free
Ulster was one of a number of Loyalist pirate radio stations including Radio
Orange operating as the ‘Troubles’ began.
SLIDE
Another loyalist station
was Radio Shankill or alternatively known as Radio Ulster began broadcasting
with a transmitter built by Johnny Doak from Tigers Bay in Belfast. The
station’s broadcasts added to the tension in the city and threats were directed
at ‘the Republicans of the Falls Road’ and jeering that Catholic owned public
houses had been targeted and destroyed by loyalist mobs.
When a twenty-three years
old Protestant Jack Todd was shot dead from a speeding car on September 7th,
the underground Protestant pirate station urged loyalist vigilantes to move
against Roman Catholics. Belfast seemed to be on the brink of outright civil
war. On Sunday September 7th tensions at the interface between the two
communities were heightened. The Irish Independent reported
‘The action of the army
only angered them more and in a short time they gathered again; this time the crowd
swelling by several hundred. Then the
Shankill pirate radio, station broadcast a message calling on
every able-bodied man to report to Percy Street where, the-
broadcaster said, an attack was being made on "the Fenians."
"Will all units please report immediately," said the announcer, as if
there was a prearranged plan. "This is a republican plot. The British
troops are guarding the Falls. We are asking for the Royal Ulster Constabulary
to man our barricades. This is no reflection on Her Majesty's troops. " We
plead to all loyalists not to be provoked by retaliation against Her Majesty's
loyal forces. 'This is what the Republicans want. Don't fall into the
trap."
The Fermanagh Herald
reported that on the night of Friday September 12th
‘A crowd, estimated at
between 2,000 and 3,000, massed at Boyne Bridge menacing Durham Street with ten
truckloads of soldiers separating them from a small crowd at the
bottom of Albert Street. The Sandy Row crowd turned out after a call over
" Radio Ulster " the Shankill Road station for "
loyalists " to come out and defend their homes. During the night
broadcasts by Radio Ulster resulted in crowds gathering in Protestant districts
at several points. At one time a woman, broadcasting over Radio Ulster was
declaring that the Irish Republican Army, with Tricolour in front, was
advancing on the Shankill Road.’
One writer described the
output of the Belfast pirates as
‘From Free Belfast’s
eloquent political homilies full of wit and passion alternating with passionate
witty folk songs to Orange Lil tongue snared bluster alternating with the Sash
and God Save The Queen repeated like an incurable stammer.’
The equipment was crude
and the transmitters often cobbled together from ex-army transmitters. A
turntable and a microphone and these stations were on the air. They were
breaking the Wireless Telegraphy Act and liable to a £400 fine for a first
offence or £400 per day on air if discovered by the GPO detection inspectors. A
raid by the Army in October 1969 netted the authorities the transmitter for
Radio Ulster on the Shankill Road.
Not every commentator
believed that the pirates in Belfast had any influence. Justin Hale in his book
‘Radio Power, Propaganda and International Broadcasting’ said
‘Both the IRA and
Protestant extremists are an amalgam of fragmented group who would find it hard
to maintain a consistent line of propaganda. But above all the radios are on
the fringe because there is no essential need for them. Other means of
communication exist, the area is small, the aims of the participants are widely
known even if the tactics sometimes need some explaining to the faithful and
the outsiders alike.’
SLIDE
Across the province at
7.02pm on January 10th 1969, Radio Free Derry broadcasting on 1388khz medium
wave came to life. The Derry City station broadcast with a 25watt transmitter
originally operated by the Socialist Resistance Group control later passing to
the Official IRA. With studios and transmitter located in the Rossville Street
flats, one of the main movers behind the station was the socialist campaigner
Eamonn McCann who would later become a member of the Stormont Assembly. In his
book ‘War in an Irish Town’ McCann wrote about the radio station
It was installed in an
eighth-storey flat in Rossville Street with the aerial on the roof. We began
broadcasting, describing ourselves as ‘Radio Free Derry, the Voice of
Liberation’. The only people more appalled than the government by the situation
were the leaders of the CAC. They had never intended barricades. But
blood was up and there was nothing they could do about it. By chance the radio
transmitter had been presented to Dermie McClenaghan and me. We used it to make
propaganda encouraging the people to keep the barricades up and the police out
and to ‘join your vigilante patrols’. We were perhaps erratic. On one occasion
Tommy McDermott, who believed in the revolutionary potential of underground
music, was left alone with the transmitter, an opportunity which he used to
treat the populace to two hours of the Incredible String Band interspersed with
whispered injunctions to ‘love one another and keep cool’. But for the most
part we played rebel songs, and White, McClenaghan, Melaugh and I and some
others delivered regular harangues. Reception was good, the listening audience
vast.
Radio Free Derry nightly
bombarded the area with pleas to ‘keep up the resistance’. We failed to swing
the population round completely to this point of view, which possibly was not a
bad thing because at the time we had neither the organization nor the means to
put such resistance into effect. By the end of the week nervousness and
uncertainty had replaced the excitement of Sunday night. The CAC had kept on
the side lines. Late on Friday night Hume, Cooper, Canavan and a few others
descended on the area and with a series of perfectly pitched and brilliantly
timed speeches convinced the vigilantes that the barricades ought to be
dismantled. They were gone by the morning. Any attempt to re-erect them would
have been a frontal challenge to the CAC, and the revolutionary disc-jockeys of
Radio Free Derry were in no position to do that, most of them, after all, being
members of that body. (Citizens Action Committee)
PLAY CLIP
The radio transmitter,
now operating from Eamonn Melaugh’s house in Creggan, was pumping out
Republican music and exhortations to ‘keep the murderers out. Don’t weaken now.
Make every stone and petrol bomb count.’ The police were making charge after
charge up Rossville Street. In a 2010 interview on BBC Radio Ulster, Jimmy
Porter remembered his involvement in Radio Free Derry and said that while the
station was located in the flats, the transmitters was put into the lift shaft
meaning the station drifted in and out as the lift moved up and down fooling
the British Army engineers into believing that the station was on the move
possibly in the back of a van.
Radio Free Derry was
joined on the air by Radio Saoirse operated by the Provisional IRA based on
Rathlin Drive in the city. The station also air checked as The Voice of The
Second Battalion. In September 1969 another station appeared on the medium wave
calling itself ‘Radio Bogside’ and operated by the Citizens Defence Association.
Radio Free Derry was back
on the air on August 23rd 1971 and according to the Socialist Resistance Group
who set up the station it was using a 180 watt transmitter located on the
southside of the border in Donegal but audible as far as Strabane.
PAGES FOUR FIVE AND SIX NOT INCLUDED
PAGE SEVEN
The Stormont Government
met on September 9th 1969 to specifically discuss the issue of pirate radio and
how to put them off the air. The consensus was that if the British Army, who
were now patrolling the streets, and the RUC forcibly entered that had become
no-go ghettos the spectre of violence and bloodshed was all too imminent. The
following day British Army engineers began to jam the broadcasts of the three
main stations in Belfast, Radio Shankill, Radio Free Ulster both Protestant
stations and the Catholic Radio Free Belfast. What followed was a cat and mouse
game as the stations moved up and down the medium wave band, this also caused
interference to the legal broadcasters in the province and they often ended up
jamming each other’s frequencies. This had an affect and while the stations
continued to broadcast their signals were almost inaudible.
As the violence escalated
across the province and the two sides became more entrenched more stations
emerged often using transmitters previously used. Radio 3 Belfast was located
on the Falls Road, the station mimicked the fact that there was already a BBC
Radio 1 and 2. Broadcasting to the nationalist community the station lasted a
couple of weeks in October 1970. On the opposite side was Radio Orange on 242m
MW which began broadcasting in September 1970 and the rhetoric included
announcing
‘loyal citizens of
Belfast buy nothing from the Republic, no Kerrygold, no Donnelly’s bacon, no
Gateaux cakes, no perri crisps.’
After serious rioting in
Belfast in October 1969 with Radio Orange inciting the Loyalist communities to
attack Catholics the station was raided and closed by the British Army. In June
1970, the station was back on the air and this time the British Army jammed its
signal.
A call ' for the silencing
of pirate radio stations was made in a blunt editorial in the
"Belfast Telegraph". It said that this was a new and sinister factor
in the conflict that now smouldered in Belfast, and the authorities had chosen
to turn a blind eye to it for too long. In Derry "prompt action might have
stamped it out at birth, but the authorities clearly did not recognise its
influence' on events ". In Derry opposition was minimal and largely
ineffectual, the paper said, but in Belfast the freedom of the airwaves had led
to an unprecedented state of propaganda which had shown that it could influence
people and events. The paper went on to ask: "Who can doubt that much of
the dangerous build-up of Protestant feeling that took place in the
Shankill and Sandy Row yesterday was the result of a hysterical call to arms
through the Protestant radio? At the same time the naming of members
of the B Specials over Radio Free Belfast is highly
inflammatory." Stating that the military and police had a difficult enough
job to do without interference calculated to make it more difficult still, the
"Telegraph" said: "The radios must be silenced or
someone will have a lot of explaining to do for refusing to act in time"
SLIDE
Armagh Resistance Radio on
medium wave was believed by the British Army to be located in the Slieve
Gullion area of Armagh and began broadcasting at Christmas 1971. The station
was reported to be broadcasting advice to listeners about the ‘Rent and Rates’
strike that was taking place as a form of resistance to British rule in
Northern Ireland at the time. The
station was picked up in many of the border counties and included requests for
Republican internees.
One of the bigger
stations in Loyalist Belfast was Radio Free Nick on 244m MW. The station opened
in 1972 with a twenty watts transmitter operated by the Ulster Defence
Association, the station was often ID'ed as The Voice of the UDA. Their
transmitter had a range of twelve miles and broadcast for up to 16 hours a day. A house on Ceylon Street
off the Shankill Road was raided by the British Army and the stations equipment
confiscated. No arrests were made.
The station was one of
the most listened to in Belfast at the time for the loyalist community as they
broadcast coded messages and calls for people to man barricades in their area.
The station became required listening and while much of their broadcasts were
anti-Catholic and anti-Nationalist, they kept their own local community
informed. In July 1972 most Protestants and especially Loyalist paramilitaries
were getting all their information from Free Radio Nick. At one stage it told
all UDA units not to move from their areas until further notice as it announced
that an alleged statement asking units to move to Legadoon was false
propaganda. The station broadcasts a mix of appeals for Protestants to join the
UDA and music including Loyalist songs such as The Sash and Our Flag
interspersed with music from the likes of Jim Reeves. One female presenter
known on air as ‘Our Sal’ urged Catholics to ‘take in your tricolours and put
out the flag of Ulster, you are daughters and sons of Ulster too.’
On Saturday July 22nd the
newspapers reported that an IRA pirate radio station had reported that fifteen
IRA active service members had been killed, ten of them in Belfast. The station
added that 58 of their men had been injured. This newspaper report of the
pirate stations claims came the day after what became known as Bloody Friday in
Belfast when the IRA exploded nineteen bombs in 90 minutes that killed nine
including five civilians. While according to Sean MacStiofan, who masterminded
the bombing offensive, the intention of Bloody Friday was to damage
infrastructure and not to cause loss of life but now with the loss of life the
IRA in the eyes of its supporters needed to reclaim the moral high ground and
to emphasize that this was not an attack on civilians but part of an all-out
war. The pirate stations claim was that these IRA men were killed since the
ending of a short-nlived IRA ceasefire that lasted from June 26th – July 9th. In the aftermath of the bombs, 2000 British
soldiers began raiding houses in Belfast arresting 58, the same number as used
in the broadcasts to claim the number of IRA members injured.
July 1972 became one of
the deadliest months of the trouble with 96 deaths. 1972 was the worst year of
the troubles with 476 deaths including 249 civilians, 149 security forces and
78 paramilitaries. Sources on the
casualties for that month show that from the time of the end of the ceasefire
and Bloody Friday, the IRA lost 4 men to British army fire while in the same
period the security forces lost 12 men. The truth was becoming a casualty of
war.
Some of the short-lived
stations in Belfast included Raidio na Phoblachta on 208m MW that made Marxist
broadcasts while Radio Northern Ireland on 194m MW broadcast Unionist
propaganda. Radio Saoirse on 246m MW was first heard in August 1971
broadcasting to Republican areas of Belfast with the station playing a
selection of republican songs that announce called for the support of a ‘Dáil
Uladh’, a provisional government for Ulster and said that they called ‘on all
bodies representative of the area to commence a campaign of civil disobedience
and declare the area an independent territory. When the First Battalion of the Parachute
Regiment entered the Whiterock area of Belfast early on the morning of August
11th to locate the pirate station and to dismantle barricades, the IRA opened
fire and a two-hour gun battle followed which left three men dead.
The unusually named Gnomes
of Ulster on 1556khzAM was located in South Belfast. GNU opened on June 20th
1972 and the name referred to Dutch Orangemen known as ‘Kabouters’. This
station seemed to have no political motivation the operators of the station
found the name for the station from a Dutch anarchist group. Also known as GNU
Radio. Radio Ajax on 247mMW was a Pro-Unionist Belfast station of the early
seventies as was also known as Radio Big Jim on 227mMW and went on the air
after BBC Radio One went off the air from a location in Belfast.
SLIDE
The Voice of Free Belfast
broadcast on 213m MW and was operated by the Socialist Alliance of Peoples
Democracy with a 25watt transmitter from Anderstown, Belfast. Workers Radio on 232m
MW (later 242m) opened Sunday April 2nd 1972 operated from the Falls Road
Belfast by the Official IRA. Just two weeks later the station was closed when
members of The Provisional IRA raided the house where the station was located
and the man and woman on air were warned not to interfere with the transmitter
destruction or they would be shot. The Official IRA claimed the house was owned
by a pregnant woman. Another station was Radio Ronnie on 546khzAM and Radio
Peace who broadcast for five hours per night from 11pm. A spokesman for the
station Geoff Harden said that while the other Belfast pirates were sectarian
their aim was ‘to provide something therapeutic to take peoples mind off the
situation. Our role is spreading an atmosphere of calm.’ The theme tune for the
station was ‘Give Peace A Chance’ by John Lennon. Geoff Harden (8th July
1943 – 4th September 2006) was a journalist, broadcaster, recording engineer
and folk music promoter. Born in Kent, Harden moved to Belfast in 1966. He
became well-known on the music scene in Belfast after setting up the Sunflower
Flower Folk Club on Corporation Street, and consequently for his work as a folk
music columnist in The Belfast News Letter and as a presenter on and
contributor to numerous local radio stations.
PAGES NINE & TEN NOT INCLUDED
PAGE ELEVEN
Radio Sunshine according
to Danny Morrison[3]
who would later become a major force in the Sinn Fein organisation, this
station was run by a ‘Dave’ and ‘Heather’ and was located near Belfast
University. The station would go on air after BBC Ulster closed down. The GPO
engineers began to track down the station and one Sunday evening their equipment
and were getting ‘hotter and hotter’ and were disappointed when they discovered
the station was located unattended in a telephone kiosk with a cheap homemade
transmitter and tape recorder with the power source coming from the light
fitting in the roof of the kiosk. Sunshine came on the following Sunday poking
fun at the engineers.
Two songs both made the
charts in part thanks to the Belfast pirate stations. Harvey Andrews ‘Soldier’
charted in 1973 after one of the Shankill stations continually played the tune.
The song banned by the BBC and RTE, was based on the true story of Sergeant
Michael Willets who was killed as he shielded children from a bomb thrown into
the Springfield Road Police station. Andrews spoke later about the influence pf
the song on the Loyalist community despite the fact that the song was not
written to encourage sectarianism,
‘It seems that it was
taken to be a pro-Loyalist song, which was never my intention. Years later it
was released as a bootleg single by a Loyalist band and I have been told it was
sold in pubs and out of car boots at Ibrox the home of Glasgow Rangers to raise
money for paramilitaries. I was strongly opposed to this but was powerless to
stop it. A song I had originally intended to once again mirror man's inhumanity
to man has somehow become a vehicle for more of the same, something I regret’
The British Ministry of
Defence advised their soldiers not to sing the song in pubs where it may incite
strong emotive behaviour.
On the opposite side Paul
McCartney’s song ‘Give Ireland back to the Irish’ was released on February 1972
and recorded with his then band Wings. It too was banned by the BBC and Radio
Luxembourg but it did not stop it reaching No.11 in the British charts and
No.21 in the USA. The song was written as a response to the events in Derry on
Bloody Sunday. McCartney said,
‘From our point of view,
it was the first time people questioned what we were doing in Ireland. It was
so shocking. I wrote "Give Ireland Back to the Irish", we recorded it
and I was promptly 'phoned by the Chairman of EMI, explaining that they
wouldn't release it. He thought it was too inflammatory. I told him that I felt
strongly about it and they had to release it. He said, "Well it'll be banned",
and of course it was. I knew "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" wasn't
an easy route, but it just seemed to me to be the time to say something.’
SLIDE – PLAY SONG CLIPS
Not every station took to
the airwaves to air sectarian propaganda but took advantage of the authorities’
concentration on closing sectarian pirate stations. Harmony Radio was set up in
Belfast by Good Vibrations Records founder Terri Hooley as an entertainment
alternative to the hardcore vitriol of the political pirate stations. Then Radio
99 on 199mMW opened in April 1971 and set up by four friends to broadcast a non-political
content with a diet of country and western music. The station was originally
located in a disused house just inside the County Fermanagh border and was on
air three hours Saturday and Sunday nights from 9.30pm opening each night with
their signature tune Slim Whitman’s ‘What’s the World a Coming To’.
The station provided a
postal address for requests of 6, Millbrook, Clones, County Monaghan but after
just a couple of weeks on air the station was closed by loyalist paramilitaries
who intimated the young broadcasters forcing them to close and move their
transmitter south of the nearby border.
The station operators
moved to Dunsrim near Scotshouse in County Monaghan with studios now housed in
a caravan. The transmitter was built by Clones man Sean McQuillan using an
ex-army transmitter. The station had three small transmitters two located south
of the border and one north of the border across the River Finn.
They periodically broadcast over the next four
years with a name change to Radio Caroline North but it would all come to an
end on November 21st 1975 when the Gardai raided the station. Three men Owen
Smyth (aged 24) Charles Smyth (23) both from Knox, Scotshouse and Andrew Slowey
from Cootehill, Cavan were found guilty of illegal broadcasting and each fined
ten pounds each.
SLIDE – PLAY CLIP
A TV repairman by
profession, McQuillan would maintain an interest in pirate radio and would
assist Pat McCabe in 2006 to set up Radio Butty for a local festival with that
station located in a VW van. North of
Belfast was Radio Antrim on 1395khz AM.
Test transmissions from this Belfast station began in July 1973 broadcasting on
215mMW with D.J. Richard Black introducing the station to the listeners of
Belfast. A sixteen-watt transmitter broadcast non-political, non-commercial
radio with a music format and local news and although it was not sectarian much
of the news related to loyalist matters. After some initial successful
broadcasts, the station went off the air only to return in 1974 using a
Solihull, England mailing address. The station added a new voice to the
airwaves, Paul Hamill and the station broadcast a mix of top twenty and C
&W music. The station moved frequency to 224mMW and often relied on
pre-recorded programmes. The station never achieved a sufficient level of
support to stay on the air and the final broadcasts were heard in November
1975.
PAGES FOURTEEN, FIFTEEN AND SIXTEEN NOT INCLUDED
In April 1974, close to
the border with the Republic was Radio Free Newry broadcasting nationalist
propaganda. Radio Woodvale was a loyalist paramilitary station linked to the
UDA which was raided and closed by the British authorities in December 1974.
CONCLUSIONS NOT INCLUDED
Thank you
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