An Irish Pirate Radio Pioneer - AN OBITUARY

In July 2019, the esteemed and world renown pioneer of renewable energy Professor Godfrey Boyle passed away. But not only was Mr. Boyle the professor emeritus of renewable energy and the director of the Energy and Environment Research Unit in the Open University's Faculty of Mathematics, Computing, and Technology, he was a pioneer in pirate radio broadcasting.

On a number of pirate radio forums there was some scepticism and questioning that a pirate radio station could broadcast from a telephone box, but Professor Boyle and his then student friends were the pirates behind these broadcasts.

In February 1968, using a homemade transmitter, a tape recorder and an aerial attached from the roof of the phone box  to a nearby tree, their station was on the air broadcasting from the corner of Lennoxvale and Malone Road in Belfast (there is a telephone box still located on the site). The tape recording began with "You are now listening to an illegal broadcast and are committing an offence under the Wireless Telegraphy Act. We will now allow you a few minutes to switch off.' The operators knew and indeed hoped that it would be discovered by officials from the detection unit of the GPO in Belfast and used it as a publicity stunt in an attempt to liberalise the airwaves in Belfast. Their station broadcasting on 242m was known as Radio SRCIS and these initial broadcasts began a cat and mouse game with the authorities throughout 1968. 

The Belfast Telegraph reported that

‘No action likely over kiosk radio THE GPO were to-day investigating the finding of pirate radio equipment in a Malone Road telephone kiosk, but there is a possibility they may decide to drop the whole matter. A spokesman said to-day: "If this is the end of the illegal transmissions I doubt if we will pursue our inquiries. But if it should start again, we would have to give the matter further thought." The transmitting equipment. including a tape recorder and aerial wire extending from the kiosk to a tree, was discovered by engineers who toured the city yesterday using monitoring equipment. According to the spokesman, the equipment found in the 'phone box was a lot of "old stuff" of little value. It was probable the GPO would dispose of it.’

The incident was even raised in the British House of Commons when Sir Knox Cunningham, MP for South Antrim asked the British Postmaster-General Edward Short what steps would be taken to prevent the use by radio pirates of Post Office equipment in Ulster. The PMG replied "The apparatus was traced and removed by Post Office engineers" and added. "I do not propose to take any special precautions against a repetition".

Not deterred by the loss of their transmitter Mr. Boyle and his fellow students at Queens University just a short distance from Malone Road set up a rag week pirate station in March. Broadcasting on 235m, Rag Radio was on the air. The station’s signal was heard over three miles from the station’s transmitter located near the University. At one stage the police laid siege to the Students Union headquarters in the mistaken belief that the pirate transmitter was located there.

On April 19th 1968, the Belfast Telegraph under the headline ‘Ulster Radio Pirates, A Year on the Air’ reported that,

‘Northern Ireland’s radio "pirates" were on the air again last night and to-day a spokesman disclosed that they have been making illegal broadcasts in the Belfast area sporadically for a year. It is now believed that five or six young men in their twenties, mostly students, are behind the broadcasts and that their equipment is home-built. "The broadcasts began as series of experimental transmissions by people interested in radio. Then we formed the idea that we should be allowed to make broadcasts legally." said the spokesman for the group who. call themselves the Northern Ireland Citizens' Band Action Group. Recent broadcasts have mixed records with demands for new wireless telegraphy legislation to make available a waveband for the use of private citizens and to set up commercial stations. The spokesman claimed that the situation which allows the Government-run BBC radio monopoly is undemocratic. "People are entitled to run their own newspapers as a means of communication and there are commercial television stations. Why not commercial radio?" He said that incident' some weeks ago when transmission equipment was found in a phone box on the Malone Road was designed to draw attention to their ideas.’

Professor Boyle was born in Brentford, West London, to Kevin Boyle, a quantity surveyor, and his wife, Phyllis. The family moved to Belfast when Professor Boyle was a baby where he and his sister, Mary, grew up. His early education was at St Malachy’s college before he enrolled for an electrical engineering degree at Queen’s University Belfast, where he ran societies, published alternative magazines, and was part of radical activities in the University in a province that was on the brink of the Troubles.  In 1975 his influential book ‘Living on the Sun’ was published, which advanced the then novel idea that industrial countries could make a transition to renewable power.

Professor Godfrey Boyle, a pirate radio pioneer, May He Rest In Peace