Radio Limerick Weekly Echo Launch 1978

                     

The Irish Pirate Radio Archives - Airwaves Fanzine

The history of Irish pirate radio is diverse and over the years a number of fanzines were published to promote the various pirates. This is Airwaves edited by Paul Barrett.

‘The Modern Swash Buckling Pirate Phenomenon’

On any given Sunday on the Dublin airwaves in 2020, the listener is treated to a melange of radio stations delivering a wide variety of speech and music entertainment. However, the Dublin airwaves are a uniquely Irish solution to an Irish problem. Radio in Ireland is the most consumed form of media with over 80% of the Irish adult population listening to the medium, whether it’s in the home, exercising or stuck in the car in a rush hour traffic jam. Because of its unique ability to connect with its audience, the listenership figures have stayed constant for the past quarter of a century and as a result, advertisers have flocked to the national, independent commercial and local radio stations across Ireland.

The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland issues licences for the independent sector, advertising different genres to accommodate all tastes. This radio industry we have today, was born in the 1970’s and 80’s when the state broadcaster RTE, had its monopoly position challenged by a plethora of pirate radio stations, stealing frequencies, listeners, and advertisers from RTE. In 1988 new stringent legislation plugged loopholes in the law and allowed for the orderly opening of legal licensed alternatives both nationally and locally. The BAI, and its predecessors the IRTC and BCI have struggled to blend listener requirements with commercial demands. Since deregulation in 1988, the market has solidified with some major media moguls commanding ownership of vast swathes of the airwaves.

In the eighties the success of the pirates was driven by market forces as a youthful market demanded to hear the music that they wanted, a direct alternative to RTE, who’s darkened halls attempted to accommodate everyone  on a national level when listeners actually wanted a local voice and perspective. RTE had failed the younger listener and even with their attempt to placate that constituency with the launch of the ‘pirate light’ RTE Radio 2, the uplifting super pirates like Radio Nova, Sunshine & ERI dominated their markets. In the quest for the local listener, once again RTE lost out to community stations like BLB and Kilkenny Community Radio and local stations like Mid-West and West National Radio 3 rapidly eroded any credibility RTE had with its listener.

Licensing has regulated the airwaves is the Government response, but even a cursory glance along the waveband on a Sunday tells a different tale. When the pirates were at the height of their success, every genre of music was catered for by individual stations, pop on Nova, rock on Phantom, C&W on TTTR, religion on ICBS or album tracks on Capitol. Today’s youth population listens to their music, dance, garage, trance, and rap but these music trends do not sell advertising and therefore find every little light on the current station playlists. That demographic is younger, usually under eighteen and therefore unimportant to current stations and their advertisers. Once again in step the pirates and as enforcement retreats like the tide, the pirates are empowered to start up their transmitters once again and fill up the Dublin FM frequencies. Not only has a need been created for these stations but technology has made it easier to get on air. Gone are the days of medium wave transmitters, home built, strewn over an attic floor with an aerial strung between the attic and a tree or telegraph post. FM transmitters are cheap and highly effective. They do not cause the interference that their Medium wave forbearers did, and computerisation has removed the need for bulky turntables and mixing desks. Because of their appeal to an under eighteen audience, these stations utilise social media avenues far better than their legal counterparts.

In Dublin on FM on a Sunday there are a number of national and quasi national stations like RTE, Radio na Gaeltachta, Newstalk and Spirit Radio, there are community stations including Dublin City FM, Near FM and Phoenix Radio and there are five legal local franchises 98FM, Radio Nova, Sunshine 106, Spin 1038 and FM 104 all competing for the listeners ear and you would say to yourself that surely that is a comprehensive choice but yet despite five Dublin licensed stations, on Sunday April 19^th 2020 there were thirteen pirates radio stations on FM, one on Medium Wave, Energy 1395 and four on short wave broadcasting to the world. The majority of these pirate stations were broadcasting some form of dance music but other genres were being catered for that licensed stations seemed to have covered but yet pirate station were on the airwaves covering similar including The 90s Network and Easy FM.

Some legal stations are now voice tracked removing that personal touch with the listeners. This is simply a cost saving exercise for the media conglomerates that own them. This would be obvious if they used in studio cameras like watching RTE’s Today programme with the now retired Sean O’Rourke. A camera could show the DJ actually choosing and enjoying the music he is playing. The pirate DJ is not hampered by the playlist or the format. The reasonable pirate example of this is Phever FM.

The inertia caused by the lack of enforcement has given pirate radio a new lease of life with a number of them including Club, Pure and Pirate FM carrying a significant amount of advertising, not just relying on advertising club nights to generate revenue. Despite the coronavirus lockdown, the closure of venues and therefore the closure of those station revenue streams, the FM band is alive with pirate radio. These stations are catering for audiences ignored by mainstream stations who have once seen themselves as cutting edge, but the commercial reality has diluted their position. None of these pirates broadcast salacious, threatening or terrorist content and are simply on-air to entertain their constituency, they give airtime to new and struggling dance and rap artists and without causing interference they do little harm. They are however illegal and subject to a minimum of €10,000 fine either for broadcasting, advertising or providing transmission land and if Comreg continue to not implement the law and the BAI fail miserably to cater for the people who are actually listening to the radio, not the listeners that stations wishes to portray to advertisers, then pirate radio will continue to blossom. Is it too early to claim ‘long live the pirates’?

Dublin's Pirate Radio Stations of the Early Twenties

The Irish Free State authorised 2RN to become the State’s official radio station and on January 1st 1926 it would officially go on air. Irish listeners, especially those on the East Coast, were already avid listeners to the new medium of radio. The sales of wireless sets had blossomed, with businesses like Hogan’s in Henry Street, Dublin supplying imported sets to those who could afford them. For those who could not afford them, a homemade crystal set gave them access to the airwaves. Listeners were entertained to broadcasts by London, Newcastle, Cardiff and Manchester amongst others. Following the formation of the new state, there was a divergence from the British laws that governed life in the country. Many of the laws were embraced by the Government including the British 1904 Wireless Telegraphy Act. Then in February 1924, the Irish Government implemented a licensing scheme for radio sets which was to be collected through the post office.

For many listeners south of the border, the arrival of 2BE in Belfast in September 1924 increased the urgency of having a Southern voice but there was division within Government circles as to whether the Free State’s venture should be commercially and privately run or State operated. In the end 2RN was a State body.

Many amateurs were building crystal sets to listen-in, but some inventive radio engineers were discovering that it was easy to turn their listening devices into transmitting devices. These amateurs were warned by newspaper columnists like ‘Radio Rex’ and ‘Jack Broadcaster’ that this was illegal and they should desist.

The so-called experimenters who were in actuality ‘pirate radio stations’ outside the law, were rebroadcasting British stations received on sophisticated sets in order that the amateur built crystal sets would be able to pick up a signal. This too was referred to in the newspaper columns with one declaring that,

‘Now I am informed that some people in what may be described as misplaced kindness are endeavouring to re-radiate received broadcast from their aerials to those of nearby crystal users. This is absolutely illegal and must on no account be attempted. You are not allowed to transmit. I shall be glad to assist those who try to locate offenders.’

On January 18^th 1923 in The Evening Telegraph, readers with an interest in radio was left in little doubt as to the legalities of ‘broadcasting’ rather than listening. It advised,

‘The position of the Free State in regard to the question of broadcasting, it may be taken for granted that broadly stated (1) Broadcasting of any kind is not legal yet in the Irish Free State. (2) That any instruments for the purpose of broadcasting are illegal. (3) That any attempt to bring in such instruments would be frustrated, the instruments of discord on-route would be sequestrated.’

Despite this information, an unusual pirate broadcaster turned out to be an attempted fraud and was exposed on the front page of the Evening Telegraph in November 1923. An authorised radio set dealer became aware of fraudsters who were selling sets at an unbelievably cheap price, purporting to receive all the British stations. He made an appointment to view the set and when the seller turned it on, he said that they were tuned into the Manchester station 2ZY. They listened to gramophone records and an announcer. After a period of listening the scam unravelled as the authorised dealer said that the announcers voice had a distinct Dublin accent. All was then revealed. The scammer and his confederate had set up a pirate transmitter nearby and was broadcasting the records and using a crude microphone to deliver the announcements pretending to be 2ZY. The ‘wireless set’ that they were trying to sell would barely be able to pick up a station that was just twenty miles from the receiver, it only contained a single value.  The uncover businessman remarked to the reporter that

‘The amusing part was that he had a rather clumsy contraption fitted up with the idea of humbugging innocent people into believing that the results obtained on his 'single valve set with a frame aerial were better than any of the demonstrations by the big wireless firms.’

He added

‘This kind of work is very good for experiments, but when it is done for the purpose of leading people to believe that they are listening to an actual station broadcasting, well it does general wireless work harm, first by making people suspicions and secondly by disappointing them by bad results.’

One pirate station seemed to make a genuine attempt to become the ‘Dublin station’ in advance of any officially sanctioned station. In May 1924, ‘The Grand Central Station Dublin’ was heard on the airwaves of Dublin on 390m medium wave. Reports said that on some of its broadcasts it suffered from interference from 2NO in Newcastle. The station broadcast from 9pm – 9.30pm. The ‘Dublin Studio’ as it deemed itself was located Northside of the city and introduced its pirate transmission with the announcement ‘calling Dublin, Glasnevin and everybody’. One writer to the newspapers wrote a critique of the broadcasts and offered some advice,

‘I would recommend that he is again whistling ‘Father O’Flynn’ for broadcasting that he should not blow directly into the microphone, as the result last night was more rushing wind that musical.’

The station carried on intermittently throughout the rest of the year with various reports appearing in trade magazines. They appeared to be coming from the one station although there were many experimenters as the frequency used was regularly on 390metres. In January 1925, The Radio Digest magazine in the United States reported in its ‘European Notes’ section that,

‘broadcasting is being carried out nightly from an unknown location near Dublin, Ireland, much to the annoyance of the Irish post office authorities who have been unsuccessful in their attempts to locate the illegal station’.

Pirate radio would be a thorn in the side of the authorities throughout every decade up to the present days with many pirate radio stations still taking to the air.

The Irish Pirate Radio Rivalries - Of the 1930's

For many, the great pirate radio rivalries in Ireland were ERI and South Coast in Cork, Nova and Sunshine in Dublin in the 1980’s or the Radio Dublin and Alternative Radio Dublin’s battles from the seventies but a pirate radio rivalry erupted on the airwaves in the 1930’s between stations in Limerick and Waterford.

The 1926 Wireless Telegraphy Act was introduced in November 1926, nine months after the official launch of 2RN. The Act would regulate the airwaves, write the rules on licence fees and deem what should and should not be broadcast. The Act was supposed to be a deterrent to illegal broadcasting but that did not stop illegal stations broadcasting taking to the airwaves. One man in Limerick would break all the rules. Jim O’Carroll attended the Technical Institute on O’Connell Avenue in the city and developed a keen interest in electronics. As a result while experimenting, he built a crystal receiving set that allowed him to listen to 2RN, the BBC and with improvements he began to listen to Short Wave broadcasts from America and Australia.

In early 1935, O’Carroll added an oscillator to his receiving set and turned it into a crude transmitter that was powerful enough to be heard all over the city. After testing its limitations, O’Carroll had to find a home for his new station, as living with his sister was not an ideal location for secrecy. He eventually found a location on the third floor at the home of his friend Charlie O’Connor at 84 Henry Street. The station began broadcasting in February 1935 on 360m, very close to the powerful transmitter in Berlin, Germany broadcasting on its allotted frequency of 356.7m, which meant that both signals interfered with each other  and often the Limerick station had to wait until the Berlin transmitter was turned off to get a good signal out across Limerick City. By April, reports of a Limerick ‘Mystery Station’ was reaching the national newspaper headlines.

The station was now named The City Broadcasting Station (CBS) as O’Carroll had been listening to CBS broadcasts from across the Atlantic and liked the sound of the name. He went on the air playing whatever gramophone records he could lay his hands on. On the air most nights from 7.30 – 10.30pm, the station continued with Billy Dynamite (O’Carroll) and Al Dubbin (O’Connor) at the controls broadcasting a mixture of speech, gramophone records, and relayed programmes from American radio, including the news and even swimming lessons on the radio.

The Limerick Leader reported on April 6^th,

‘The operation of a mysterious broadcasting station in Limerick for some past time had the citizens and officials agog. Listeners-in are occasionally startled when they hear an unofficial announcer make reference to local matters and some well-known personalities.’

The Liberator newspaper in Tralee on the same day reported,

            ‘The annoyance caused by this is distinctly perturbing to owners of sets.’

The appearance of CBS on the airwaves of Limerick was greeted by a variety of different headlines. The Irish Examiner (6/4/1935) headlined their article ‘Wireless Nuisance’, The Kerryman (13/4/1935) spoke of a ‘Secret Radio Station’ while the Irish Independent described them as the ‘Mystery Station’. The station continued from February to October with the only change being its location, when the station moved to the home of Michael Madden at 25 Wolfe Tone Street who had been providing the batteries for the station’s transmitter. The station went from strength to strength and became the first station in Ireland to carry a paid commercial rather than the sponsored programming aired on the national station, when the Wolfe Tone Dairy began to advertise its products. The owner of the dairy was John Toomey, who ran a successful grocer/dairy/vegetable shop and was the proud owner of an ice cream machine, selling homemade ice cream cones. Summer was coming and ice creams would be a popular seller. O’Carroll said after,

‘As I began to get a little bolder, I discreetly canvassed for commercials. My first contact was the owner of the Wolfe Tone Dairy, Mr. Toomey. He had a fine grocer's shop but, in addition, he made delicious ice cream on the premises. I told Mr. Twomey that I knew a man who could contact the elusive Pirate and arrange to have his delicious ice cream mentioned on the air. He was to make no payment until he heard the broadcast. He offered the incredible sum of £10 if I arranged this transaction. Ten pounds was about a month's wages at the time. For a schoolboy one could almost retire! Needless to remark, as far as I know, that was the first radio commercial in Ireland.’[1]

There were queues down the street for the ice cream encouraging John Toomey to invest in a second machine to keep up with the demand.

‘An enduring sight in my mind's eye is a very long line of people reaching in the direction of what was then Gleeson's public house waiting to purchase cones and wafers from a delighted Mr. Toomey[2]’ said O’Carroll

The station began carrying ads for Clohesy’s Pub on Charlotte Quay, one of the most popular pubs in Limerick at the time. O’Carroll also added in an interviwe with the Limerick Leader in 1976, that

‘a committee running a sports outing in Castleconnell asked us to advertise their sports meeting, we had a ‘What’s On Guide’ in Limerick cinemas’.

 The advertising revenue was beginning to pay off for the radio entrepreneurs. The station would carry local news bulletins and because they broadcast late at night, they would collect the following morning’s national newspapers arriving in Limerick railway station at nine o’clock and broadcast the headlines for their listeners much to the displeasure of the Irish dailys, and this was replected in their coverage of the station.

Meanwhile in Waterford City another broadcaster was taking to the airwaves. The ‘Waterford Broadcasting Station’ was heard broadcasting on 280m medium wave and were on air from 11.15pm for an hour. On Wednesday April 17^th , the broadcast to the listeners of Waterford, which was described by the Irish Independent correspondent as ‘a most enjoyable broadcast’, included ‘gramophone records, vocal and instrumental items’ but ended with an unfavourable critique for their Limerick rivals. The announcer bemoaned that,

‘an amateur in Limerick had broadcast programmes which were injurious and objectionable.’

He added,

‘I would like listeners to understand that I disapprove wholeheartedly and condemn abuses by this amateur of the powers his transmission station gives him’.

The spat over the airwaves reached the newspapers the following day when the Irish Press on their front page headlined ‘Another Mystery Station, Radio Rivals’. Some of the issues related to newspaper reports that O’Carroll’s signal was interfering with listeners enjoyed of concerts from the Berlin station.

Further broadcasts from the Waterford station were noted on July 28^th at 2pm, when a thirty -minute broadcast of music was interspersed with announcements in Irish that there would be further broadcasts to follow.

In Limerick on October 31st, Halloween, while Michael Madden was on the air, the station had been tracked down and was raided by the police and an engineer from the Post Office Walter Dain. Madden was arrested and the equipment confiscated. O’Carroll partly blamed the raid on Madden himself, who had been drinking in local pubs boasting the fact that he was ‘the radio pirate’ and that information was relayed to the Gardai in Limerick. O’Carroll was in Dublin on the day of the raid visiting his mother and the day after the Limerick raid his mother’s house in Milltown was ‘ransacked’ according to O’Carroll as Gardai searched for links to a suspected IRA transmitter that was also broadcasting in Limerick.

Even before the court case following the 1935 raid had reached the courts, a radio station was reported on the Limerick airwaves in early February 1936. The station was advertising a local dance and encouraged listeners to support the event. Following a court case on February 28th 1936 Madden was convicted and fined £1 and 2 guineas costs. During the case Garda Lenihan said that,

‘during the illegal broadcasts names were mentioned and scandalous remarks used’.

It would be the first conviction under the 1926 Wireless Telegraphy Act.

In June 1936 another station was reported by the Irish Independent as being on the air, calling itself ‘The Curraghrock Station’. The newspaper reported two females were heard on air followed by a gramophone record programme. By July 1936 the tone of the station was causing problems for the authorities in the Limerick area and in Government circles in Dublin. The issue for the authorities this time was more urgent as the broadcaster was now broadcasting IRA propaganda. The announcer was reported as telling listeners that the station was set up ‘to disseminate Irish republican Army propaganda’.  This time the station used a frequency used by the Munich station and again like the station the previous year would have a better range once the Munich transmitter fell silent. The station was probably located in the Barrack Road area hence the confusion in the name as there is no ‘Curraghrock’ in Limerick.

This station was seized on September 4^th 1936, when a house on Newnham Street was raided by Post Office Engineer William Carroll and Garda Lenihan. Despite this raid, another Limerick pirate transmitter was back on the air by September 16^th, on the 360m frequency ‘treating listeners to a programme of gramophone records’ but while there were announcements, there was nothing of a political nature.

At the subsequent court case on December 4^th, Edward Quin of Clancy Strand was prosecuted for maintaining illegal transmitting apparatus contrary of the 1926 Wireless Telegraphy Act. The State prosecutor stated that the items seized were,

‘one medium wave oscillator, one low frequency amplifier, one carbon type microphone, and one short wave oscillator’

Garda Lenihan stated in evidence that Quin tried to pocket a value from the transmitter which he later claimed he took because he had it sold and didn’t want to lose it. Lenihan disclosed that he had spoken to Quin on a number of previous occasions about the need to stop illegal broadcasting. All the wireless articles found in the house were produced to the Court and the GPO engineer Thomas Carroll then described what had to be done to test the-apparatus. The test broadcast worked ‘quite satisfactorily’. According to a GPO Inspector he had received a test message from the transmitter and the ‘message was quite distinct’. His finding was corroborated by another engineer Mr. T. White. The prosecution was determined to achieve a conviction and were willing to call several experts to ensure the result. They wanted to send out a message to propagandists who wished to use the radio waves to propagate their messages that they would close them and that the only broadcaster allowed to broadcast in the Free State was Radio Eireann.

While Madden and O’Carroll in Limerick were pirate broadcasting for entertainment purposes, a more sinister type of broadcasts had appeared on the airwaves in Dublin. On Friday October 25^th 1935 at 2.30pm listeners on medium wave reported hearing a ‘mystery transmitter’ announcing that it was

            ‘Radio Phoblacht na hEireann, The IRA broadcasting studio.’

The station’s announcer gave a lengthy statement on the Irish Sweepstakes and announced a list of winners. The station then played some gramophone records including those of the famous Irish born tenor Count John McCormack.  The broadcast lasted about forty minutes. But the illegal broadcasting of entertainment programmes or occasional broadcasts from subversive organisations would become the least of DeValera’s problems as the nation faced into neutrality during the Second World War.

Greater rivalries would consume the Irish airwaves in the decades to come but these stations proved that the battle for hearts and minds on the radio could consume time and newspaper columns. 

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[1] From an article by Jim O’Carroll on Limerickcity.ie

[2] In O’Carroll’s story John Toomey was written as ‘Twomey’ but his death notice in 1951 denoted Toomey as the proper spelling.

Supporting Pirate Radio Through the Decades

There were a number of umbrella groups formed to support and lobby for free radio in Ireland. One of the earliest was an Irish branch of the Free Radio Association that opened in 1968. The Irish branch gave an address at Library Road, Shankill, County Dublin. Next in 1970 was the United Stations Network which oversaw publicity for four stations Radio Eamo, Radio Galaxy, Radio Caroline and Radio Baile Atha Cliath. Their spokesman was Cork born Hugo Riordan. A former Arts student he was heavily involved in the occupation of 45 St Stephens Green to protect it from demolition.

The Irish Radio Movement (IRM) was founded in 1973 to support the growing number of pirate radio stations and to lobby for alternative radio. When letters to the newspapers began to appear, they were signed by Ken Sheehan with an address on Mourne Road. The club secretary would become one of the most well know broadcasters in Dublin, Mark Storey. In January 1976, the AGM of the organisation was held, and Paddy Brennan was elected as President, Mark Storey continued as Secretary and Ken Sheehan appointed Press Officer. The IRM’s also appointed John Dowling as editor of the group newsletter ‘Medium 6’. The group was disbanded in late 1976 to be replaced by the Free Radio Campaign.

The Free Radio Campaign was run by Kieran Murray from his home in Ranelagh. The FRC began in 1976, initially publishing the ‘FRC Newsletter’ in 1976 and 1977 before it was renamed ‘Sounds Alternative’ in August 1977. The FRC continued until mid 1981.

Anoraks Ireland was based on Collins Avenue West on Dublin’s northside and was run by Paul Davidson (real name Tony Donlon). He produced a newsletter, station lists and supplied tapes and mechandise from the many stations across Ireland. In 1983, in his newsletter Mr. Davidson reported that he was having issues,

“Anoraks Ireland have recently been experiencing a number of problems. We are pleased to report that these have been sorted out. On October 31st the following statement was issued.

‘Dear Friends, We regret that Anoraks Ireland has been unable to reply to your many letters in the last four months as we have had serious problems with the continued operation of Anoraks Ireland. 'Certain people' who do not wish us well have endeavoured since August 1983 to silence Irelands one and only Free Radio Organisation. These people have attempted at various times to persuade, discredit and threaten the existence of Anoraks Ireland by personal visits, the use of a PO Box number purposely in our postal district area and their latest ploy was to report Anoraks Ireland to the income tax authorities in Dublin. The inspectorate have investigated Anoraks Ireland in depth and are satisfied that Anoraks Ireland is a non-profit organisation run by Radio enthusiasts promoting independent radio in Ireland.

We have resisted all threats from these people who claim a genuine interest in Irish Free Radio, but who are instead motivated by Self Greed and commercial profit.’”

RTE Created the Irish Pirate Radio Phenomenon

There were many reasons for the explosion of pirate radio in Ireland in the 1970's and 1980’s. One of the main reasons was the increased younger population, the children born in the sixties whose musical tastes were not being catered for by the State broadcaster RTE Radio. For listeners it was hard to listen to radio when it wasn’t there. In the 1970’s RTE was hit by a number of workers strikes putting both radio and television off the air. From 1970 to 1978, there had been more than a half dozen strikes that either curtained its transmissions or on two occasions blacked out both radio and television for three weeks each. This was particularly hard felt as there was only one radio and one television channel.  

Mary Kenny writing in the Irish Press February 2nd, 1970 articulated

‘I knew there was a strike on at R.T.E. because I found myself listening to The Jimmy Young Show on B.B.C. Radio 2 in the mornings, smiling at his chuckly quips and cuddly, presence and painstakingly taking down the abominable recipes and wishing we had something as inoffensively yet cleverly cheerful.’

For the younger generation desperate to hear some modern music were relegated to 45 minutes from Larry Gogan from 11pm, Monday to Friday, nothing at the weekends. This was yet another opening for the advance of pirate radio to deliver the content that the youth of Ireland wanted to hear. But a huge amount of credit must be delivered to the corridors of Montrose itself for the growth of pirate radio. Dublin and the East Coast of Ireland was well served by radio broadcasts especially from Britain’s BBC Radio 1 and Radio Luxembourg but as you travelled across the country these signals faded as did the choice for pop broadcasts. Much of rural Ireland had no other choice other than RTE Radio (previously known as 2RN) but in stepped RTE itself. Originally conceived as an attempt to illustrate their ability to deliver local radio, RTE Community Radio would launch in 1975 with Radio Liberties in the heart of Dublin their first port of call.

The concept, originally credited to the then Director General of RTE George Waters, was to take a mobile studio and a low powered transmitter to towns and villages across Ireland, teach locals how to present and produce local programmes for its limited transmission times and all powered through a low powered transmitter on a frequency allocated to RTE by the European Broadcasting Union, 202m medium wave. This medium wave frequency would later be augmented by a FM outlet.

Towns would organise a ‘radio committee’ and ask RTE to choose their town for the arrival of the mobile station. 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 of 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.

Paddy’s role with advancing community radio meant that he travelled Ireland to make initial contact with the radio committees, offer advice, training and technical know-how. The interest created in these towns and villages showed that there was a demand for a local voice on the airwaves. The committees did not always run smoothly as in 1991 the Ballina Community Radio Committee were been branded 'a snob job' by the Urban Council Chairman, Gerry Moore who led a high-powered campaign to have the Committee broadened to one representing all the people of Ballina. When the Committee input into the Local Radio experiment, planned for Mayo during June, was set-up, the Urban Council, Trades Council and many other leading community groups were "snubbed", said Cllr. Moore.

For younger people in these rural areas, they were often excluded from these daily four-hour broadcasts and there was certainly rarely little room for modern music. In 1978 the service was advertised as ‘carrying programmes will go out on the medium wave and items dealing with matters of health, sport, history, music/drama, education, art, agriculture, planning and development, family finance, youth, poetry/essays, Irish, quiz, as well as news, will be covered’ no music for the youth of the community. They wanted to be involved, they wanted to hear their voices, their concerns and their music and while the ‘committees’ set about organising for the arrival of RTE’s mobile unit, the more astute set about piggy backing on the interest created by the arrival.

While there was an official committee, they were also a ‘unofficial committee’ working in the background. Transmitters were procured, equipment sourced and DJ’s readied. In many towns and villages they waited patiently for the RTE van to arrive, do their thing and leave and then within hours or days of that departure the new pirate transmitter was turned on, often on a frequency not far from RTE’s 202m location so that listeners could find them easily. Financial considerations also played a role. For RTE’s Community Radio service carried no ads, it was funded by local donations and business subscriptions, pirate radio would not have the same constraints and the commercialism of radio would make money for those organising the swash buckling operations to the detriment of revenue generation for Montrose. RTE had created a monster.

Further Information

https://radioeireann101.blogspot.com/

When A Radio Station Isn't A Radio Station

Through the pandemic of 2020, radio has proved to be vital in both delivering information and entertainment. Radio is still king. But as we hurtle through the early part of the twenty first century, the discussion as to what exactly the definition of radio is, has taken centre stage and led to differing opinions. For decades radio was delivered through a transmitter on various wavelengths and frequencies but today, what is described as ‘audio content delivery’, reaches our ears via analogue radio, digital radio, podcasts or online radio apps. But while we discuss today was a radio station is, that same discussion could have easily taken place in the late 1970’s.

Like today, the image we have of radio, is a studio with a presenter behind the microphone and the content then fed into a transmitter, to broadcast through the ether to your radio set. But in the 1970’s and early eighties radio came advertised in different forms, on air with everything except a transmitter, thus avoiding any law breaking and being deemed a pirate radio station.

There were numerous different varieties of operations that called themselves ‘radio’ but were not in the purest sense of the word.

Firstly there was the ‘Festival Radio Station’. In many rural towns and villages, the highlight of the social calendar was the local festival or fete, attracting both locals and tourists. These festivals ranged from accordion, Wild Boar, Trout, May Day, Christmas shopping to Cheese promotion festivals. The promoters of these festivals advertised a ‘radio station’ to entertain and inform but rather than transmitter based these stations like Omagh Festival Radio, Athlone’s and Carrick-on-Shannon’s celebration of the River Shannon and Radio Loughshinny were ‘broadcast’ via a public address systems attached to poles in the town or from speakers hung outside the festival office.

Secondly came the Hospital Radio stations. From the 1930’s hospitals installed speakers and later as technology evolved, bedside headphones so that patients could be entertained. Initially these systems piped Radio Eireann through the cables but then hospital specific studios were set up to broadcast within the hospital. These proved extremely popular with most major hospitals having their own ‘radio’ station. Hospital radio was extremely popular in Northern Ireland.

Next came school based radio stations. As the interest of the younger generation focussed on radio for entertainment and as transistors became more widespread, with these transistors often tuned into pirate radio stations, school authorities tried to tap into this interest by allowing pupils set up their own ‘radio station’ to broadcast at lunchtime through intercom systems. A number of these students would later become involved in pirate radio and would trace their interest in ‘radio’ broadcasting back to those early school stations.

By the seventies, ‘radio’ was everywhere and with the state broadcaster Radio Eireann attempting to cater for all tastes, the need for the broadcasting of popular programmes and music was growing rapidly. Pirate radio offered one alternative, but others emerged. When President Erskine Childers opened the expansive entertainment complex of Leisureland in Galway, one of its attractions was its very own ‘radio station’ broadcasting through the centre’s ‘closed circuit’ system. It paved the way for other venues to follow the example and these stations provided an alternative, employment and training for future broadcasters.

Another ‘radio’ station that gained widespread publicity was CIE’s radio train. The first excursion departed Kingsbridge (now Heuston) Station on November 6^th !949. The idea sprung from two CIE employees Pat Heneghan and Gerry Mooney and was designed originally to make the centenary of the opening of the Dublin to Cork rail link. A studio was installed in one of the carraiges and the ‘broadcasts’ were piped through the train. On that first trip the man ‘spinning the discs’ and entertaining the passengers was Terry O’Sullivan. The trip was an instant success and every year throughout the fifties the number of trips of the Radio train increased and were often sold out. It proved just as popular as CIE’s other novelty trips ‘The Mystery Train’. The company also ran specials including an Irish language return trip to Galway and a Pioneers trip with the bar carriage removed. The bus service attempted to piggy back on the success of the trains by advertising a ‘Radio Bus’ but it was simply a guide on a microphone telling some stories and inviting passengers to sing.

Later incarnations of radio stations with the transmitter included the Virgin Record Store on Aston Quay that opened in the late eighties and stations built into new shopping centres to entertain and promote the shops in the centre.

The Not So Long Arm of The Law

The mere nature of pirate radio broadcasting was that you were breaking the law. The authorities did 

not want you on air and to effect your departure raids took place. Often a raid would suffice to have 

the station at least lay low for awhile but in order to send out warnings to others, court cases 

followed and station operators were fined a paltry amount which rarely served as a deterrent.  

Occasionally the pirate stations found themselves further up the court chain other than the District or 

Circuit Courts. From time to time the names of the illegal pirate radio stations found themselves 

been spoken of in the hallowed corridors of both the High Court and even the Supreme Court. Here 

are some of the High Court appearances of pirate stations from 1978 - 1988.