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Monday 11 May 2020

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.

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