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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