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.